Category Archives: Personal

Words you don't like to hear about your two-year-old central air conditioner in the middle of August in Florida:

“They've had all sorts of problems with that model. They stopped selling it.”

I'm in DC for a long weekend with family and may not post much.

It was interesting to arrive at National Airport, and be greeted by a display at the t-shirt store of a shirt that said something like, “I Love My Country, It's My Government I'm Afraid Of.”

It wasn't very pretty, but I was still tempted to buy it.

What is it about ICANN meetings and lost luggage? Last year an airline lost my luggage on my way to an ICANN meeting. And here I am, a year later, stopping off in Durham on my way to this year's nomcom session … and a different airline lost my luggage.

I should say that Lufthansa's way of dealing with it was pretty impressive. American Airlines was just short of surly at the airport, the news that there was no info in the system about where my bag was didn't give me confidence, and now, well after the next flight came in, the online service still doesn't show any info about my bag. This looks bad, doesn't it?

Update (9:15pm): “Bag Tag Number(s): RDU AA xxxxxx has arrived and has been scheduled for pickup by the delivery service on Jul 07 at 11:00 PM local time. It will be delivered to the address you provided within approximately 6 hours* of pickup time.”

I'm going to have another little burst of travel: Saturday I'll be leaving for the Durham, NC area to drop off a camper (the two-legged, not the four-wheeled, sort), Monday I'll go on to Toronto to spend a packed work-week in a room with other members of the ICANN NomCom.

The NomCom's proceedings are covered by promises of confidentiality, so I won't be blogging about them — and if the meetings run late, which they likely will, I many not be blogging about much else next week either.

After that, it's back home for the rest of the summer.

PS. No substantive posts today because I spent the WHOLE DAY in a meeting (but not about ICANN).

Flying from Istanbul to Manchester today; long frequent-flier-ticket layover until tomorrow's flight to Boston, followed by long frequent-flier-ticket layover until evening flight to Miami. Many chances to lose luggage.

This is a fascinating city, but it feels like what we saved on the tickets we pumped into the Turkish economy in other ways.

We are enjoying Istanbul. Below is the night-time view of the Blue Mosque from the far corner of the roof terrace of our hotel, which hints at the grandeur of the best of the local architecture.

Indeed, given the number of mosques near here, we are well-placed to hear the muezzins' calls.