Travel July 2008

I flew from Washington State to Minnesota today. I was up at, in the words of my cousin Nathaniel (aka Hans 'n' Frans), the "buttcrack" (of dawn.) Anyway, I had tons of time to kill at the airport, and snoozed in the sun until a young Navy Enlistee named Evan sat down near me and struck up a conversation. He's on leave for a week and was traveling from Whidbey Island to MN for a family reunion of sorts; his father is getting re-married. He is looking to go into special forces and start training for Navy Seals. He chose Navy because he says that the Seals are the toughest special forces. So it was a good conversation, and I am proud of myself for not saying anything rude or anti-war. One of the things I thought was interesting was how the Navy treats garbage. Evan has served on-board an aircraft carrier (and is scheduled to redeploy to the Persian Gulf later this year.) He said that the Navy policy for garbage is to cram it into 50 gallon corrosion resistant (coated) steel drums and dump them overboard, whereby they sink to the bottom of the ocean. Also, he said that the policy is to burn plastic and paper. Burning plastic. That can't be good! Anyway, it was nice to meet you Evan, and best wishes for your special forces pursuits - I hope it works out for the best for you.

After getting into Minneapolis, I took the new LRT (light rail transit) train from the airport to downtown MPLS. Then I managed to lug all of my gear onto a bus and make the two mile trip uptown to my folks' apartment. So it's good to be here, visiting. Weather's great.

I took some pictures from the flight, I am going to look at them now and post any good ones to flickr (link). The air was hazy the whole way from Seattle to MPLS. I presume it's from the fires in California. But wow, that's a lot of smoke! The whole country is hazed up.

On the flight I also had a chance to bore into a significant amount of Vincent Bugliosi's new book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. Bugliosi presents a stark and profound argument against George W. Bush. This book is definitely essential reading if you care about the war and the state of government in the USA.

That's the update. Peace. and Love. and Understanding.