Where Have You Been

Between work travel, visiting family and cross-country vacations as a child I've been to most of the continental states.

visited 42 states (84%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or Best time to visit Bosnia and Herzegovina
found via Weer'd World Arrr

Musings on Onions and MBIs

I ate out at an Outback restaurant the other evening while on a business trip. I was by myself and it was an interesting people-watching experience. Of the nine women seated in the same section I was in four of them were seriously overweight; not morbidly obese, but certainly overweight by more than 50 pounds. Two of the four were accompanied by men who where also noticeably to seriously overweight.

The most amusing couple was also the heaviest. It looked like they spent half the time that they were waiting for their food thumbing their Crackberries. One wonders who they might have been emailing; it certainly didn't look like one another.

As far as the meal itself that was decidedly mixed. The prime rib, steamed veggies and baked potato were very good, done just like I like them. On the other hand service was slow, and they screwed up the blooming onion, twice. The waiter told me the first one came out of the oven burnt. Then someone neglected to remove all of the outer skin on half of the second one. Unfortunately it was mostly the half I took back to my hotel room for a "midnight" snack.

So, what does an elevated average MBI of a restaurant's patrons indicate about said restaurant? In this case nothing, other than it provide some minor amusement to what otherwise would have been a long, lonely, boring, mediocre meal.

I May Start Flying AirTran

Normally I avoid low-cost airlines like AirTran on business travel. I may change that policy in the future for AirTran.

Girl kicked off plane after tantrum

The mother complained "We weren't giving an opportunity to hold her, console her or anything". Horsefeathers! They had at least 40 minutes on the plane to get control of their child, not even counting prep time in the gate area. Remember, the plane was already 15 minutes late. Boarding usually starts 25 to 30 minutes before departure and families with small children get to board first. Add all that up and they had plenty of time to get their bratty child under control.

Bravo AirTran