Lots of the travel in the past month:

1. Los Angeles – pleasant weather, but the downtown area around the Staples Center and convention center is a wasteland in terms of restaurants or any type of nightlife.

2. Bakersfield, CA – dramatic drive over the mountains (4140 feet at the summit of some pass whose name escapes me), past Pyramid Lake (who carved that pyramid into the lakeside rock anyway?) and the wildflowers in bloom, down, down, down into the flat plain that surrounds Bakersfield. Had dinner at a place called the Wool Hunters or Sheep Gatherers or some such name. Who knew that Bakersfield has a large Basque population and that they would serve pickled tongue in their restaurants?

3. Boston – the Big Dig tunnels really do appear to be seeping and leaking. Made me slightly uneasy to zip through them in a cab. Boston has the most expensive, dirtiest cabs in the country. Something that’s actually worse than Philadelphia (although we do have one of the worst mayors in the country, according to the folks at Time).

4. San Antonio – will be there on Friday. Have never visited that part of Texas. Do not have fond memories of Lubbock (BIG statue of Buddy Holly, bad ice storm), Houston (I didn’t think it was possible to experience humidity of greater than 100%), Dallas (was involved in a bus accident on the way to a faux ranch), so my expectations for San Antonio are pretty low.

In one of the many hotels I’ve frequented lately, there was a picture next to the elevator with the warning about not using the elevator during a fire. The odd thing, and this could have been in California which might account for the bizarro-factor, was that the graphic depicting the panicked little stick person showed him/her heading *up* the stairs. Is there some new “stop, drop and roll” type of rule that indicates that you should head to the roof during a fire?

Am I the only one who sees the print ads for the Hummer Sport Utility Truck and reads it as “Hummer SLUT”, and wonders if that’s a subliminal image of Monica Lewinsky in the back seat?

Movies: Hostage. It was either this with Bruce Willis, or Sin City with Bruce Willis. Hostage was a good vehicle for him, although a little too predictable and the gobs of blood that gushed in slow motion at the end were a bit over-the-top. And the bad guys killed the family dog, which was really unnecessary. They could have offed either one of the obnoxious teenage girls, both of whom were less sympathetic characters than the beagle.