I think I've used that title before, but since Tina Fey seems to have decided to retire, I guess I can use it. How those two are related is tangential at best, but isn't that what makes it fun?

Anyway, so spent the weekend in Boston. It was fun. But I have several amusing stories to discuss. A. I think with the closure of the big dig, they have managed to adjust my expectations for a detour. Each way to and from the airport, it involved getting of I-90 and driving on a slew of random streets going in insane directions following 20 or 30 signs telling you to turn this way and that way, hoping you didn't miss a sign and avoiding ending up floating in the Charles river or something else equally tragic. Oddly, that was successful, and there was no getting lost. No thanks to the car. Did you know they still made Ford Taurus's?
I didn't. Until the Mustang that I had reserved somehow turned into a Taurus. I think they scraped together all the spare parts sitting around some factory and built a few thousand this year to sell to rental companies, in some feeble attempt to avoid renting Mustangs which would actually be a nice car to rent. It was expensive too, a 2 day rental cost about the same as a week in CA, NV or TN the other states I've rented in in the past year. Oy.

So continuing on in the discussion, besides the odd airport security restrictions (which weren't bad, you just needed to allow plenty of time for them) the flying was ok as well. I just find it funny how some people seem especially picky. The TSA guy took a couple's shoes out of a bin and put them on the belt, and they started complaining, because they were trying to keep both pairs together. Seriously, its a tunnel with an X ray machine in there. No one is going to steal your ratty smelly brown loafers. They go in one end, and come out the other. Its not like if they exceed some stench limit they push them to the side and grind it into little leather pieces they sell to discount steakhouses. Just suck it up, those are the rules (for 8/13/6 at 7:30am at least) and get on with your life. And have breakfast. Which is a splendid idea in the airport.

See, there's a chain called Wolfgang puck express. I'd link to it, but really, its not that big of a deal. I've only been to them in airports. Which is fine. Except its a good idea gone wrong, due to umm, human resources issues. They had a 4 cheese omlette available for breakfast. Which has 4 handfuls of different cheeses. Aparently, the fat content of these cheeses and the egg isn't enough, so the technique for cooking them, is to put some oil in a pan and preheat it before adding egg. (its also supposed to have tomatoes, but oddly, didn't have any, but that was the least of the problems). So while preheating, the woman cooking stepped away. At which point, the pan caught on fire. Not a huge fire, but sorta like when you catch a marshmallow on fire. No one seemed to notice. after 15 seconds or so, the woman who was waiting for her omlette pointed out to the order taker that the pan was on fire. He seemed surprised, and then blew it out, and turned down the burner. He was then scolded by the cook, because she had returned and was annoyed the burner was turned down. So she turned it back up. Then made omlettes. Which were burnt on the bottom. (But otherwise pretty good). I think maybe the burner was a little too high, but hey, she's the chef and the best thing for pre-flight entertainment is a flaming omlette. Really, you should try it sometime. Its a wolfgang puck speciality. Its comes with wonderesque white or wheat toast. In case you expected something better, I just wanted to prewarn you.

I think there are some other funny Boston stories, but I can't remember any at the moment. You should however go blueberry picking if you're in the new england area. I hadn't done this, and its rather fun. Its like a prelude to apple picking, but with less effort, since blueberry bushes (I had only seen wild ones previously) are about 7 feet tall, and have fruit everywhere, you just pick off the ripe ones and stick them in a basket. The best part, you can avoid the nasty green ones and the little stems that seem to plauge store bought varities.