time is an illusion (lunchtime, doubly so)

My plan to go in to work this weekend did not come to pass. I'll have to work long days tomorrow and Tuesday so I can leave early Wednesday; I'm going south to visit my folks for the Thanksgiving weekend.

South is a relative term. I'm already only about 25 miles from the Gulf of Mexico (I live in Tallahassee), but the folks are wintering between Tampa and Orlando this year. Fortunately, the designer who sits next to me at work makes his home about an hour from where they are staying, so I can get a ride with him.

Last year they stayed at Myrtle Beach, where they had been going for several years. It still gets kind of cold there in the winter, but it doesn't snow an average of 80 inches per year like it does back home. Temperature is also relative. Last Christmas I flew up to Myrtle Beach to visit them; on the flight back, I was searched at every opportunity; I even had to take off my shoes with every search. I was "wanded" and frisked; one guard wanted to know if I had "put these insoles in" myself. Yes, I said, they are Odor-Eaters(tm). "Odor ... eaters?" was her reply. A real genius. To make a rapidly lengthening story short, I arrived home to find that while they never found anything suspicious on my person or in my carry-on baggage or laptop computer, somebody in baggage-handling did find my digital camera and Palm Pilot(tm) - which were inside my checked baggage - and decided that they needed them more than I did. Isn't that special? I had to file a report, but never heard anything else about it and never got any reimbursement. Thank you, AirTran! No, I won't be flying with you again! Toads.