Re carpet color: 2 years after my wife received a green card, she had to reapply for a permanent one. At that point INS quizzed up separately to prove that the marriage was legit. 1st question to me: her eye color. 2nd question: color of the rug in the dining room. My answer: I'm a guy; is there a rug in my dining…

Everyone who has been through an Alaska winter probably looks like that. The PR person at Alyeska in Valdez told us she almost murdered her family the previous winter.

It's true. Once you've seen Dubuque, the Grand Canyon is just disappointing.

To the bipolar person:

Of _course_ the gal has to know how to drive a stick shift.

Dulles was a disgrace with the glorified bus station main terminal trashed by the makeshift TSA checkpoints. TSA stuff is cleaned up now, but international arrivals is still a mess.

Yeah, to leave Tel Aviv you gotta give yourself 4 hours with the security. But you don't sweat TSA after Israeli security.

I'm thinking specifically about Heinlein, who was scientifically literate up until a certain year, then apparently disconnected himself. 1973: "ball-of-twine orbit" instead of "polar orbit". 1956 or so: novel about relativistic constant-G interstellar flight, but no clue what the flight times would be. I _think_ an…

Starship Troopers and Forever War. Got the feeling at the time that the Vietnam vet who wrote the latter was saying Heinlein was an idiot.

Best experience: Alamo at (near) San Diego Airport; use the touchscreens!.