Of rock and roll and leftover candy

For the second time in this series of trips, United had trouble assigning people to seats on the plane. Their excuse, again, was that the seat configuration on the 737 that arrived at the gate was different than the one shown on their computers. As a result, there were several duplicate seat assignments. In addition, up until a few minutes before we pulled back from the gate, they weren't sure who was on the plane and who wasn't. The flight attendant would ask, "If M. So-and-so is on plane, please press your attendant call button. If M. Thus-and-such is on the plane, please press your attendant call button." I don't know if everyone who was finally on the plane was supposed to be there, but the flight to Chicago was uneventful.

Late last night we received email from the systems engineer who has been the lead person on our team in these customer meetings. He's running a fever of 102° and won't be able to attend today's meeting and perhaps not tomorrow's, either. In a word, yikes.

I'm listening to my collection of various versions of Johnny B. Goode. It's one of the most durable rock and roll songs for guitar heroes. The song was among a select few chosen to represent humankind on the Voyager Golden Record. Chuck Berry's version remain the reference standard, but Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Winter take it wider, higher, and deeper.

This time my rental car is a Chevy Malibu. It's a nice enough car. It has, however, this silly little rear spoiler. When I was a kid, I'd attach a playing card to my bicycle frame in the hope that it would sound like a motorcycle.

There are splotches of snow in the shade. Everything else in the open is brown, desperate for spring.

When I arrived yesterday, there was a strong north wind feeding a big storm in the south of the state. I stopped at a supermarket to pick up some fruit and stuff for breakfast. On the exit door, they had posted a very nice, four-color sign that said, basically, that there are high winds today, so please put your grocery carts at the collection stations in the parking lot. That they have enough high wind that it was worth it to them to print these nice signs says, well, none of the other supermarkets that I frequent have such signs.

Mmm, gummi lights.

I've spent too long already trying to think up captions for the stuff on this site. If I had an extra afternoon, I drive to the store to see if they are indeed real.

Before I left, I had to pick up a couple of things at our local drug store. Amid all of the Easter baskets and candy and decorations sit four boxes of leftover Valentine's candy. The candy was marked down 75%.