Why thirteen thousand nine hundred AND TEN dollars? As long as it is the maximum fine (assuming it is an egregious violation), why not throw in another meagre ninety dollars (meagre relative to the absolute value) and call it fourteen thousand even???

I just don’t get the utility of this level of precision. I was half afraid there will be a “Local taxes extra” after this.

I can almost imagine, in a court of law, somebody getting indicted and counting all those $1000 bills and suddenly going “You got change?” 🙂

I am going to stop asking the baristas to make me a nice cup of cappuccino. This is the third time in two weeks that my way of talking got in the way and I landed up with an iced cappuccino.

Whoever has iced cappuccino?

To be fair, every time, they have quickly corrected the mistake and made some great cappuccino for me.

What they lack in quality, they sure make up in quantity!! That has to be a 12 oz pour. I wonder how much beer they give then.

Fifteen years in Atlanta area and today, for the first time, I took the public bus. I did not have my car with me when I landed in Atlanta airport. Took the MARTA train. Which I have done a couple of times before. And then instead of Ubering up the rest of the distance, took the MARTA bus. It dropped me within a two minute walk from the new house!

In the restroom of a random bar by the Connecticut River near Hartford.

First time in Hartford, CT airport.

The airport was dead – and I mean dead dead – when I landed. And it was not even 10 PM!! Curiously it is called “Bradley International Airport”. I was wondering about that International bit. Looked up every single flight that leaves or comes in to this airport. All 27 of them.

The only one that qualifies – kinda – is a Frontier flight to/from Puerto Rico. That is not even “international” in the sense you do not have to do customs or immigration.

That is a bit of stretching, I say!

Beautiful view of the largest river in the Northwest from the airplane. As best as I can tell, that angular dam in the middle of the picture, is the Rocky Reach Dam – famous for being the first dam to be designed to let young fish have a bypass to find their way to the ocean.

Every time I park my car in a new city or for that matter in places in Atlanta and I have to pay my parking fees thru yet another parking meter app…

… they taketh away with the other.

After 2 not-so-happy experience with rental cars this week, the third one – where I switched from Avis to Hertz – worked like a charm.

But then again, the flight karma caught up with me in the fifth and last fight for the week. Switched from Delta to Alaska airlines and promptly had a mechanical problem in Seattle!

3 hours later we are threatening to re-board in a new plane.

Let’s see where this one ends up!

A hot tub boat!

The lower picture is from a boat in Lake Union (Seattle). Note the small boat just to right of the edge of the boom.

The upper picture is magnified (poor quality picture due to the distance and cloudy Seattle weather).

It is basically a floating hot tub! Not sure what the fuel is but you can see the chimney and it was emitting very light dark smoke. People were just floating away in their hot tubs surrounded by the 64 degree cold water of Lake Union!