FMC 3.0

A few quick travel notes:

Flying out of Philly didn’t suck this time. Getting to the airport, parking, check-in, security, and boarding were all a breeze, and not a horrendous experience. Then plane is pushed away from the gate, hit the lane, and did its self test. It then pulled back to the gate, with a mechanical problem. Obviously don’t want to fly with a problem, even a small one. Pilot says it should be a quick fix. 2 hours later, and after a move away from the gate for a plane that could actually fly, we’re taxiing to the runway. All the while with a more than reasonable number of small children screaming their heads off. Thankfully, I have the iPod functions built into my phone, and really good headphones to drown that kind of crap out.

I have mixed feelings on our rental car, but it is infinitely better than that PoS Jeep Liberty we had for this trip 2 years ago. This time around it’s a Mazda five. It’s not bad - has space, and a few nifty features. But I don’t fit into it as well as my Element (if anyone knows of a rental company that rents them, I wanna know about it.) The niftiest feature to play with is automatic manual, or manual automatic, or semi-automatic transmission - whatever you want to call it. It’s like a stick without the clutch, and kinda fun to play with.

Oh, and last but not least - help me, I’m so very in a red state. I’m a stranger in a strange land ’round here :)