With the recent rash of “Laser painting” reports against random homeland aircraft and the worry and fret for industry economic health (panic amongst those who buy airline tickets), it was only a matter of time before they lassoed one. It is only too easy to arm oneself with one of these devices. They sell them at the Home De Pot in the shape of a carpenter’s level for less than 15. The sucker – caught – will pay a huge price as they attempt to make a poster child out of him. Nip this fad in the bud.

The traffic signals take on new definition during the evening commute. Yellow means go. Even after the light goes Salsa, this means at least one more car and usually two get through. A reprieve of sorts — No study for tonight… The verbal exam for tomorrow’s AM has been pushed back. So, after a plastic cup of draft from the lobby (comp) and a few war stories traded poolside we ventured down Red Road for heaping plates of roast pork, black beans, and rice local style.

There are 6 in our group split between two flights. 3 Budget cars. Twoguys from the first flight take one each leaving the remaining car for thefour of us and all of our gear. We looked like Americans in Panama allcrammed into our plain vanilla sedan. The local traffic are either exoticLambos, M3s with dark windows or clapped out Toyotas or Nissans somerunning without lights. I mean literally, one of them physically had noheadlights (or grill). The local roads are near capacity and just crazy.We cruise by a lifeless pedestrian crumpled where he was hit whenJ-walking. EMT enroute.

There is this need to save face, maintain personal space, or defend your right of way. At what cost? Indiana Pacers forward Ron Artest saved his honor but sacrificed a years wages — maybe his career. This guy may have been a superstar hero but now he’s reduced himself to a zero. The challenger has a whole lot less at stake. Whether it’s a Road Rage incident or a customer trying to push your button the lesson from the basketball game brawl is to just walk away.

Got ta have it. Used to be that your parental units suggested that you wait until your Birthday or Christmas, which ever came first. No instant gratification. But these days new toys are launched according to a production developer marketing timeline. Like a hot new car design or major motion picture debut there is plenty of fan fare, pre publicity, hype and a frenzy of spy photos, screenshots, trailers, leaked details and teasers. This culminates in midnight madness on the official day when you retrieve your item if you were savvy enough to advance reserve your copy of the much anticipate sought after and limited edition hard to get. Good luck urging Master Chief to have patience until his/her personal holiday.

In case your VCR fast forwards through the commercials… You may have missed these: The Business Trip Spot. Or, this one? Terminal Madness. Here’s a 60 sec. radio ad: Airport Bar.

Fixing one thing can make something else worse (If it ain’t broke don’t fix it?). B.O.U.R.Girl, in attempt to keep her car free of hair and paw prints, spread a garage blanket in the tailgate of the Pacifica so dawg could ride along. As she laid this out there sprang from the security of the folds a mighty cock-roach who stunned by the bright of day lingered for a moment and then made a bee line for the louvers of our car’s return air vent. The creature was irretrievably slurped from view to lurk from somewhere amongst the inner environmental workings. “Where does that vent go?” she asked disgustedly. “Directly to the driver’s seat!”, not resisting an obvious tease. I suppose I could have put on a proper show and emptied a can of roach motel down that vent. Too late in hind sight. That critter has surely made his way to the front vents by now.

Fearless Leader (CEO) poked his head into the crew shack to catch me totally off guard cooling my jets and immersed in a scrap of day old newspaper. “Here’s a hug” he has a bag of Hershey’s chocolate. “It’s the only one that you’ll get from me today”, he quipped. There goes my promotion… I should have been doing something useful like throwing bags or line busting rather then getting caught chewing gum.

“Bring Mr. Allen the pen !”, booms Burt Rutan across the hangar floor. The builders of Space Ship One have all signed the rocket motor fairing and Paul Allen has expressed desire to add HIS autograph. By all means! Step and fetch it. Writing checks for 20 to 30 million in private funding extends license for such a request. We’re watching Discovery Channel’s Black Sky – Race for Space and B.O.U.R.Girl observes, as the video sweeps Rutan’s busy office, an APPLE, Yep. There, spied on the designer engineer’s cluttered desktop, is an iMac. 20″ flat screen – Sweet! I guess Mr. Allen’s sway is finite.

Other than the lives ended and physical peril, what is the distinction between a Muslim fanatic — and a cyber terrorist who targets Microsoft? Both have the objective to influence those to adopt certain beliefs (as they understand them). The former, among other things, wants you to eschew Hollywood’s values and other cultural comforts intrinsic to the American Way. The latter, using tools of the hacker snipe Microsoft’s Outlook Express, Internet Explorer, and the Windows OS. One fights in the name of Allah and the other promotes the religion of Linux, Sun Micro or Open Source. Both would like to re-invent the system with the thinking that THEY know which values are best for you or I. The truth is neither computing platform is or deserves to be better or worse than the other and each is just as vulnerable. Microsoft gets targeted and we pay a defensive price for this. Next time you hear an expert recommend dumping your IE Browser for Mozilla FireFox because you’re weary from the virus and spam just realize that in so doing the bad guys score.