I’m back home after several days in the desert with my bro, Peter. For a Web junkie like me, it was weird being away from the Internet for a few days. I could’ve gone on campus to check my email, etc. but it’s also a nice feeling to be disconnected for a while. So I’m just now checking my email this morning and have just under 20 messages, which isn’t so bad.
I had a great time hanging out in Tucson with Pete and seeing his life there. I hadn’t been since last June when he was living in a different house. His new house is really cool. It amazes me just how much house for so little one can get when one does not live in San Francisco. We ate, we drank, we played miniature golf, we played with Chase the wonder dog, we were merry.
Flying there on Monday I stopped at LAX and was a bit delayed due to the raging fires there. On my OAK-LAX leg of the trip, we flew through a tremendous cloud of smoke from the fire. It was so intense that on the plane we could all smell it, and it was pretty bad. Many people were coughing and covering their mouths.
Coming home last night on the TUC-LAX leg, we luckily didn’t fly through clouds of smoke again, but we did get an amazing view of the fires from 30,000 feet. And to think they’re more under control now than they were earlier in the week. The picture included here doesn’t even do the monstrosity of the flames justice.
Also on that leg of the flight I sat next to a really cool 9-year-old kid named Matt. He was reading Truckin’ magazine when I got on the plane. We talked the whole way about cars, trucks, fires, beer, and more. He told me how he had once snuck a sip of beer from his mom’s glass that he thought contained apple juice. He laughed and said it was good. The most charming thing he said out of the blue was this: “It makes me sad that girls used to have to stay at home and cook and clean and stuff.” I concurred and told him that that’s how it was in the 1950s. We were both glad that times have changed.
And I’m glad to have spent a few days with my bro.
