Spam, spam, spam, spam, and lobster thermodore...

I'm torn. I don't know whether to be annoyed or oddly pleased.

I've been getting spam comments. Comments to my blog that are ads for - or at least attempts to drive traffic to - various websites. The last one was for an escort service in NY, no less. You probably haven't realized it, since they seem to favor slightly older posts (mostly "The year is new, not me"), and since I get an email for every comment, I can get in there and delete them fairly quickly.

The annoyance, I'm sure you'll understand right away. The pleasure is a little more oblique. If someone has grabbed my blog for spamming, that means someone other than my friends and family is aware of it. Even if it's just at a web-spider level, it exists out in the world, so to speak. There is a certain joy in reaching a wider audience (even if that audience is likely unaware).

For the moment, I'll do nothing about it (other than delete them as they come). If things get too crazy, I'll likely break down and make people prove they're people with the weird text and stuff.

By the way...there is not much time left to Save the Babies! We're less than a month away now. If you were waiting for later, well...it's later.

Trip Report

So, last week was...interesting.

The trip out on Sunday: Let me start by saying that when I reserved the plane seats, I requested window seats for all 3 flights (2 out, 1 back). The first flight, I got a middle seat. The window seat was a guy who had apparently bathed in his cologne (but it was cheap, so it wore off quickly). The aisle seat was a guy whose waist was approx. 55-60 inches. I was annoyed, but also felt bad for him. I was inconvenienced, but he is inconvenienced on every trip. And it was obvious he realized the uncomfortable scenario it was for the both of us.

The second flight, I was on the aisle. Not too bad. I did get to watch a cougar slow roll a college kid in the row ahead of me. He was a young country boy (jacket and hat of matching hunting camo); she was a 40-ish woman with good make-up and a skirt slit up to her panties - assuming she was wearing some.

Conference began on Tuesday, so we wanted to meet with some of the participants for dinner Monday night. As we waited for the party to arrive, we found out that our office has been dissolved. During dinner, we discuss what is to happen at this conference and how everyone will function without the office I (used to) work in.

The conference, I will relate as I related it via Facebook and Twitter at the time:

Tuesday: "Well, General didn't physically abuse us *or* tell us we should be wiped from the earth, so that's a plus." That pretty much sums up most of Tuesday.

Wednesday: "Is there a pool on what ridiculous requirements we find out about today? 'All questions will be written in Sanskrit, all answers in Morse Code, and all verbal discussions will be in Swahili.'"

Later Wednesday: "Here it is: 'I don't like it, but we're constrained by the instruction I just got done writing.'"

Thursday: "Got yelled at for our efforts to keep the weapon system from failing."

That's probably the best summary of how it all went down.

So, Friday came and it was back for home. Another middle seat. My layover in Atlanta was spent on the plane, and when they had gotten the new passengers on, we taxied out, waited, then taxied back for the ground crew to set a valve they had left in the wrong position. That whole process set us back about an hour and a half. But luckily, my family was not waiting for me at the airport - just my car, so I just got out and went back to the house. Yay!