As I predicted, things sure are quiet in Byron's absence. Guess you become used to someone when they are around every day for past two months. There are tell-tale signs of his departure. There are no tools on the kitchen table from his project-of-the-day. There's no half-drunk pitcher of ice tea on the counter (yes, he drinks a pitcher a day). There's no Macbook with web sites opened to whatever he decided to research that day (and, yes, he can look up how-to-do-anything on the Internet and then just do it, just like that, really an amazing talent...).

So, what am I doing. Number one, I'm enjoying a day of virtually nothing. I have a few things on my to do list, like paying bills, doing a little light cleaning / laundry, and making some more progress on studying for my Instrument Written (must take it soon!). I'll probably de-lazy-fy myself long enough to take the dog on a walk or cook some dinner (unless someone wants to go out, anyone? anyone?) Tomorrow I'm going to go to work. I try to avoid that on the weekends, but I really worked a light week last week (including taking yesterday morning off to see my boy off to Alaska) and need to catch up a little both on hours and on making progress on my growing to-do list.

For your reading pleasure today is one of the things I hate about traveling, airport security and the absurdity of what they confiscate (in this case a knife that is provided with the in flight meal, oh yeah, and being carried by a pilot in uniform who arguably has many other more efficient forms of violence available to him in the cockpit.. crash axe, anyone?). Every time I go through security, my engineering mind comes up with hundreds of things that are stupid about what they are doing, and hundreds of more ways to beat the system. Guess why they call it "security theater", I guess it makes nervous travelers feel more safe at the expense of the rest of us...