All the whisky and cookies 50,000 airline miles can buy!

I really wanted to take pictures of the takeoff from Baltimore but after seeing all the TSA people in the concourse I thought the better of it. The south indian flight attendant seemed stern and short (both in height and demeanor) so the risk just wasn't worth it.

Taking off from Baltimore I looked out the window at the airport and the planes going by and I thought about the last time I was on a plane involved with a trip to Chile. That would be when I came back to the states in November 2003. My son was sitting in the window seat next to me looking out at all the planes and hangars and tower and trucks. He ecstatically counted them all, once we were in the air he would do the same with pools he saw until finally we were in the clouds. He looked out the window the whole trip.

The window seat was empty on this flight. I sat alone missing K-dude, finally risking taking pictures for him after we reached crusing altitude.

Until today I never met a south indian with a southern drawl (think Birmingham not Bangalore). Somehow that changed my whole impression of her. Her lilting voice offered me whisky and shortbread cookies, which is apparently a very good combination, even if it is Dewar's White Label.

The last time I drank Dewar's was when my friends came over to my house after I was laid off from AOL and they brought a liter. It tasted better this time, as I drank it I thought back over the past three years and am pleased with the progress that I have serendipitously made towards my goals.

* I effectively doubled my salary (even if I just quit my job)
* I'm halfway through law school
* I have four cute kids
* I'm learning Spanish and heading to Chile to boot to get law school credit!

On top of that I just developed a good buzz, and a new fetish for south asian women with southern accents. Outside of missing my family, life is pretty good right now.

As we landed I foolishly tried to take a few more pictures of the thunderheads over St. Pete.

None of them came out well. Then I tried to take some of Miami. Pictures of things far away are like predicting the future. Very rarely are they clear and often they come out differently than you would expect.