EppsNet

My boss is vacationing in Cabo San Lucas next week. With all the Mexican killings in the news recently, I hope he got a good deal on the room.

¡Olé!

My dad was telling me about a recent trip he took to the wilds of Ecuador. From the airport, it was a three-hour truck ride, followed by two hours in a motorized canoe to get to the lodge he was staying at.

“That doesn’t sound good,” I said. “What if you have a medical emergency?”

“There’s a shaman at the village,” he said. “And what the shamans do is they take peyote or whatever the local hallucinogen is, they hallucinate about a drug, then they go into the forest, come back with the drug and give it to you.”

“Are they board certified?”

“No. And the other thing they do is they blow smoke on you.”

“I hate that. What kind of smoke is it?”

“I think the guy has a pack of Marlboros. But if you have a heart attack or something, that’s all you’re gonna get.”

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — Iran confirmed Tuesday the arrest of three American hikers who crossed into the country from neighboring Iraq and said they have been charged with “illegal entry,” a semi-official news agency reported.

— Iran confirms U.S. hikers arrested for ‘illegal entry’ – CNN.com

When you hear about people doing something pointless and stupid — and not just pointless and stupid but elaborately pointless and stupid — like traveling halfway around the world to take a frigging hike along the border of a totalitarian regime that hates Americans, don’t you secretly hope that something bad will happen to them?

So do I . . .

• Judgmental people suck #
• My 16yo son's visiting cousins in Australia. He tells his mom to stop calling every day. “People will think I’m a baby.” #

• A Lesson in Mystique: http://bit.ly/p0zCr #
• Called my boy to say Happy Birthday. It's not till tomorrow but he's in Australia, where it's already tomorrow. #

I called my son to wish him a Happy 16th Birthday. His birthday is actually tomorrow but he’s in Australia visiting his cousins for a couple of weeks and in Australia, it’s tomorrow already.

When I called, he was at a train station with his cousin Lizzie — well, I’ve always called her Lizzie but she’s 19 now and may prefer Liz. They were waiting for the train to go to Bondi Beach for the day.

Happy birthday kid. Miss you . . .

Our son’s flying to Australia for a couple weeks to visit his cousins . . .

I’m talking to people at LAX in a fake Australian accent. My Australian accent is not all that tight except on words with a long “a” sound, which I replace with a long “i” sound, e.g., “mate” becomes “mite.”

“Sorry, mite,” I say, as I roll a suitcase over a gentleman’s foot.

“Did you just say what I thought you said?” my son asks.

“When you travel,” I explain, “you can be a whole different person.”

We take the bags over to the baggage scanner. I know we don’t have to wait for them but since “wait” has a long “a” sound, I ask the woman, “Do I ‘ave to white?”

“No,” she says.

“Jus’ drope i’ oaf then?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says.

We’re dropping our 15-year-old son off at LAX. He’s flying to Australia for a couple weeks to visit his cousins.

He’s explaining his theory of international cuisine, which is that there’s not going to be any Mexican food in Australia because there are no Mexicans in Australia. On the other hand, they probably have New Zealand food that those of us in the States have never heard about.

“That’s why it’s important to travel,” I say, “so you can learn about things like that. Or you could just stay home and watch the Travel Channel.”

Flying back to California from the east coast, I sat next to one of about 60 kids coming back from a three-week tour of Europe to celebrate their graduation from an Orange County high school.

“You guys must be rich,” I said to her, “traveling around Europe for three weeks.”

“We’re on the low end of wealthy,” she said. She put her hand out in front of her, palm down — not too high — to indicate her standing on the wealth ladder.

• Something I didn't know: Leave Sydney at 10 a.m., arrive at LAX at 6 a.m. — on the same day! It's like going back in time! #

To fly is the opposite of traveling: you cross a gap in space, you vanish into the void, you accept not being in any place for a duration that is itself a kind of void in time; then you reappear, in a place and in a moment with no relation to the where and when in which you vanished.

— Italo Calvino, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler

Make them pay for two seats. If they’re in a middle seat, make them pay for three seats.

Then let other passengers have those seats for free if they want them, keeping in mind that the fat guy is going to spill over into your seat, invading your personal space, pinning you in awkward positions and stabbing you with his bristling arm hair.

He may even listen to music on his iPod and do a little fat man dance in his — and your — seat, wobbling around like fat hairy jello.

But you’re flying for free! You still want it?

Here’s something I didn’t know: If you fly straight from Sydney to Los Angeles, you arrive before you left!

I’m looking at an itinerary here . . . leaving Sydney at 10 a.m., arriving at LAX at 6 a.m. — on the same day! It’s like going back in time!

Our flight out of Buffalo was delayed by gusty winds so we ducked into Anchor Bar at the airport for an order of buffalo wings. The Anchor Bar wings come with five sauce options: mild, medium, hot, spicy bar-b-que or suicidal.

I asked the waitress, “The ’suicidal’ wings — who’s responsible if they result in my actual death?”

“Oh they’re not like that,” she said. “There’s other places in Buffalo that serve wings a lot hotter. Oh my gosh, if you actually died?“

“You could use that in your advertising: ‘A guy actually died eating these wings!’”

“I’ll keep the defibrillator handy.”

We gave the suicidal wings their day in court. We liked them. Like the waitress said, they actually weren’t as hot as the wings I’ve had at some other places, despite the small kernels of red and black pepper that are actually in the sauce and on the wings.

My pulse and respiration may have been slightly elevated but not to a life-threatening level . . .

After a visit to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, we stopped by a Subway where an Asian woman with a strange accent made our sandwiches.

“Have you been to the Hockey Hall of Fame up the street there?” I asked her.

No answer.

“It’s great!” I said. “We came all the way from California to see it.”

“I came from Buffalo,” she said.

“Really? Where’d you come from before Buffalo?” I asked.

“I saw Niagara Falls,” she said.

As we’re waiting for the plane to leave the gate, my son’s looking over the airline safety brochure, which shows multiple scenarios of people sliding to safety out of a downed plane — onto grass, into water, etc.

He says, “None of these things is going to work if the plane is going–” here he makes a plummeting motion with his hand, along with a plummeting sound effect.

“The plane is on the ground in those pictures,” I say. “You’re not supposed to slide out of the plane while it’s still in the air.”

“I know. I’m saying there’s no solution if the plane actually crashes.”

“That’s right. Do you want to get off?”

My owner and his boy are back! I am so happy!

My owner’s wife let me sleep on the bed while they were gone. Usually I sleep on my own bed downstairs. When someone says, “Lightning, go nite-nite,” I used to go and lie down on my bed. But now when someone says, “Go nite-nite,” I run upstairs to the bedroom. I’m a fast learner!

I sniffed my owner’s clothes when he was gone because it made it seem like he was close by. And I went into the boy’s room sometimes to see if he was back yet.

I’m going to be an extra good dog so they won’t go away any more . . .

— Lightning

Our hotel room in Canada had a king-size bed, which I slept on, and a pull-out sofa that my son slept on. The first night we were there, I picked out my side of the bed and went to sleep.

It wasn’t until the second night that it occurred to me: Hey I could sleep right in the middle of this bed if I want to! There’s nobody else in it!

“I still slept on my side of the bed when you were gone,” my wife said later.

• On runway in Buffalo. Delayed by wind. Will miss connection to LA. #

• Niagara Falls is INSANE! #
• RT @paulandstorm: [P] "Listen to them. Children of the night. Christ, what a racket." #1stdraftmovielines #
• RT @paulandstorm: [P] "First rule of Fight Club is — dues must be paid by the first of every month." #1stdraftmovielines #
• RT @paulandstorm: [P] "I'm mad as hell, and I'm telling you, that's pretty damn mad. Mad, mad, mad! Hoo-boy, am I mad!" #1stdraftmovielines #
• RT @paulandstorm: [P] "He's Spartacus!" #1stdraftmovielines #
• RT @paulandstorm: "I'm sorry; did you say 'badgers' or 'badges?' Actually, we don't have either, so the point is moot." #1stdraftmovielines #
• RT @ChipChantry: "Guys, guys, time out… this boat is WAY TOO SMALL." #1stdraftmovielines #
• RT @ChipChantry: "If you build it, your wife will get angry with you." #1stdraftmovielines #
• RT @diablocody: "Make sure I get paid adequately." #1stdraftmovielines #
• Why isn't there a law against guys with sleep apnea taking redeye flights? #
• Just enjoyed a bottle of jus d'orange. That means "orange juice" in French. We're learning the language of the people up here. #