Up and at 'em!

The alarm woke me just a few minutes ago, the first time this has happened since my return (I've managed to wake up in front of the alarm, on days when I felt it necessary to set it). There's nothing earth-shattering in the email (thank goodness), or in the phone queue (ditto).

Dinner last night was very pleasant. One thing I have a hard time getting used to is all the people that stop by the table to say hi to the kids and Galina (they're at the store all the time, and the folks stopping are customers). Mind you, I am not complaining, just making an observation. I think it's actually one of the really cool things about living in a small town.

Everything has been - I hope - packed. I am ready.

Cheers...

At Denver...

The flight from Durango left on time today, and I noticed that the equipment had "United Airlines" painted on the fuselage, and not "Mesa Airways" (or whatever they call themselves). The flight was pretty full, and it seemed to me the TSA folks were a little bit more vigilant than usual, or perhaps that is just my perception.

Not having to rush from one end of the airport to the other here in Denver has allowed me to do a little window shopping - I can't imaging buying any of the stuff on sale here, except perhaps for food. (Then again, prices in the States - especially for books - fall dramatically short of prices I've seen in Europe.) I've even found a place on what I think of as the "second floor," where I can plug in my laptop and go online for a reasonable fee (much lower than the $15.00/hr charged by the kiosks downstairs with the designed-for-use-by-chimps keyboards).

My weight, as shown on the scales in the bathroom this morning, was 218, and reflects a number that's been fairly consistently below 220 for the past few days. One of the side effects of having recorded my weight on a white board I mounted in the bathroom is the ability to definitively state that I weigh 10 pounds less today than I did at the end of May (using the same scales). At this point, 200 by the New Year seems eminently attainable (ceteris paribus).

The uniformity (or lack thereof) of scale readings is a curious consideration, as my home scales seem to read about 5 to 7 pounds below what's indicated on the scales at the doctor's office in Durango, and heaven knows to what beat of what drummer march the scales in Baikonur! (I'm going to assume I'm going to maintain my recent momentum and stay a pound or two below 220 until I get to the Fili, and then see what we can see.)

In just a little while, I'm to catch a flight out of here to Dulles, where I am told we will deplane and board a different piece of equipment that, in turn, will fly to Frankfurt with the same flight number. I am sure there is a good reason for this, and am buoyed by the "same flight number" thing; it makes this less of a "connection," which are prone to being missed if the incoming flight is late. I shall endeavor to simply enjoy the ride.

On to cultural matters: Since wheels-up this morning, I've read about half of Beyond Recognition, an investigative potboiler by one Ridley Pearson. Obviously, he's keeping me turning pages. I am a bit discouraged as to what I might do for the rest of the trip once I finish this book, as this was the only suitable (unread, compact, thick, fiction) book I could find during my frantic efforts to pack last night, and I've found nothing appealing in the bookstore downstairs.

Then again, maybe packing was not so frantic. Last night, Galina and I watched Vivement Dimanche!, a 1983 film by François Truffaut (released as Confidentially Yours). Put it down to my need to hear spoken French.

Actually, we've been watching a lot of French films lately. Two nights ago, we watched a curious French thriller by Jérôme Salle, titled Anthony Zimmer (known in Russia as Неуловимый, a word meaning "one who is elusive," or perhaps, "uncatchable") that actually had me guessing until the very last minute... although I must confess, I am one of the world's most gullible people in this regard. Three nights ago, Galina and I watched Michel Blanc's Embrassez qui vous voudrez, and while I learned a few new words and had a couple of laughs (there were only two), even the usually marvelous Charlotte Rampling wasn't enough to salvage the film for me. (Though I did quite a bit of French/English/Russian interpretation during both movies!)

I'm off again to check e-mail and do a little more surfing and let my battery charge level get closer to 100% before packing up and meandering over to the departure gate. One of the ways I plan to kill time during the transatlantic leg of my voyage is to edit the OCR of the dictionary scan I completed last night, and I suspect it won't be a one-session editing job.

The layover at Frankfurt is supposed to be less than 2 hours, so it's likely my next rock will be thrown from Moscow. Write if you get work.

Cheers...