8:30 am Tampa International Airport... Once again sitting on a big jet airplane... Headed back to San Mateo for a few days...

Dad is still alive, surprisingly so for a dead man... I expect him be there when I return in a few days... He tells visitors that his Dr told him he was dead, but his body didn't know it yet... I think I was there, and that isn't what the Dr. said, but in many ways it is an accurate description of his condition. In the mean time, he is at home in his own room... Watching his pigeons, greeting visitors, some of whom bring pigeons to show him, for him to handle...

Dan is taking care of dad... Giving him his meds, keeping him clean... Dan is has taken responsibility of one of the lofts, now his loft... He is thinking he might like to try racing pigeons... Dan would like to buy the house and live there.

Meanwhile we are working at selling some of the birds... This requires pedigrees, photos, and a history of races and awards won, and any notable offspring... and there records as well.

There is a pretty good computerized family tree... Racing records, since 1994 or so are mostly on line... And we have paper records, race reports, copies of racing pigeon Digests... It's a research project. I am a historian, a trained researcher this I understand... So I research and write the record of awards and progeny, track the other documents and send them off to IPigeon.com. A friend has set up a photo studio in the garage... Dan herds photos and runs the pedigrees. Friends bring birds from the loft... Then off to the garage to be photographed. Dad tells us which bird to do next...

There technology involved... There are three computers... Mom's old desk top... My lap top, Dan's laptop... A wireless network... Two IPads... We have the loft management database on the cloud... I set up a dropbox... We have a Gmail address for the project... We are connected. I believe that I can continue to write up histories while away...

Beyond the process it is a shared activity... Something to do when you are dead and waiting for your body to figure it out... We needed a project to pass the time... It is not simple to die... There is no instruction manual for the soon to be dead...

Back to the journey...

Southwest did a bit better today... But there was still a 19 minute wait for the now dreaded "express baggage check"... They have 4 "express baggage check" stations, but only 2 were turned on... until My turn came... Only then did they turn the third and fourth machine on...

On to security which was more crowded than usual... I was awarded the dubIous pleaser of the full body scan.... I wonder when TSA will start billing our medical insurance providers for the scan...

Leaving security, I found an "IT".... a lone chair... A very institutional lone chair... Lone chair surrender by 4 stations and 4 sections of that wonderful blue venal clad rope used to direct crowds in places like airports and such... There in the middle of the small square area sat said chair... All by itself... With permission of a TSA agent (after all this was still "Security" and photos are prohibited in the security area) a picture of the lone chair was taken... From said agent I learned that it was known as the "penalty box" and I can only assume you really didn't want to be given a chance to use it... I prefer to think of it as the “chair of shame”…

I found a "Departure Board" found my gate number, found my gate, or did I?... The sign at the gate desk said "Austin" while I was headed for San Diego, there to change planes for SFO and home. While I am quite sure Austin is a wonder place it was not where I was planning to go on thus fine day... A quick check of the flight number on my boarding pass (to San Diego) and that associated with the Austin flight showed them to be one and the same... I guess I am visiting The Republic of Texas on this fine June day. I confirmed I had found my flight, then found a seat, took out the computer, and checked my email... Eventually, they announced my flight to Austin would begin boarding (not "Flight 3495 for Austin, continuing to San Diego"... Just simply "Austin")... I lined up with my new best friends in the "A 40-45" group, surrendered my boarding pass and made my way down the jet-way to the airplane...

I found a window seat on the right (north side, west bound) and settled in... Book, IPad and neck pillow close at hand...

Once aboard, we took off southward, over Tampa bay, slowly turning westward, over Clearwater, over the Gulf of Mexico... Headed for Texas.. (and if I am lucky, on to San Diego)

Open note to anyone from Southwest Airlines who might read this... You really need to list both (all) of the cities that any given flight is visiting... It is confusing when I am holding a boarding pass that says San Diego, and the sign says Austin... I fly (too) often, and know to check my boarding pass… but many others don’t and are confused…

Now over the mouth of the Mississippi... Brown water meeting blue... The river is clearly high... Much of the land below is covered with water... New Orleans lies out of sight to the north... On the IPad, Shawn Mullins is singing "House of the Rising Sun" ... He recorded it 5 years ago in a studio in the 9th ward just before Katrina... Today when visiting New Orleans you can take a Katrina tour, to the 9th ward, and see the house, still derelict, and the vacant lots where houses used to sit...

Today much of Cajun country below is covered with muddy brown water... From 30,000' it is hard to say what is swamp, what is dry land, and what should be dry land, now inundated. Our flight path is taking us along the gulf coast... Where the muddy brown waters are mixing with the blue of the gulf in grey green swirls...

About the time we cross the coast near Lake Charles I take a nap, awaking over the Texas Hill country, on approach to Austin... We land, people get off, we, those who thought this was a San Diego flight are counted... Then more passenger join us... Passengers who presumably thought (presumably correctly) that this is a San Diego flight...

It turns out that today, June 18th is Southwest's 40th birthday.. This might explain the balloons I saw at Tampa while waiting in the "Express Baggage check" line. Happy Birthday SWA.

Back in the air, above 10,000'... IPad back on... Outside, below, the landscape is fast changing... We are headed fast into the arid west... Across West Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona... The land below is fast changing from green brown...

People are looking intently out the windows... Looking for smoke from the Arizona forest fire... It's been burning for more than a week and is still not controlled.. There is haze, getting heavier as we fly west... We are likely over New Mexico by now... Is it smoke, or just clouds? The now dirty yellow haze is making the desert landscape look even more dry and bleak... Now broken by a river valley and irrigated fields... Most likely the Rio Grande...

I nap awaking as we pass the Salton Sea... 15 minutes later we are on the ground... 10 minutes later I find myself in line for the connection to SFO... I make those quick phone calls, then power the phone down for the flight... We are now just off the coast, northward bound... Catalina island of 26 miles across the sea fame below...

I will arrive home in early afternoon... Giving me a bit of time to acclimate to home before work tomorrow... I will get in three days of work or so... then, again, back aboard a big jet airplane and head back, back east to Florida...