Caught up together with them in the clouds

DID YOU KNOW? The second-highest-paid woman working in television is Judge Judy.

I am sitting in the Dulles International Airport writing this via a wireless connection provided by Google, and overall this whole idea of sitting in an airport searching for free wireless is really bringing me back to my most crazy of summers as a MISTI reporter in Europe. You should go read the 200 pages I wrote about that experience.

WHOOSH!

Okay, you're back. Contrary to its name, the Dulles International Airport is not the dulles, but rather the mos interesting airport I have seen in this country. I would say that it definitely wins the award for "airport whose design was most clearly inspired by 1970's science fiction television series." Seriously, the crazy fonts advertising the airline names, metal everywhere, glass panes with random lines on them. All it's missing is some hexagons. Then in order to get to my terminal I had to step through what basically amounted to an airlock into a "mobile lounge," which was raised and lowered like a jack in order to mobilize me from security check to the terminal. It was crazy. I feel like I am in the future and the past at the same time.

Speaking of security check, the dude took a long hard look at my bag in the x-ray machine today, then asked me, "Do you have a pepper mill inside?" In fact, I did have a pepper mill inside; if you know me pretty well you probably could have guessed that. But overall I would have felt a little safer if the onus had been on me, the passenger, to provide an explanation for what was in my bag, instead of just confirming his guess.

Hokay, boarding!