Flight to San Antonio

Last Wednesday, the 22nd of October, I flew for the first time since October 2000--also, of course, for the first time since 9/11. I'd done relatively little flying even before October 2000--roundtrips to New York City (from NC or TN when I lived in Nashville), to Europe, California, the Bahamas, Las Vegas. Some of these trips--New York and California and Las Vegas--I made more than once. But I've never liked flying. I can't say that I've had any bad experiences, but that still doesn't make me like it any better. A handful of things got me in the air again for this San Antonio trip: 1) last year when this same conference was held in Denver, Colorado, I drove while I was coming off the flu--a crappy experience; 2) my wife had a wonderful trip to England in May and wants to go back in a couple of years and I want to go with her; 3) I have a conference coming up in Bermuda in March 2009, and I'm pretty sure I'll have to fly to get there (unless I take a ship of some kind). So, San Antonio came up, and I flew there and back. A good trip for the most part.

San Antonio was a great place--the only negative about it was that I was there by myself (mostly). The conference was held at the San Antonion Marriott Rivercenter, and my room had a nice view of the city. I walked a lot. I ate a lot and then walked it off (mostly). I even went to a few of the conference sessions. San Antonio's Riverwalk was a neat feature. I also saw the Alamo and San Fernando Cathedral. My favorite places to eat were Schilo's, a German place on Commerce Street, and Mi Tierra, a Tex-Mex place in Market Square. I'll go back to San Antonio someday, which is kind of like Charleston, South Carolina, another place I visit as often as I can.

Meanwhile, this political season carries on and on, kind of like the plague. Why haven't the candidates gotten it through their heads that the media is always watching? Every misstep and contradiction is hashed and rehashed and spun 'round and 'round until, like children on one of those whirling rides on the playground, we get dizzy, stagger a safe distance away and puke. Speeches are the same up and down America, across the heartland and back again. To some degree, it's all sad and ridiculous.

But my wife and I cast our votes this morning, so we declare ourselve through with it, our civic duty done. Ultimately, the degrees of badness or goodness should one candidate or the other be elected don't vary that widely. Even though McCain and Obama approach the issues from different directions, their "fixes" for the problems probably won't end up making that much difference. Talk is talk, be it expensive or cheap, and campaigning is all talk. So I guess, for me, it really comes down to the tone of the message, whether or not I believe in the actual message itself. Who has a vision of America and life in this world--a vision attainable or not--that best resonates with my own? Once I decided that, my X went beside that name on the ballot.