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Direct v. Nonstop. I thought that these two words were synonyms in flight lingo, but found out this week that this is a novice’s blunder when dealing with airlines. Many months ago, I booked a flight from coast to coast for my husband and myself. At the time of initial booking, I purchased more expensive tickets to fly from point A to point B as my husband is not a big fan of flying in general. Less stops means a happier overall trip. However, when I confirmed my flight this week, I was not informed of a schedule change and rather received an email moments later “confirming” my itinerary change. This new change had a bit of a surprise - we now had a 2-3 hour layover. I called Expedia and my call was routed to customer service where the representatives and I had a bit of a language barrier. The solution? I just called back until I reached someone who could understand why I was upset that after paying more for my ticket, I was now going to have to endure a layover with a man who may need medication to make it to our destination. What I found out was that a direct flight may have a layover since if you are technically on the same flight number, you are on a direct flight. A nonstop flight, on the other hand, is one where you take off from point A and land at point B, the destination. When I bought the ticket, I did not pay attention if this was a direct or nonstop flight. I just looked at where the plane took off, where it landed and if there were any layovers. To all of you out there thinking of scheduling a flight anytime in the future, here’s a helpful distinction that can save you multiple frustrating calls to resolve. At any rate, we did resolve this issue and are now on a nonstop flight - albeit with a departure almost 3 hours later then originally planned.

This is a number you will want to automatically save in your cell phone. This is the phone number to the San Francisco Department of Public Transportation (DPT). If you live in a different area, I suggest you go find the number for your local DPT and save it in your cell phone.

Tonight my husband and I came home from a wonderful dinner at a great Mediterranean place. After dining on wonderful, bread, hummus, and falafel - just to name a few - we finished by lingering over dessert and warm, frothy lattes. We were relaxed, enjoying one another’s company and engrossed in a dynamic political discussion when the entire atmosphere was shattered by an Audi. This was your typical Audi - silver, spotless, arrogant, and in our parking spot. In San Francisco where parking is at a premium, this is a major offense. We pay for our spot, so to us, this is the ultimate aggrevation.

I called information, was transferred to the San Francisco police, and then transferred to the DPT. Now we waited for our savior, the tow truck. We waited for about 5-10 minutes and then the front door of the flat across the street swung open. Two men in their late 20s, early 30s with chunky black shoes, fashionably worn jeans, black shirts and hair that glistened with gel in the streetlight swaggered up to the car. Words were exchanged, mostly by my husband. The men were unmoved by the tirade. The qualities of the pair mirrored that of the car. They drove off without any problem.

Meanwhile, my husband and I are left concocting ways to maim their car - a far cry from our political discussion from a short while earlier. While I wish I would have remembered their license plate number (I gave it to the DPT), at least I can impart this little bit of knowledge to those out here who will need this phone number. It can save precious time when you call in a car needing to be towed before the owner can dash into it and drive away without any consequences. Next time we might even take the Nancy Drew approach and do a stake out from down the block so that they do not even know we called the DPT. Ohhhh…..sneaky. A little older, a little wiser.

Tonight I went to have dinner with my girlfriends. One of my friends showed this video from YouTube. It is absolutely great. It is one man’s rendition of generations of dance moves, with the appropriate music—so funny. You can check it out below.

“T[he] telephone and the PC are ubiquitous desk mates, separated by a few inches and about a century.”

I remember sitting in a classroom while my teacher explained how to write the basic 5 paragraph essay. She advised to start out with a sentence that grabbed the reader’s attention so that they would continue to read the rest of what you wanted to communicate. First lines of famous novels include:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
~Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

One of my favorite authors is Jane Austen. Here is one of her most famous opening lines from Pride and Prejudice:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Unfortunately, I live in a small San Francisco apartment and my humble library is boxed up and in storage at my parents house. So, I had to google these quotes to reproduce them verbatim. I found this site which is a little quiz to see how many famous first lines you know. Check out foldedspace.org and see how many you know.

So, if you have read to this point in this entry, you are probably wondering, but where did she find the opening quote? The answer—The NY Times of course! You may find this sentence at Internet Phones: Please Wait for the Next Available Opportunity . I love that an article about evolving technology is written by an author who takes such care to craft such an opening sentence.

Let me know if you have found a good sentence lately (opening or otherwise).

I love waking up on days where I have the day off from work. I wake up happy to make a big pot of coffee and sit in my apartment surfing the internet on my Mac. Today I was reading the NY Times online, a staple to my daily internet surfing, and found this article about children who have lost parents in war. I was reading, wiping tears from my face and thinking of the children on the other side of war, who live in cities destroyed by bombs and chaos, without the opportunity to go to counseling, living without the support of lost family members. I then watched a NY Times video on Arlington–about how Arlington is running out of space for fallen soldiers. Will it end?