I have been a lot of places and seen a lot of horrible traffic. Every major US city has some traffic problems due to the sheer volume of cars and trucks and things that go on the roads. But there are definitely cities worse off than others. Los Angeles is pretty much the gold standard for horrible traffic. San Francisco isn't much better. Boston has ensnared me more times than I can count. Some of the worst traffic I've ever seen was spotted as I was trying to drive into Atlanta one day. New York is an obvious target but, to me, never seems to be as bad as people think.

But, in my humble opinion, none of these cities compare to Seattle.

Seattle traffic is hellaciously bad and in a league of its own.

Most of the reason is simple geography. The bulk of Seattle is surrounded on three sides by water... Lake Washington to the East, Lake Union to the North, and Puget Sound on the West. You can't add "ring roads" around Seattle to alleviate congestion because there's no place to put them. The rest of the problem is just the sheer volume of vehicles on the road. Auto density in Seattle is absurdly high, and no matter how the city tries fix the problem, people love their cars too much to give them up.

And the problem isn't limited to Seattle, as the traffic there bleeds out into surrounding areas as people do whatever they can to avoid driving in the city.

Which makes driving to SeaTac airport a real crapshoot.

Technically, the drive takes 2-1/2 hours for me if the traffic isn't horrible. But since the traffic almost always is horrible and you never know how many times you'll have to stop for road construction, I leave anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes early. Most of the time I'm glad I did. But today the traffic was merely "bad" and not horrible at all...

18 minutes to drive 12 miles is practically lightspeed so far as Seattle traffic is concerned.

And so here I am, sitting at the airport with two hours and 45 minutes to kill before my flight. If only I had known, I would have stayed in bed an extra hour.

But you just know the day I sleep in is the day that a truckload of fish overturns on the 405 and backs up traffic for an hour.

Stupid fish.

The good news is that I have plenty of time to eat at Qdoba for breakfast. Sure the line is always long but, unlike Seattle traffic, it moves fairly quickly.

Don't press that back button... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Leaving. And so my quick trip to Tampa has ended and I'm flying home today. Early. Way too early. Because I'm just not smart enough to stop booking early flights. But at least it's ultimately my choice. I feel sorry for these puppies who didn't have a choice but to fly...

Poor pup. At least he has decent legroom.

   
• Movies. While looking for something to watch on Delta's entertainment system, I ran across THIS hot mess...

Holy shit! How messed up is that?!?

I settled for watching Veronica Mars for the fourth time...

Or I would have if I could have found the movie playing. Delta is just a big ol' tease.

   
• I'M BATMAN! Already clearing a space on my Fall schedule...

Two of my favorite things on earth are LEGO and Batman. To have them combined in something so awesome gives my life meaning.

   
• Man-ual. If you're a fan of the Iron Man movies, you NEED to get The Iron Man Manual. It's a book... but not really a book. It's meant to be a dossier prepared by Tony Stark's computerized butler, Jarvis. The result is more "scrap book" than anything else, and it's really well done. Pages have tickets, post-it notes, schematics, drawings, and other movie prop goodies pasted to them. As if that weren't enough, the book is jam-packed with info from the films, including a complete look at all the various armors...

Surprisingly good book and a must for Iron Man fans. You can get a copy here.

   
• ILLOGICAL! ILLOGICAL! Watch the video to continue... but the video cannot be loaded... but you have to load the video to continue but...

Thanks a heap, SeaTac Free WiFi!

   
And... my plane is going to be landing in a few minutes, so I'll be shutting down now.

Today was a free day to hang out with The Certifiable Princess and her husband, which is the absolute best reason to visit Tampa.

They were nice enough to take me to lunch in Tarpon Springs at Rusty Bellies, home to my favorite potato salad on earth. And what's better than a bowl of the World's Best Potato Salad?

How about TWO bowls of the World's Best Potato Salad!

It's Mr. Rusty! Who is apparently into canibalism...

Who's got crabs?

Decided to try BIRTHDAY CAKE M&M's when we stopped at a drug store. They don't have cake in them or anything, it's more like cake flavoring added to regular ol' chocolate M&M's. Not horrible, but not very exciting either...

After an afternoon of big fun at CP's granddaughter's dance recital, it was off to Ybor City for dinner and good times...

Dinner was at a terrific restaurant called "Bernini's," which featured a beautiful pizza oven...

Across the street was a bar called... wait for it... BAD MONKEY!...

They even had giant Bad Monkey Jenga...

The Red Sox were trouncing Tampa Bay, which was nice...

Then it was time to wander down 7th Avenue to see what's happening on a Saturday night. Turns out it's quite a lot.

Mr. Empanada was hoppin'...

The Columbia Restaurant with its beautiful tiles was glowing...

The rest of the evening was spent walking around and doing some window shopping...

And... that's a wrap!

Now I should probably attempt to get some sleep, seeing as how I have to get up at 4:30am o I can get to the airport for my flight home.

Blargh.

And so I flew to Tampa today.

Mostly.

But before I could catch my flights, I had to drive over the mountains, which was surprisingly un-cheery for this time of year...

Good news everyone... SeaTac International Airport has a Metsker Maps outlet! Cool!

I don't recall much about the flight to Cincinnati or my connecting flight to Tampa. I choose to believe this is a good thing. About all I remember was that it was a close connection. I landed (late) but my second flight was across the aisle, so I walked off one plane and directly on to the next.

I also remember arriving at Tampa to find a couple fighting about whether they were going to take a taxi or an airport shuttle. The wife didn't want to spend the money for a taxi. The husband didn't want to wait for the shuttle to show up. The wife announced that she doesn't like how he throws money away. The husband said that throwing money away on a trip to Florida was her idea, and he didn't complain about that.

The wife told her husband he was free to get back on the plane and go home.

Instead he made a growling noise, then hailed a taxi.

My last day in Chicago.

A pity I had to spend my entire morning working.

Well, not my entire morning. I was able to take a minute to meet with the Hot Coffee Girl herself for a meet-up at Hancock Tower. They have a new attraction called TILT! where you get to stand against a window, then be tilted at a 45° angled off the side of the building...

Not so scary as if they laid you out at a 90° angle, but still very cool.

They don't let you use a camera or a phone to take pictures... apparently they are worried about the safety of the glass (WTF?!?), but this is kinda what you see if you look straight down...

A little heart-stopping but, again, still very cool.

After checking out of my hotel and returning to work for a while, it was time to head home (with The Spirit of St. Lewis working my flight!) on a new Alaska Airlines livery for me... the Portland Timbers plane!

Layover in Portland. Layover in Seattle. A quick flight to my local airport. Then a half-hour drive home. Well, it would have been a half-hour... if not for having to wait for a stupid train.

I hate trains.

HATE them.

They always end up blocking my route no matter what time I'm trying to get somewhere... even past midnight, like tonight...

And as if that wasn't bad enough, you have to listen to their stupid-ass train whistles at all hours of the day and night.

Oh well. At least I'm home in my own bed at last.

Wish I was tired enough to fall asleep.

Today started out so badly, but ultimately ended up being a really good day.

Mostly because I got to go to a huge candy show with Jenny (of RunJenRun fame) and then drop into a sugar coma.

And because I got to make my own custom box of Tic Tacs...

I called mine GREEN PASSION... and it's a mix of Green Apple and Passion Fruit...

After work I went out for dinner and saw that Disney is pulling out all the stops to promote Angelie Jolie's Maleficent...

Trump Tower Chicago is such a pretty building. But I guess The Donald must have run out of money because only the "T" and the "R" are up on the building... and only the "R" has the lights on...

On the way back to my hotel, I spotted these two lonely Safety Men... guarding nothing...

But at least they have each other.

Which is nice, because then it started to rain.

And thunder.

And lightning.

Which made sleeping a bit of a challenge.

As if insomniacs didn't already have it bad enough.

Well today was pretty much a crap day.

In that it was a gorgeous day out and I had to stay inside working.

The only time I could escape was for a quick lunch downtown after making a trip to Dick Blick. Much to my surprise and delight, Chicago has been flooded by Pret A Manger, so I indulged in one of their Mediterranean Salad Wraps. Oh how I love Pret's fresh approach to fast food. They've only just arrived on the East Coast... but their move on Chicago has me hopeful that they'll reach Seattle eventually.

In other news that's unrelated entirely...

   
Is it just me... or is $50 a shockingly inadequate amount of money to pay for puking in somebody's taxi? It costs at least that much to take a taxi from O'Hare to the city once you add a tip! I mean, come on, if somebody puked in MY taxi? Ain't no way $50 is going to cover it. The smell alone would make me puke all over my own cab... so there's at least $100 in charges right there.

Vomiting in a Chicago taxi is such an incredible bargain so far as entertainment is concerned, that I'm almost tempted to try it. Here's hoping that if I'm drunk enough to puke in a taxi that I'm drunk enough not to feel any shame afterwards.

Because isn't that the real price you pay?

No more waiting for your ship to come in... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Blinded. This is a great story... it's short and awesome and worth your time and it has nice photos and you should read it. Sometimes things that seem irreparably broken just need a little TLC to make it through. That probably goes for people too...

   
• Blinded Deux. And I can't post that wonderful story without being reminded of this wonderful story...

Remarkable how animals can fall between the cracks like this. That probably goes for people too. Again.

   
• Movie! Just a happy reminder... The LEGO Movie will be available at the iTunes Store tomorrow...

Though I was not happy with the way they wrapped it up at the end, The LEGO Movie has still been one of the best movies this year so far.

   
• Thrice. Today was the annual board meeting for THRICE Fiction Magazine, so I packed up and headed west to the wilds of ChicagoLand Suburbia to meet with our intrepid Editor at Large, RW and his lovely wife. After much exciting talk about future plans for everybody's favorite literature magazine, we were off to Lynfred Winery for some remarkable Sangria Blanc. Which was followed by delicious possibilities for food porn at Restaurant 1913 in Roselle...

Insider Tip: The "Pizzettes" are to die for. I had the Spinach + Artichoke with Herbed Ricotta... heaven on a wooden serving board...

I dare say it's a dining experience worth the 45 minute train ride out of Chicago proper.

   
• Selfie! Alex Chacon has been living my dream... traveling the world on a motorcycle... for three years now. The video highlights he's released from his journey is the most epic selfie ever created...

You can find out a lot more about Alex's travels at his The Modern Motorcycle Diaries site.

   
And that's a wrap from beautiful Chicago!

What was supposed to be a "free day" ended up being a full-on work day from start to finish.

Which wasn't a terrible thing, because my seasonal allergies are back. The transition from Winter to Spring and Spring to Summer are always a miserable few weeks while my body adjusts to the changes. And I always seem to get nailed when I travel... I swear I could feel the assault on my eyes and sinuses the minute I stepped off the plane.

Thank heavens for Fluticasone, which at least makes it so that I can breathe.

And now, thanks to Wikipedia, I know how it's synthesized...

Or not.

But still, better living through chemistry, I always say.

My entire day was a build-up to returning to the restaurant I had eaten at last night to see if the veggie burger I had eaten was as good as I thought it had been.

Because when you've eaten the best burger you've ever had, you want to be sure, right?

Especially when you look back through your Facebook feed and see this...

And so, I went back for another late-supper veggie burger...

And it was indeed the best damn veggie burger I had ever eaten. Again.

I'm told that it's soy-based, but they add in roasted sweet red peppers, a bit of jalapeño peppers, and shredded beets (which makes the patty look blood-red when you bite into it). I still have no idea where the bun comes from... but it's got a texture that's amazing and a bit of sweetness to it.

Anyway... if you're ever in Chicago and have a hankering for a really good burger, 25 Degrees looks like it's the place! Though, fair warning, it gets really loud, as there's a bar in the middle of the room.

They also have locations in Los Angeles, Huntington Beach, and Bangkok.

But I have a feeling Chicago will always be my favorite.