Well, Mrs. Geek and I will be spending an extra day for the first time this calendar year, but for a second time in six months. We got to the airport and were told that our plane was experiencing mechanical difficulties. Though it took about 90 minutes to finally reach the ticket counter (where baggage handlers were re-booking flights), we finally got booked on planes tomorrow. The guy behind the counter re-booked me... and we don't know how Mrs. Geek got her flights booked. Her flights were already in the computer.
Perhaps it was just because of the fact that it was a holiday, but I was not impressed with the level of service in handling the problem. Air travel has become a low margin, high volume business. Customer service seems to have gone out the window... and has been replaced with automation. That's fine as long as the computers keep everything humming along ok. It can be somewhat painful when something breaks down though.
As an addendum to my last entry, I feel I must note that the St. George absinthe does contain wormwood, the classic ingredient of all American and European absinthes. The amount of the toxic substance thujone from the wormwood (the supposed cause of all that absinthe related mayhem, insanity, and death) that is left in properly made absinthe due to double distillation is so small that it is legally a false positive using modern detection methods.
I feel I should also point out that the amount of absinthe I had was small. I did try a very small amount straight, and mildly diluted with some ice... but the bulk of the two half glasses that I drank contained more than fifty percent water. Plus, the single beer and the glass of champagne that I had last night at a New Year's Eve party also set my gut to rumbling this morning. It's the alcohol, not the absinthe, that is aggravating whatever illness that resides in my abdomen.
said drgeek
on 2008-01-01 at 5:27 p.m.
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