I just paid $70.62 for gas.  Seriously.  I get the fact that I put premium gas in my car (damn BMW.  But I do get better gas mileage.  I checked.), but regular was $4.23/gal.  I’m now plotting the fun things to do within WALKING DISTANCE of my house.

Gotta go take a very hot shower.  I feel violated.

PS.  The finger print looking thingy that’s holding the receipt to that poor candle?  Pancake syrup.  Couldn’t find any tape and that stuff’s better than any glue-stick ever made.  Just keepin’ it real

Apparently my shit has not totally been gathered.  So in the meantime, enjoy this little piece of work:

*snort*. 

PETA cracks me up in one of those can’t-stop-watching-the-train-wreck kind of ways.  While this ‘PSA’ is too steamy to be shown on MTV, it will start airing in Seattle on KSTW-TV. 

Never underestimate Seattle’s willingness to live on the edge.

On the plane from Seattle to San Francisco: Little Asian man was talking on his cell phone a few seats away.  When the doors of the plane shut for pushback, he said goodbye then proceeded to carefully deposit the phone into the barf bag from the seatback in front of him.  Once it was nicely folded into a neat little package, he stowed it away for it’s journey to SFO.

WTF?  Do cell phones get airsick?

This weekend I’ll be in 

to see the

VS.

game on Saturday.

But first, I’ll fly in to Philadelphia so I can go to my friend B’s bar

and have dinner at

and probably several of these:

with some of my friends from my old SuperSecretJob before we head to

to stay with B’s parents.

In

most tourists would check out

and

but I’ll probably be trying to avoid being made to eat a

from one of these:

and spending LOTS of time in places like this:

trying not to get into arguments with these:

since I’ll most likely have no idea what I’m talking about.

I hope we make it back to 

because I hear we’re going to feast on

(heh, not THAT one)

that we get to pick out of a tank and maybe relax on the

while we nurse our inevitible

Sound like fun?

I fly a lot.  Actually that’s an understatement.  To put it in perspective, I’ve flown 54,000 miles since January 1.  Of this year.  In all of the time I’ve been in the air/airport, I’ve seen my share of delays, turbulence, and touchy landings.

Maybe it’s the fatalist attitude one must have when they choose to go into burning buildings for fun, but I’ve never really worried about anything ever happening to me on an airplane (not even when I watched an engine spontaneously combust from my window seat while we were still at the gate).  Or anywhere at all, for that matter.  Until tonight.

As I’m sure many of you have heard, the East Coast is experiencing yet another weather phenomenon.  Growing up in Eastern Washington State, 40-50mph winds don’t really phase me.  Spending the past two years in Seattle, driving rain doesn’t give me pause either.  However, I’ve never had both of those lovely weather events happen at the same time that I (and about 140 other souls) was trying to land in an Airbus A-320 at Dulles airport.

Normally, my favorite part of sitting in the window seat is watching takeoffs and landings.  Maybe it’s my geeky side, but I like to play a game and approximate the time it takes between when I first see runway pavement to the first bump of wheels down.  Tonight, as we made a very wobbly descent through the rain-soaked blackness, all I could think was “I don’t think so, I don’t think so!”….and then we rose back up into the night…..”Whew!  I didn’t think so!”

As we circled the airport for a second try at runway 1R(ight), I actually contemplated my existence.  What if?  Have I accomplished all I’m meant to accomplish?  Before I could truly answer that question for myself, my thoughts turned to the 33 lives that were lost today at Virginia Tech.  Thoughts of those that were students, lives that were cut short before they could start on the journey of adulthood.  Thoughts of those that were professors, dedicated to shape those young minds for years to come.  All so senseless.

As we landed on that second try and cheers went up from the cabin, I was grateful.  Grateful that I could, if nothing else, send my thoughts and prayers to the family and friends that lost a loved one today.  And grateful that I could spend another day getting one step closer to completing my own journey.

OK.  Take a look up.  A little farther to the image at the top of the page.  Stop.  You are now looking at a picture I took a few weeks ago of Jerusalum from Mount Scopus.  As in Israel. 

 As ironic as it may seem for a semi-Catholic girl (whose father was so scarred by the nuns when he was a boy that he vowed never to force HIS children child to go to chatecism) to have the first stamp in her passport be from the Holy Land, this was an amazing trip. 

When I first heard that work was sending me to Tel Aviv for a week-long business trip, I was a little concerned.  If the all-knowing American press was to be belived (heh), this trip was going to consist of non-stop shuttles between the office and the hotel.  Do not pass “Go”.   Fortunately for us, CNN is not the place to get the scoop on visiting that part of the Middle East.

Everything was amazing.  The accommodations, the people, the food, the country, even the mud was nothing short of wonderful.  Outside of work, we were fortunate enough to squeeze in a day tour of Jerusalem on the front-end of our trip, and stayed over the weekend to visit Masada and the Dead Sea.  On the way home, we did a quick overnight in Frankfurt, Germany.  Who would have thought that the first bar we came across was an Irish Pub full of New Zelanders and American G.I’s singing Karaoke?  Go figure.

Amazingly enough, I was nowhere near ready to come home.  If only they knew how to put ice in drinks.  Forget kissing U.S. soil when I touched down in Chicago.  I headed straight for the airport lounge and an iced soda.

Update:  Pictures are up.  Links to the slideshows for each place we visited above.  Enjoy. -J