Various

Good evening.

1) The second half of what happened last week with the wedding:

Tuesday: We had breakfast with the parents of the bride and a number of other wedding guests staying at the hotel. The weather forecast the night before had been that there would probably be snow in the afternoon, so Mom and I decided to leave soon after breakfast in the hopes of beating the snow.

It was too late. Snow was falling as we walked out the front door.

Things went downhill from there. Driving back to the airport was made a bit difficult due to snow falling horizontally and a bewildering traffic maze getting into the airport. Not long after we got to our terminal at the airport, they started delaying flights. After a while, they started canceling flights, including ours. We were trapped in Newark. We did get (different) rescheduled flights for the next day, but we also had to get a hotel room. This involved us getting a hotel room, since Mom was not willing to sleep in the terminal. Unfortunately, we had serious transportation problems even while we were still at the airport. Though Mom managed to call a hotel to make reservations, it took a while to get where the courtesy vans stop because the monorail system connecting the wide-flung parts of the airport for some reason were not functioning well. I cracked a joke about penguins having to push the trains down the track. Eventually the train did come, but it was absurdly crowded. Then, due to a miscommunication, after we got in a courtesy van, it took us to the wrong hotel, necessitating us to go back to the airport and take a different hotel. By the time we had checked in, we were exhausted. Considering that the traffic situation was bad, we did not consider going anywhere else for any reason.

Wednesday: I went to the airport at 6 AM since I had the earlier flight. Mom followed half an hour later. The worst thing that happened to me on my flight was at the changeover in Washington, DC, the second plane was late. Of course, I had to drive back to the airport two hours later to pick up Mom.

2) For your enjoyment, the page of some people and a parrot Mom and I met at the airport on the way up north: Parrotworks, Inc.

3) Pale Male and Lola update: “New York High-Rise Hawks Have Egg in Nest”.

4) Political update: “WFP helping more people in Darfur despite continuing violence”, i.e., the UN’s diplomacy has failed miserably.

Aaron