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Moderately happy hour

I am sitting in a Dallas-area hotel lounge. It is happy hour, which means free beer, wine, and chafing-dish appetizers. There are 14 white men and one other woman in here. The bar is still decorated for Christmas. The only wines they serve are cheap chardonnay, merlot and white zinfandel. (I'm a tiny bit of a wine snob.) The only beers they serve belong to the Budweiser product family. (Everyone's a beer snob.)

On my flight here I shared about a third of my window seat with the large man in the seat next to me. I was comfortable enough, but I felt really bad every time I shifted around and he apologized.

I used to think that Dave and I had an obscure collection of hobbies: running marathons, racing triathlons and criteriums, doing generally athletic and/or difficult things on our vacations. I think I found someone with an even more unusual hobby. A couple on my flight from SFO-DFW were decked out in ballooning-inspired gear. The woman wore a hot-air-balloon necklace and earrings. Her backpack was made of a brocade fabric depicting hot air balloons in flight. The man wore a jacket embroided with the logo of a 2004 ballooning event. Balloonathon? Balloonaganza?

January 18, 2006 3:52 PM