Checking out the action...

I am, of course, biased, but I think there are few places as magical as a major airport on a clear day. I am currently at IAH, otherwise known as Bush International, watching—among other departurees—an impossibly massive hunk of iron take to a cotton-ball-spotted sky of the lightest hue of blue I think I've seen, or noticed, in some time.

Of course, by the time I finished typing that, the plane had rotated, gained some altitude, and turned out of sight to starboard—I would expect to avoid a grouping of cotton-ball clouds that had organized itself some distance off the end of the runway.

Galina and Alla dropped me off a little while back, the idea being it would be late enough to not make the wait for my flight excessively long, but early enough to give them a fighting chance to avoid the worst of the traffic that sets up soon after 3 pm or so. I hope the timing was right.

I knew an editor who swore by day-long visits to the seashore, where he would focus his eyes on the endless procession of waves, as a means of relaxing and 'recharging the batteries.'

I think the same technique can be used while sitting at an airport, watching the world fly by.

Cheers...