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As I sit here in the Boston Airport Hilton, sipping a Jack Daniels while typing away on the complimentary broadband internet connection in my room, I realize I'm going to have to break up the last couple days into a few posts. First a teaser, then the real story.

But, before that even starts, I'm gonna dedicate this post to fiorile (try to pronounce that name ;)

Happy Birthday, K! I enjoyed meeting you at the bash after trading LJ comments for almost a year. I hope you're sipping a martini somewhere and not reading this!

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So I'm driving through the Massachusetts country, heading to Cape Cod and a ferry to Martha's Vineyard. Like all of my road trips, my thoughts begin to wander and I ponder some of the mysteries of my life, and of life in general. At some point, I realize that there has been a topic, almost a theme if you will, running through LJ that I have yet to answer. These things require thought and careful planning of the consequences of making such a decision, which I have put off until now. There, upon the road, deep within the fog of Buzzard's Bay, it all fell into place for me for the first time.

If I had to pick a porn name for myself, it would be "Magnum Opus". Not only for the Latin, which *ahem* rolls well off the tongue -- I realize that the name is actually appropriate. Consider: If one were to place a point on the scale of masculinity represented by the fictional character Thomas Magnum, Private Investigator, and one were to place another point on the scale of masculinity represented by Opus Penguin, and then one were to draw a line connecting the two points....I, PeterMarcus, would be somewhere on that line!

Eerie! I know!

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Busy last couple of days. I wish I were home, but that hasn't happened yet. Let me back up, though.

Since the LA Bash, I've really enjoyed meeting other LJers. It's so interesting to meet people who have given glimpses of their thoughts and lives. Meeting someone for the first time, yet knowing something (sometimes a lot of things) about them, is a unique way to form acquaintances, and friendships.

After the LA Bash, I hit the Atlanta semi-annual dinner. Then, last week, I popped into Little 5 Points and met the Mistress of All That is Pink, muffintop. We had a quick chat, as she was working, but it was nice to meet her.

This trip, I was hoping to meet ladyfire, though unfortunately our schedules didn't end up meshing. Next time around I hope, LF, and I'm thinking about you. I did finally meet up with pookfreak, after my last trip to Boston in which my schedule was so slapdash I wasn't still long enough to do anything but sleep and dash to the airport.

Jeanie was a lot of fun. We had a drink at a Cambridge bar/restaurant, then she showed me a bit of Cambridge and Harvard as we walked around. She pointed out a few interesting houses, including one from the mid-to-late 17th century. To top that, she showed me the one and only house of Mr. Sanders, at the base of a tree in the 100 acre woods! I love the little quirky bits of New England. I had fun, Jeanie :)

I got back to my hotel, slept late, then decided to road-trip until my flight tonight. I wanted to go somewhere random. I was thinking Maine, but it was kinda damp and chilly today, and I figured I'm up here often enough that I'll hit Maine in the summer (go ahead, call me a wimp.) I thought about Rhode Island, as I hadn't been there since I was 8 years old, but I decided, purely through randomness, to go to Martha's Vineyard instead. I've never been, and I could hear the call of the ocean.

It was a nice drive down, Falmouth and Woods Hole brought back memories of my childhood in New England, and, oddly enough, college. I think those times in my life were spent in smaller towns in New England, and everything from the architecture to the climate triggered a lot of nostalgia. More oddities -- when I've been in LA the last few years, the smell of the sea reminds me of New England. I think it's the cold water and the kelp that brings it back to me. Today, the smell of the cold seawater and kelp made me think of California. Yet the cottages and lighthouses were so New England. The mixture was interesting.

The seabirds reminded me of California, too -- gulls much larger than Florida, with distinctive red spots on their beaks (for gull chicks to peck on, if I'm dredging that out of my weary brain correctly.) The gulls in Florida are smaller, and I don't remember seeing those red spots. At least not nearly as obvious. Florida, too, has large squadrons of pelicans, and I didn't see any today, and saw few in California. Florida, more than any of the other couple dozen places I've lived, is home to me, and it is strange to see more similarities between seabirds 3000 miles apart than ones in my home state on the same ocean.

Martha's was nice, less commercial than I thought it would be given the yuppie reputation. I ate some good seafood, and bought a couple trinkets. Then I headed for the Boston airport.

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Posted more tonight than I have all week. Anyway, here's the catch-up, and an example of Travel Tips from PeterMarcus.

I'm a touch late from Martha's Vineyard -- the ferry isn't exactly on airline schedules. However, I make it to the airport an hour and a half before my flight, no prob. I get to the security checkpoint and realize I left my itinerary in the rental. The guard wouldn't let me through without an intinerary. (This is a good thing, I suppose, at Boston Logan.) I'm directed back to the ticket counters and I wait patiently in line. I get up to the counter 55 minutes before my flight -- and learn that all the seats are gone and they're pulling a "you must be here one hour before the flight" con. Turns out, the plane was overbooked by 24 seats.

Now, I'm not the only one in this situation. People are yelling and screaming at the ticket reps, whose company has just screwed them as they have to face 24 people that got involuntarily bumped. I start to get mad, the ticket agent sees it...then I back off. You can't yell at the weather, and it is obvious to me that no amount yelling or screaming is going to get me to Atlanta today. So I switch tactics, go polite, point out that I was in the security line and got directed back to the ticket counter which put me under the "1 hour" limit, and I start asking the poor ticket rep what she can do for me. To make a rambling story slightly shorter, while abused ticket reps are pointing out to blowhard passengers that there is nothing they are authorized to do, my ticket rep gets me on the next flight in the morning, confirmed first class, gives me a nice hefty voucher for being involuntarily bumped, the very last hotel room at the Hilton tonight, and a dinner voucher. None of these were easy to obtain -- she had to make several calls for clearance along the way. But she was definitely willing to work with me in polite mode, when the alternative was facing the line of pissed-off passengers behind me.

Nothing in the world greases the wheels like politeness and a touch of empathy. I'm not in my own home, in my own bed, because some airline decided they had to play the odds and overbook. Yet they have made it up to me as best they could, while fellow passengers who blasted out their frustrations at the nearest target are cooling their heels a half-hour from here at the Days Inn.