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A Facebook friend recently posted a set of Washington DC photos. Almost all of the photos show people standing in front of easily recognizable landmarks, but all of them are dutifully captioned — White House, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, etc.

The one exception is a photo of two people in an ornate lobby with the caption: “I forget where we are here.”

TIJUANA, Mexico — The bodies of four U.S. citizens were found strangled, beaten and stabbed in a van in this border city, two days after they reportedly left their Southern California homes for a night at the Mexican clubs, U.S. officials said Thursday.

— Associated Press

I got my first passport yesterday. I can go anywhere! The world is my oyster!

Although I really don’t like to travel . . .

Some people get annoyed with me when I say that, including members of my own family. It doesn’t make sense to them. My mom, for example, has been to like 30 countries. Maybe 50, I can’t keep track.

For me, I start out thinking I’d be happier somewhere else but after I’ve spent all the time and money to get there, I realize I’m still the same person with the same problems I had at home.

Not to mention the possibility of being drugged, robbed and killed, or hit by a tsunami.

I’m not saying there’s nothing positive about travel. It’s just not worth the investment . . .

My family is back from Thailand . . .

At 6:30 this morning, I’m awakened by the dog pawing on my bedroom door. I get up to see what’s going on and find my son — who is never up at 6:30 in the morning but is still operating on Thailand time — playing a video game in the family room.

“Rise and shine, parental!” he says. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for work?”

“I was up till 1 a.m. getting you home from the airport so I was planning to sleep until 7.”

Meanwhile, the dog is trying to get someone’s attention by jumping around next to his food bowl.

“Why is he jumping around like that?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” the boy says.

“Has he eaten?”

“No.”

“Mystery solved, Encyclopedia Brown. I’m going back to bed.”

A few minutes later, the boy inexplicably shows up in my room.

“Mom,” he says, “when the clothes are done in the washer, do you just put them in the dryer?”

“Did I mention I wanted to sleep till 7?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says. “Don’t set it on High though. Set it on Normal.”

A minute later, he’s back.

“There is no Normal,” he says.

“You’re telling me,” I say.

• Experimented with the Hockneyizer.

• Added FancyZoom to the 99 Most Interesting Photos of Orange County.

Captured by pirates, you are given a choice between walking the plank or joining the crew. The crew are all Yankees fans.

 

When your luxury cruise ship, featuring Las Vegas–style live entertainment, sinks in midocean, you find yourself adrift in a lifeboat with a tiger, a chimp, and an Herbalife salesman. On the second day, the tiger and the chimp commit suicide.

— Susan Schorn, “Worse Things Happen at Sea”

ROME – Italian railway police say an American tourist was hit and killed by a train at a Rome station as he was walking on the tracks in a daze after being drugged and robbed.

Police official Giovanni Piccolantonio said Monday that 74-year-old Frank Phel from California died early Friday at the suburban Tiburtina station.

— Associated Press

Arrivederci Roma!

I recently spent a week in Florida with my son for a roller hockey tournament. We stayed at the Santa Maria Resort on Fort Myers Beach.

The place was great, like a furnished 2-bedroom apartment with a fully appointed kitchen: oven, stove, microwave, fridge, freezer, plates, bowls, pots, pans, silverware, etc. We went to the local Publix grocery the first day and stocked the place up with food and beverages.

We got all this for about $50 a night less than we would have paid for a room at, say, the Embassy Suites. And when I say “room,” I mean that usually when I travel with the boy, the hotel room is in fact a room and we’re both in it together. That’s a problem because he likes to watch TV in hotel rooms and I’d rather read a book.

But with the 2-bedroom setup — each bedroom on opposite sides of the suite, separated by the main room — I didn’t even know he was there most of the time.

Rating: Four stars (out of four).

Stoney’s Sports Cafe in Estero, Florida, has an interesting variation on the crane game. Instead of the usual collection of stuffed toys, the machine is filled with water and live lobsters. If you manage to catch one (at $2 a chance), they’ll cook it up and serve it to you.

Live by the claw, die by the claw.

One thing I learned on my recent vacation is that Florida, unlike California, doesn’t have a helmet law for motorcycles.

If you’re wondering what percentage of riders will wear a helmet for safety reasons if they’re not required to by law, the answer appears to be zero, although more than half the riders I observed did take the precautionary measure of wearing a shirt.

My son’s hockey team didn’t do so well at NARCh this time around. They got knocked out in the round-robin portion of the tournament.

That left us with some extra time on our hands, some of which we used to drive up to Tampa to watch the Angels get worked by the ordinarily hapless Devil Rays, 7-2.

We got good seats though! — right behind home plate about 10 rows up.

Completing the hat trick of futility, I arrived back in California to find that the mortgage bank I worked for had laid off 400 people, including me.

The good news is that I did get a severance package, unlike the last time I got laid off (from a dot-com company), when all I got was a handshake and an escort to the parking lot.

Oh, and I’ve got more time to read the last Harry Potter book. I’m really sick of Harry Potter but I do want to find out how the whole thing wraps up . . .

We’re off to NARCh for a week. I hope there won’t be thunderstorms every day like the last time we were there.

Let’s have a look at the 5-day . . .

Pictures from my son’s 8th grade trip to Washington, DC.

On the heels of my kid’s discovery that his tour group will not be break dancing their way across our nation’s capital, comes another disappointment — his tyrannical math teacher has been added to the list of chaperones.

“She’ll probably say, ‘Oh, Casey, I’m glad you’re here. Why don’t you calculate the volume of the White House?’”

My son’s going to Washington, DC, next week with a group from his junior high school. Once there, they’ll hook up with a group from Martin Luther King High School for a 5 day, 4 night Discover DC educational tour.

Despite the name, MLK High School is not a predominantly black school, a big disappointment to my kid, who was looking forward to his travel companions “breaking out the cardboard mats and spinning on their heads.”

I Have a Dream, indeed!

My wife is talking about the possibility of a Christmastime family trip to Thailand. She’s from Thailand, lived there through college, and still has relatives there.

I’ve never been to Thailand — I hate to travel, for one thing — but our son has been over there with her on a few occasions.

Here’s his reaction, punctuated with frantic screaming:

“AHHHHH! It’s people who can’t speak English in 170-degree heat!”

I don’t think this boy has a future as a travel agent.

“They haven’t seen you in a long time,” my wife tells him.

“Can’t we do a video conference?”