The Heathrow Quickie, or The Dropping of the Shorts

 I know I said I wasn't probably going to be posting again until Monday, but felt I should at least pop in a Quickie to tell you all about my flight back from Greece.

From Athens to London's Heathrow, it was a nice, quiet 4 hour flight during which I napped.

At Heathrow?  That's where the fun began. 

I should have hand an inkling when I went through customs.  It was a slog.  Very long.  Overly detailed, from any other time that I've flown.  After putting everything into the tray, including my sneakers, to be scanned, I was told that I needed to remove my belt.  I warned them, "my cargo shorts are going to fall down," and they didn't seem to care.  So, off came the belt, and when I stepped into the scanner and lifted my hands up, my cargo shorts went down and everyone got to see my blue boxers.  As I was putting my belt back on, and being the smartass I am, I couldn't help but ask the security guard "aren't you glad everything was in it's proper place?"

 Fifteen minutes into my scheduled 3 hour wait, British Airways announced that my flight was going to be delayed for 3 hours, so now I had a 6 hour wait.  Shit.  There was a technical issue.  Talking to the Scottish co-pilot, He told me, "they knew about the issue, but thought it would be fixed in time."  Well, it wasn't. An hour and fifteen minutes later, they announced that we were going to be moved to another terminal where we could board another plane to Philadelphia.  But there was a catch, the new planed needed to be cleaned, and the catering, as well as our luggage needed to be loaded.  That delay was only going to cost us 2 hours.  So, rather than leave at my scheduled time of 1340, my plane taxied down the runway at 1640.

On the plus side for some, we had an open bar for most of the flight back to the states.  That was, no doubt, to ease the aggravation of all those who missed connecting flights, and there were many.  I had a glass of merlot, and while it wasn't excruciatingly bad, it was still bad.

Philly was so much better.  I only had to wait 5 minutes for my suitcase, and when I got to customs, while everyone else was waiting in a long line, I was walked through the line for air crews, so, basically, all I had to do was hand the agent my passport to be scanned.  I have no idea why I was given special treatment, but it was nice.

When I got to my gate, I had a 15 minute wait before boarding my plane, and instead of a 60 minute flight, we landed in Harrisburg 36 minutes later.  Don't ask me why it was so short, but I did thank the captain as I deplaned.

Tomorrow, I will begin talking about Greece, and how I had such an awesome experience.  Until then, here's Teddy Swims.

Getting it Right

 Just think, for most of you this is the beginning of your work week.  For me?  This is my Hump Day.

Yesterday was moderately busy in the morning, but slow in the afternoon.  Mother's Day, remember.  One of those holidays blown way out of proportion by Hallmark as a way to increase their revenue.  Not that I'm against having a day to recognize what mother's do, but now every business in the world sees it as a way of making $$$$.  I can remember when a simple card would suffice.  Those days are long gone.

Update on the angelfish eggs.  One is left, the rest have all been... eaten.  They began turning white, which indicates a fungus.  The parent fish are supposed to eat them when this happens to keep the fungus from spreading.  Mine pair didn't.  At least not until about half of them were white.  When I checked the tank this morning, there was a sole egg hanging on the side of the tank.  Of course, I've been educating myself on breeding angelfish and one sentence gets repeated over and over again:  it may take them several attempts to get the process right.  Just like people, except, from my working in retail I can tell you that some never get it right.

Playing Assassin's Creed, Valhalla, I was surprised at the depiction of so many Roman ruins left in the UK circa 875 AD.  For some reason, I had always thought there were nothing but wood structures and forts.  I was wrong.  They have uncovered the remains of Roman baths in York.  London, itself, was large enough to have a colosseum made of brick and stone that could seat 6,000.  This was not some tiny out of the way colony.  Here's some more info at Historic UK.

Remains of the London Colosseum

I saw this on NBC news yesterday, Larry Hogan, on Meet the Press, has said the GOP has turned into a circular firing squad.  Funny, eh?  This is because over the years, the Republicans have been constantly backing themselves into a tighter and tighter corner.  They celebrated Loser #45, without knowing he is nothing more than the shrieking voice of the minority.  Their numbers decrease.  They are aiming at every one who doesn't kiss his ass.  Oh, well.

And, finally, Scotland seems to be once again moving towards independence from the UK.  Good for them!

Loud and Clear

Today is one of my days of rest - it just happens to be Sunday.  In retail, sometimes odd things happen.   Unfortunately, I didn't get the pedals on my bike changed.  This means no riding the roads today, rather free weights instead.  That's okay.  I'm also off Tuesday and Wednesday, I can go for a ride then since the weather is supposed to be nice.
My brother sent me a text inviting me to some sort of reunion today - my father's side of the family.  Notice was short, so I told him I already had plans... plans not to go.  Don't get me wrong, I like my cousins, but we are not close.  While my Dad (and Mom) moved to Lebanon, his brother and sister moved to Harrisburg.  They bought houses diagonally from each other, on the same street.  My cousins went to the same school, had the same neighborhood friends, and grew up together.  I lived in Lebanon and saw them usually once or twice a year.  When I moved to Harrisburg we made halfhearted attempts to get to know each other. They turned out to be rather futile.  This is how life is sometimes.
Oh, and the Idiot Jerk is going to the UK next month.  Remember when the plans were for him to get chauffeured around in a golden carriage, to meet the Queen?  Well, things have changed.  Now security is going to try their damnedest to keep him from seeing the massive protests planned.   The GOP is probably terrified he'll Tweet about how his meeting with Kim Jung Dumb was so much nicer.  It's the rapport thing, you know?  That affinity he feels towards dictators.  Oh, wait, he doesn't call them dictators.  The Idiot Jerk calls them Strong Leaders who were forced to do some 'bad things.'  Theresa May, in his book no doubt, is not a Strong Leader.  She struggles with the Brexit thing, trying to keep some sort of working relationship with the EU even as she tries to snub them.  As it is, he's only going to be in town for 'working day,' and then possibly a round of golf at his club in Scotland, (someone needs to play there).
Oh, and in case you didn't hear, Sarah Sanders Something or Other, was asked to leave a Virginia restaurant.  Conservatives are flipping out on social media.  They just got bitch slapped.  And they don't like it.  Of course, they opened this can of worms.  For some, political beliefs are just as strong as religion.  Discrimination is an equal opportunity street everybody walks down.  Not baking a cake for a gay couple because of religious beliefs is exactly the same as not serving Sarah Sanders Something or Other because because of deeply held political beliefs.  What that restaurant in Virginia did was say loud and clear, "no one is immune."  Whether they want to understand this or not is up to them, however this is exactly what the Supreme Court just told America.

ISIS Failure and Trump's deep state of...

There was a massive turnout for the Ariane Grande concert in remembrance and for the benefit of the Manchester victims and survivors, and I doubt if it got much airplay in those crazy Muslim countries that love their extremism.  Let's be honest here, those 50,000 people said "fuck you. terrorists."  I think that's pretty much the definition of failure.  Sure there is that momentary moment of shock, but than the masses come together and say "fuck you, terrorists."  And just the other day they foisted something on London Bridge and there was that 'holy crap' moment, but 3 terrorists died and since then 12 have been arrested, with more arrests to come.  I'll bet that's not going to make one of their crazy recruitment videos, now is it?  In fact, the only place these crazies seem to be a success is in the Middle East and Africa - very where else they are the poster children for failure.
There was also an interesting article in The Hill this AM about the Deep State - does it exist or is it a fabrication of the Far Right?  Personally, I suspect that there might have always been a bit of a Deep State in existence and most, I again suspect, it worked in conjunction with the White House, not as a separate entity.  Now, however, we have an Idiot in the White House who doesn't like the Intelligence Community, mostly because they realize he's an Idiot, and also because they don't tell him what he wants to hear, oh, and of course, they realize that Russia is not our friend.  Nor has he been on friendly terms with the Joint Chiefs of Staff - and I'd be willing to be those 2 groups are talking to each other.  And I'd also be willing to be that there's a constant stream of piss on Steve Bannon. a loser who no doubt thought that his whispers in the Idiot's ear would reshape the country into is vision.

They are not behind this asshole

Or it could be that the Deep State is nothing more than that cesspool of stupidity in which the Idiot is constantly finding himself - and that's a deep state of shit.

Topping the Chinese

Will I watch the opening ceremonies for the 2012 Olympics in London, yes.  Will I watch the entire ceremony... no.  It's way too long.  Here's my recommendation to all future opening ceremonies, march the Olympians in first and get that out of the way, and then entertain the world.  Everybody with access to either a TV or the Internet will be watching and everybody will turn it off when the athletes begin parading into the stadium.  People walk slowly around that track.  If we were called America our athletes would be one of the first to enter, but we're the United States and "u" is pretty damn near the end of the alphabet.  Sure, some of the teams entering before us will be small in comparison to the American contingent, they will still walk slowly around that track.

Why will I be watching?  To see if the British attempt to top the Chinese opening ceremonies.  That's a pretty daunting task.  My suspicion is they are going to take another tact to celebrate the United Kingdom, like a Shakespeare production number, maybe Macbeth chasing spots away from the track, or possibly a reunion of the two surviving Beatles singing "Love me do."  One thing you can be sure of, there will be fireworks and special effects galore.  You won't see 2000 Chinese drummers pounding  away but you might see the girls from Absolutely Fabulous staggering around.  The Brits seem to like exporting the idea that they are a staid people, perhaps they might let their hair down.  Wouldn't that be entertaining.