Flying the friendly skies

Here we go again; this time sitting at the gate in the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood Airport and wondering if New Year will be celebrated, as planned, in Halifax or if we'll ring in 2011 in a departures lounge somewhere on the east coast. Looking out of the window, the first thing that strikes you is the question "Who designed the Southwestern paint-job?". Red, purple *and*orange? Neither two of these colours go together, mcuh less all three. Yikes! It must have been the same people who did the Kona Jake The Snake paintjobs a few years back.

As a last guilty pleasure of the vacation, I just indulged at Dunkin' Donuts. I swear this is the first time I've Dunkin'd since post-docing for Steve Kaattari over a decade ago. Steve would always bring a box or two of Dunkin Donuts to lab meetings. Then again, lab meetings would start at 07:00 so as not to interfere with lab work so donuts were the least he could offer. In his defense, I understand Steve has calmed down *a lot* since those days.

Speaking of guilty pleasures, the cabs down here all have roof-mounted adverts that seem to sell, solely, strip-clubs or lawyers (imagine that in Halifax!). "Always cheap, always tacky" (or something similar) I read on one sign, but I forget if it was for a strip-club or a lawyer.

Now the donut is gone, I suppose the vacation is finished. Back to the quotidien grind of daily life. That I can deal with. However, I think the <30 degree (Celcius) temperature change between here and there might be harder to cope with! I hope I don't crack when I get off the plane.

See you at a run in Halifax this weekend; I'll be the one bundled up like Shackleton in the Antarctic for a mere 0C with flurries.

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