Pacific Northwest
As I was saying before, the Pacific Northwest is really nice!
Looking back over the Powell's map, I see that Riana and I spent a lot of time in the rose room, no time in the orange room, a lot of time in the blue room, a fair amount of time in the purple room, a little time in the gold room, a little time in the red room, and very little time in the coffee room, the pearl room, and rare book room. Do you get the sense that Powell's is pretty large?
Riana described the gold room in a funny way -- something like "Stuff That Isn't Respectable Yet". (It houses "science fiction and fantasy", "horror", "mysteries", "nautical fiction", "erotica", "thrillers", "romance", "westerns", and "graphic novels". The way Riana put it was really funny.)
I think Riana and I told well over 100 pirate jokes during that trip. These are not really jokes; they are riddles in which the answer is provided by substituting a purported pirate utterance ("ar", "avast", "ahoy", "matie") for a similar-sounding part of some non-pirate-related phrase. (A typical example would be "Where does a pirate get a map?" "From a carrrrtographer." Or, of course, "Who's a pirate's favorite folksinger?" "Darrrr Williams." But my favorite was probably "What's a pirate's favorite article of clothing you're wearing right now?" "Avest!")
It seems that such jokes could almost be generated by a shell script, but we had a good time with them. It's an obscure genre.
So I got to hang out briefly in Walla Walla with Riana and some of her friends at Whitman, and see KWCW (hearing about the FCC from a totally different angle), and attend a class about free speech (hearing about the first amendment from a totally different angle). I came back on Tuesday and had my first ever really good airport food. I wish I could remember the name of the restaurant; it's in the Portland Airport and it's a deli restaurant and the food is actually food I would voluntarily go and eat. Maybe next time. (Speaking of delis, there is a deli in Walla Walla with a really great tiramisu or tiramisu-like thing.)
The Portland Airport (as I told Praveen) reminds me of Chicago O'Hare, except on a friendlier scale. It even has a Powell's outlet (with only new books and no used -- imagine selling used books in an airport, and wouldn't that be a wonderful thing?).
I don't know what it is about that image which I find so compelling. Airports are somehow a place where nothing second-hand is sold because nothing second-hand or non-corporate is sold. If used books (serendipitous, unpredictable, exciting, romantic) could make it into the unbelievably controlled environment of an airport, then anything could happen!
The TSA Federalized airport security screeners took over from private security forces just a couple of weeks ago. (I was flying to Washington on their very first day on the job, which was interesting.) I think they are more polite, more efficient, more respectful, and otherwise just nicer than the private screeners. It's not fun to get searched, and it's not fun to get searched by the government, but the TSA screeners seem to be doing in some sense a better job.
To give one example: before TSA, I saw occasions on which passengers confronted private security with plausibly legitimate complaints and were then harassed, searched again, or prevented from flying. But on my way back from Portland, I saw a passenger try to pick a verbal fight with a TSA screener. The screener resisted being provoked, continued to do his job, allowed the passenger to pass, and didn't go on a power trip. I was surprised -- I completely expected the passenger to end up in handcuffs. Nope: the TSA screener continued to call him "sir", and he made his flight. No handcuffs, no rifles, no threats, no extra searches. Cool.
(Now, if only law enforcement officers always behaved that way when they weren't on videotape...)
My flight was pretty uneventful, and I caught AirBART back to the Coliseum station. But on my way back to San Francisco, our BART train developed a brake problem. I smelled a strong odor of burning plastic, and our train came to a complete halt inside the Transbay Tube and was stuck beneath the Bay for about half an hour. Some of the passengers in my car became extremely angry and started to swear. One of them called the train operator and threatened to start to deface or damage the train if she didn't do what he wanted. (The train operator's response was somewhat less polite than I imagine the TSA's would have been in the same situation.) The train operator kept trying to pull forward; the train would move a couple of feet and then come to a stop again. Finally, a technician was sent out on a rescue train and was able to come aboard our train and help the operator get the train running in reverse. We rode it all the way back to West Oakland and then transferred to a new San Francisco train.
Fortunately, I had a book with me while I was waiting.
