I don't like flying. Despite my trust in human progress and technology, no amount of self-reassurance is going to get me over the fact that I'm five frickin' miles in the air.

Today's solution to pre-flight anxiety? Same as the solution to so many other things: beer. So this post is booze-inspired (which, really, isn't that out of the ordinary). I'm on my second pint here at "Perry's," laptop in front of me, admiring the nicely lighted bottles of alcohol. This place looks like it was built in 1998 and strived, very hard, to look like an authentic bar. There are quotes about San Francisco circling the top of the walls—the same ones that are posted along the construction sites in the Embarcadero.

One day if I do go to heaven...I'll look around and say, 'It ain't bad, but it ain't San Francisco' -Herb Caen

I'll have to look up who that is when I have access to Wikipedia again.

At airports, people seem to assume I'm a young punk grad student or something. I've got a pair of business types next to me—they've got no idea what I do for a living. But he whips out his Thinkpad, so I whip out mine.

Ugh. Sales guys.

Take that, mister businessman. Pointin' your plastic finger at me... I've got a fancy laptop too.