Although I signed up for the middle I got an aisle seat on the flight east. Movie: "Blues Bros 2000." I didn't get the headphones, about which: Gouging Alert! the standard $4 cost just went up to $5. Landed and took the Dulles Flyer shuttle to West Falls Church Metro, then G&D picked me up at King St. Beastly hot, late afternoon, but could've been much worst. We dined at our old hangout near what was my Arlington condo, at the Korean grill with its great sushi bar. The next morning they dropped me at the station and I rode the Metro across DC. After transferring I finally emerged and then walked to my parents' house, past my old high school and through my childhood neighborhood in the sunny late morning.

Since it's Father's Day, Mom cooked dinner & everybody came over - J&J from Richmond with the new twins, and brother H, his wife S, with kids R and M, from out in the hills. (Nephew M enjoyed the Donald Duck comic book I brought him.) Also sister K and brother N, only one absent being his wife Q <1>. All except my Mom (since she knew) mildly stunned at my presence. After dinner I watched some of the Iran/USA World Cup game with niece R, then eventually retired to N's house for evening refreshment, entertainment, and lodging.

Flying back, way over the normal amount of pre-boarding stress. First it was me driving N's decade-old compact Dodge around the Beltway during the AM rush. Arrived with plenty of time, but the tension built gradually from then until the final seat (mine) was filled, just before they sealed the hatch. Watch it when you're booking flights and your seat status is "to be assigned at boarding" - this means you're "standby" status and may not fly 'til later. It's a gamble which can go either way, though, and your Lucky Guy settled comfortably into his Business Class seat! (Gotta fill these planes up!) The movie was "The Man in the Iron Mask", with Musketeers and Titanic Jack as both the young French king and his twin brother passing around this Doctor Doom headgear (with a lock on the back). Not bad, a diverting costume drama. I tried resisting initially, but the action was an unavoidable eye-magnet and since the headphones are naturally free up front... Finally arriving, I balanced out the largess of my outward taxi ride with two hours of tedium on two separate mass-transit bus rides, first SamTrans and then VTA, total cost $2.10. This trip was a great idea! My mailbox contained a packet of wonderful pictures P sent of mostly my god-daughter V in North Carolina.

Newt outrage du jour:
Letter to the LA Times from Ben and Sandra Schulman, of Woodland Hills:

The state of Texas, cheered on by Newt Gingrich, wants to replace all schoolchildren's textbooks with CDs, which will necessitate providing each student with a laptop computer.

Now that's a cost-effective idea.. Next comes replacing all books with CDs. What a "Brave New World scenario. What does "No Book Newt" suggest we do with the discarded books? How about burning them? That's the obvious next step.

In far northern St. Petersburg they call last night "White Night", because on these longest days of the year the night never comes. This entry's title is to be sung in the manner of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground's "White Light".