One man said he was concerned about whether his flight home (scheduled for this morning) was going to be cancelled. Immediately thereafter, he launches into a story about because some lake (near his second home) did not freeze last year, global warming is real. To bolster his point, he said he went to see Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth last night–in a snowstorm!

Where has critical thinking gone? How can one assert a single piece of anecdotal evidence to support the theory of global warming while sitting in a city that is being barraged by a snowstorm? Hello? Anything going on in there? I’m not sold on the idea of global warming, and, even assuming that global warming is happening, I’m definitely not sold on the idea that humans have been the cause. Isn’t this akin to sitting in the eye of a tornado and stating that you don’t live in tornado alley? Sheesh.

When I got home from work last night, there was a Suburban obstructing 3/4 of our driveway. (At least half of the block was open to parking.) Disappointed in mankind, I looked for a note on the vehicle and found none. I looked to our neighbors’ houses for signs of a party and found none. The police came and placed a ticket on the vehicle. As Speed and I were leaving for his soccer game, someone came out of a neighboring home, looked at the ticket, and went back in side–leaving the vehicle where it was!

When Speed and I returned home, another car was parked nearly in the same spot except that it blocked only an 1/8 of the driveway. However, because of the tight street, it was practically impossible to actually get out of the driveway with the car parked there. And my secretary wonders why I don’t like meeting new people.

But it didn’t start off so hot. We couldn’t get a direct flight here, so we had to connect through Miami. The flight from Miami was on a 60-seat prop plane–and I love flying on prop planes! Of the 60 people aboard, at least 7 of them were in the wrong seats. The old couple in front of me were sitting in 11A and 11B; their seats were for 11D and 6A! What the heck? (Reminds me of Seinfeld’s bit about old people driving.)

I don’t understand this type of behavior. It’s a 60-seat plane. The chances are pretty good that someone is sitting in whatever seat you chose to sit in. This isn’t like going to a Kansas City Royals baseball game late in the season when less than 17,000 are showing up. Remember, people are idiots.

Then, after a somewhat harrowing (and smelly) flight to Ft. Myers, my bag doesn’t parade around the baggage carousel. Not only my bag, but seven of my work compatriots and several others who were originally on the DFW-MIA flight. In fact, of the ten of us on the flight from work, the only ones who got their bags were the two who got to the airport late, were unable to check their bags at the counter, and had to gatecheck them. So much for getting to the airport early.

The AA bag attendant at the airport was a little overwhelmed by the number of us without bags–in fact, she seemed reluctant to believe that this many people were sans baggage. It took about 40 minutes for all of us to file our claims, and we were off to the hotel.

My bag did not come in on the next plane, unfortunately but predictably. I’m not sure what flight it arrived on, but it got to my room at 2:45 a.m.–perfect timing!

Checking baggage: reason 801 why the terrorists have won! (Just kidding.)

We were at Wal-Mart to purchase three very small items.  We stepped into an express lane that clearly stated “20 Items or Less.”  I quickly noticed that the woman in front of us had a basket overflowing with items, and I had to find out how many.  Come to find out (while I was expressing my great displeasure through non-vocal cues), she had 42 items–not even close to 20 or less.  I guess the question is: Was she that dumb?  Or that rude?  Personally, I don’t care which, but I’m not looking for any other possibilities.

I’ve already recounted the painful details of the move itself (so painful, I can’t even summon the strength to paste a link to the posts).  But a separate and equally painful experience writ large is the entire ordeal of changing, terminating, and creating services at the old house and at Farmington.  Telephone, gas, electricity, cable, internet, post office, insurance, and the hundreds of  that are tied to a mailing address (credit cards, subscriptions, memberships–I’m having flashbacks just thinking about it).

The major items–phone, gas, electric, cable, internet–all unleash their own unique brand of telephone-menu customer service hell.   AT&T has discarded the ever-maddening system of push-button menus in favor of voice recognition.  So when you say you’d like to establish cable service, it says something like “I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Please repeat.” or “You’d like to milk a cow.  Is that right?” But should you ever reach a real person, the chances that the information you are given is correct is near zero.

Of course, you won’t realize the information was correct until either 1) they come to install something different from what you ordered; 2) the bill comes with vastly different charges; or 3) when the service isn’t working properly, you call in for support.  The upshot is that if you ever get an answer you don’t like, hang up and call back because the answer will change when you talk to someone else.

Proves once again that people are morons and customer service stinks.

But with every day of unpacking comes the increasing irritation at (In)Delicate Moving. The complete destruction they wrought has still not be fully discovered–but the record is pretty daunting so far. Even though the movers wrapped all the furniture in blankets and used shrinkwrap, it had to have been a ruse. One would be hard pressed to find a single piece of furniture that escaped damage, much of it significant.

So either, they are terrible movers or they were pissed off at Holly because of their early altercation and exacted their revenge. Either way, employ them at your peril.

Today I’m waiting near my gate at DFW Airport.  When I approach the seating area I set my suitcase at the end of a row of five empty seats and place my briefcase in the first seat.  I get restless sitting for a long time, and I know I soon to be confined to my seat for nearly four hours, so I’m standing at the end of the row of seats next to my suitcase reading.  A young woman approaches and, among all the available seats including the four next to my seat, she selects the chair right next to mine.  Right there.  No empty seat in between.  No buffer.  Nothing.

Anyway, we all understand (and largely take for granted) the significance of today. But I’ve always wondered why September 17th passes with such a whimper. September 17, 1787 was the day the Constitional Convention adopted the Constitution and submitted it to Congress for consideration. For the first century thereafter, Constitution Day was widely celebrated, as detailed in Michael Kammen’s book, A Machine That Would Go Of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture.

It’s been a number of years since I read Kammen’s book, and if he covered the topic specifically I don’t recall it, but why did Constitution Day fall out of favor? It seems especially odd considering how prevalent Constitution-speak is these days. People are often claiming their First Amendment rights against all manner of external forces, prognosticating about the reasonableness of Fourth Amendment searches and seizures, and foaming at the mouth regarding supposed penumbras.

(Of course, I would argue that the vast majority of the people are speaking of the Constitution in its pop culture form. Many people would be surprised to learn that privacy is nowhere mentioned in the Bill of Rights, that there are Articles to the Constitution, or that there are more amendments than those referred to as the Bill of Rights. Recently, I had an argument–civil, to be sure–with an acquaitance about whether a local soccer league could prohibit smoking at their fields during youth games. The acquaitance was claiming that the prohibition violated First Amendment speech rights. Um, where do I begin other than to say, “You’re an idiot! Don’t ever talk about constitutional rights again.”)

But I digress. Thinking back to 1870 to 1900, the Constitution played a much smaller role in daily life. States were still the focus of protecting rights and enforcing privileges. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments are exceptions to this, but there specific context doesn’t impact the main point. We were still decades away from the Burger and Warren Courts finding that the Constitution protected even the most minute individual right.

So, in my spitballing and five minute rumination, I think its ratification became a distant memory and its near complete irrelevance to daily life made such continuing celebrations unlikely.

Which raises the question of why the 4th is still so popular? At the most basic level, the language of The Declaration of Independence is engrossing compared to the Constitution. The Declaration was one-part breakup letter to King George III and one-part political tract. Obviously, this is the stuff of emotional and persuasive language. The Constitution, on the other hand, is essentially a technical manual for the creation of a federal republic. Other than the Preamble, its language is rather dry. There are problem dozens of other factors explaining the prevalance of the 4th, but that’s my first thought.

Regardless, have a happy 4th!