My Facts, My Opinions

I made Andrew Sullivan's " The View from Your Window " again: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/11/the-view-fro-25.html He captioned it incorrectly. I twas actually taken at 00:05 -- i.e., 5 minutes past midnight. The orangish color is from the tungsten filament light bulbs -- while they appear light to your eye, they are really orangish. Your brain is pretty smart and adjusts for this (and for fluorescent, or mercury vapor, or even sunny versus cloudy sunlight.) So, that's the Santa Monica office and the LA apartment....next stop, Lompoc! See also: Fame Awaits

So here's a brief trip log of the recent trip Silicic and I took to Patagonia. We left LAX on a midday flight, which was far better than our original plan to leave on an early flight and suffer through an 8 hour layover in DFW. Admirals' Clubs are nice but not nice enough for that. Silicic had a bunch of electronic upgrades available and we were set to fly Business Class on the leg to Dallas. But it turned out that for a small fee -- the equivalent of just 1 arm and just 1/2 a leg -- we could upgrade the entire downbound trip. With a 9.5 hour, overnight leg to Santiago (SCL) that would have been tempting enough. But we knew this plane would be equipped with lie flat seats. Sleep would be much easier. Sleep was much easier. And it was made really easy by taking Ambien for the first time. Take a pill, put the set back, wait 15 minutes and wake up just in time for breakfast and landing in Chile! That's how to fly. We managed to catch an earlier flight to Punta Arenas (PUQ). Th