Okay, this is weird. A consultant for my corporate client has gone missing. We didn’t book his travel, so we don’t have access to his records, so we don’t know if he’s checked in for his flight home today. The office where he was consulting has mobilized to try to find him; apparently he had a problem all week with finding his way around and kept getting hopelessly lost. Someone was to lead him to the airport earlier this morning, but he took off on his own without waiting for her, and hasn’t been heard from. Hasn’t returned his rental…

5 years ago, the skies over America were silent – no commercial flights, no private planes, and nothing flying other than birds and the occasional jet fighter on patrol over major cities like Chicago. I will never forget the leaden feeling of dread and grief that I carried around with me those first few days and weeks. During the nation-wide “flight hold,” it was hard to sleep at night, because the familiar roar of jets overhead on their way into and out of O’Hare was absent. The lack of something that I had previously found mildly annoying made for long,…

Woke up to this morning’s news about the foiled plot in Britain to combine benign substances smuggled aboard at least 8 aircraft flying between London and the US and cause a series of catastrophic explosions. I heard the original live press conference with Chertoff, now I’m listening to Torturer-General Alberto Gonzalez following up on National Public Radio… I predict that very soon there will be some further erosion of civil rights, because it’s odd to me that a country’s atttorney general being prepped and primed to speak so soon after a major news break of this nature. It just feels…

Ball Park Franks. Be Big. Be Meaty. Be Frank. Oh, yes. We had some sort of “agent appreciation” event here at the office, involving the wearing of Cubs shirts and the eating of hot dogs. The team leaders sent of their number – who happened to be male – to Costco to get the supplies. No one thought to question the cost until at the end of the day, the number of unopened packages was totalled up. The men were told to purchase about 200 dogs, total. At Costco, they bought 5 cases. On the front of each case, it…

EU court voids pact on data on passengers – Business – International Herald Tribune The European Union’s highest court ruled Tuesday that an EU-U.S. deal on passenger data was illegal, saying it did not provide adequate privacy protection for European travelers. The trans-Atlantic agreement compels European airlines to turn over 34 pieces of information about each passenger – including name, address and credit card details – within 15 minutes of departure for the United States. Washington maintains that the information is vital to combat terrorism, and it has warned that airlines will face fines and a loss of landing rights…

Unlike ***Dave, we had a ton of young visitors today for Take Your Progeny To Work Day. They started out being taken around on a tour to meet all the team leaders, and then they were in various activities all day. Toward the latter part of the afternoon, however, the rot set in. Their minders had other duties and tasks that needed attention, and eventually most of the boys ended up in the break rooms watching cartoons, while most of the girls wandered back and forth between whereever the activity room was and their mothers’ desks. Can’t help but wonder…