Sunday

This entry is coming to you from the beautiful-beside-the-Interstate Hampton Inn in West Des Moines.  I'm working on my lobby-sitting skills while 4 is off with her friend taking inventory from a night out on the town.  Low-key activities before breaking camp for home.

The factoid of note today is that November 14th is the 5th anniversary date for 4000 Days. It's the blog that keeps on ticking!

Our Saturday activities included watching the Iowa loss at Champp's Sports Bar up at the mall, and then having dinner at the local Biaggi's which is just a few minutes from the hotel.  Bummer of a game, but not a bad place for TV viewing, and the evening meal was excellent. 4's college friend Kelsey joined us for both places.

I think that this area of West DM is a textbook example of urban sprawl.  There are numerous "big box" shopping areas with lots of open space for parking, out-lot stores and restaurants.  Many new housing tracts, wide streets and access roads.  Not sure if it's a bad thing.  Demanded?  Don't know.  Best design?  I'm guessing not, but why conserve when there's so much open space to access?

So what's the sentiment among the peanut gallery with the use of full-body-scans by the TSA at airports?  I had my first experience with one at the Corpus Christi airport on my return from Texas last month.  I wasn't sure what was going on until they had me get rid of "everything" in my pockets, and then enter the booth-like thing, face the one side and extend my hands over my head.  Like I was being X-rayed.  Which I was.  Osama has won the battle of, "Let's make the infidels spend billions on airport security!"

They're promoting pretty heavily the new Denzel Washington movie, Unstoppable.  I'm not a huge Denzel fan, but the guy has made some movies.  For quite a while.  We caught the end of The Pelican Brief last night before din-din, which is now almost 20 years old.  But isn't Unstoppable just a rehash of Speed and maybe Under Siege II, flicks starring acting greats Keanu Reeves and Steven Seagal respectively?  And Hollywood wants to criticize Washington DC for lack of creativity?

4 is back so we need to get our acts together and hit the road. 

More later.

BCOT