Writing Travel

Tom Foremski at ZDNet: Apple selling iPhone without AT&T contract

The Trojan Horse iPhone by ZDNet's Tom Foremski -- The Telcos have become the biggest obstacle to the development of new technologies and services. They have become the most backward elements in our society when it comes to rolling out new technologies, applications, and services. They have filed lawsuits to stop public wireless networks, and they constantly seek to control anything that could threaten their [...]

I think this is the best bit:

Interestingly, Apple stores are selling the iPhone without selling an AT&T two-year calling plan. I doubt AT&T stores will allow people to walk out with an iPhone without a calling plan.

Photoblog live at LanoraMueller.com

Most of the photos in the main posts on this site are now on display in a more aesthetic setting at my personal URL, LanoraMueller.com.

Some of the text content from Writing Travel is also there, but each page in the new photoblog design is limited to a single post, that is, a photo. Had to do it, as this page  is getting too cluttered with bits and pieces.

Writing Travel will focus more on writing, editing, publishing, and self-promotion for writers and journalists. As time permits, I'll roll out a new design here as well.

Please let me know what you think of the new WordPress format. I'll also be moving the photoblog to PhotographingTravel.com as soon as I can get that domain forwarded or transferred away from Google.

Yesterday's travel quote: According to the TSA, "Water is a liquid"

Thanking my lucky stars for frequent flyer status, I skipped to the head of the security line  yesterday at John Wayne Airport in Orange County. When I made my travel plans, I'd forgotten that yesterday was the day after the last day of most schools in the area.

With so many infrequent flyers going through security, the line was stalled, so I had a few moments to observe my surroundings.

I might have been the only person taking perverse delight in hearing  a TSA officer make this  repeated announcement to the waiting travelers: 

"Water is a liquid. . . . Water qualifies as a liquid even if the bottle is closed. . . . Ladies and gentlemen, water is a liquid."

Who knew?

That wasn't the crowning moment of my day, however.

My flight was overbooked and air traffic snarled because of weather in Dallas. I volunteered for the bump, giving up my upgraded seat on the direct flight to Chicago for first class seats on a new itinerary through Dallas that almost tripled my mileage earnings and put me well on the way to completing a new Platinum Challenge on American Airlines.

The compensation will also cover my next trip to California.

A minor adventure, no doubt, but I enjoyed extending my trip just a few hours, arriving in Chicago at 9:58 pm rather than 6:30 pm as originally planned.

En route, I read Cormac McCarthy's The Road in its entirety. I prefer reading novels in one sitting, or at least in one day. That sounds a bit fatuous, doesn't it? In graduate school, I thought this was the most time-efficient way to prepare for a class that evening or the next day. Now, I do it for fun, and I even take a few occasional moments to think about what I'm reading. 

Who knew back then that I'd some day pursue literary analysis for my own solitary pleasure?  Or hear someone in a uniform pronouncing in all seriousness, "Water is a liquid."