I don’t know if this is a Marriott thing in general, or just TownePlace Suites, but the staff there have taken to the habit of asking me upon checkout, “Did you have a perfect stay”?

I never know how to respond to this question. Perfection is a platonic ideal, never to be achieved in real life–it is a goal only to be sought. To ask someone whether or not they have achieved it is to put one on the spot. I can lie, and say yes (which no doubt many do, just to get out and on their way). Or I can tell the truth, and say no, or in an attempt to avoid the quandary, to inform them that perfection isn’t possible. This doesn’t get me off the hook–the inevitable response to either of the latter is “…well, if it wasn’t perfect, what could we have done to make it perfect?”

I don’t know.

Make it so the teevee can be viewed while working on the computer? Have wine glasses? A slightly firmer bed? Protein with the overcarbed muffins in the breakfast room? A quieter room, away from the street? Move the entire hotel to the beach? Move the entire hotel to Cabo? Open bar happy hour? Hot and cold running nymphomaniacs?

It’s an unreasonable question, and whatever marketing genius came up with it should rethink it, because it’s gotten to the point of making me not want to stay there. I think the next time they ask, I’ll say, “My stay would be perfect if you wouldn’t ask me if my stay was perfect.” Ask if it was good, if it was great, if there were any problems, but please don’t place the burden of your failure to achieve the unachievable on me.

I took my daughter on an air and ground tour of New Orleans yesterday to teach her about the largest man-made disaster in the United States since Richmond was destroyed by the Union Army in the 1860s. A lot has changed since August, but much is still to do.

In my tour, I saw that there were many blue tarps dotting the city’s residential sections representing rooves that had not yet been repaired. Many swimming pools in flooded sections were still filled with filth and were completely black from the air. Some sections of town had huge trash piles in front of every house. Trash hauling continues, but my pilot said this generated 30 years worth of trash. One January estimate said extraordinary hauling will continue through Thanksgiving 2006.

Certain sections of town had indications of water levels on the walls that spoke of completely ruining first floors throughout the area. Demolition and gutting of savable structures is starting, but many buildings have not yet had their first floor material removed.

My driver told me an uncorroborated story about gang violence that was darker than the standard reports in the media. Rather than the disorganized food desperation and opportunistic looting that we were led to believe, there was a gang takeover of some buildings and some portions of the city. To stem the tide, there were mercenaries patrolling the streets that had been advised to use lethal force and had to.

The air tour company’s, Southern Seaplane’s, pilot said that they were one of very few companies doing air tours and that demand was only one or two tours a week and they spent most of their time ferrying petroleum employees. That suggests only a few hundred people have seen first hand the devastation of the wake of Hurricane Katrina and hubris. The pilot says he sees it every day and is numb to it.

For those that can’t afford a $500 air tour, there is a Gray Line bus tour for $35 called “The Hurricane Katrina Tour: America’s Worst Catastrophe”. People have mixed feelings about the tour but the plusses are it brings revenue to the city and helps witness an event that we should not try to repeat.

One thing that was particularly poignant in the air tour was the closed Jazz Land Six Flags amusement park. After the tour, my seven-year-old daughter called her Mom on my cell phone and said, “we just saw hurricane devastation, but let me tell you about the oyster shell I found”. It may take her and the nation decades to process this disaster. I am not so lucky and already get it.

Far too many people on the Internet write “dribble” when they mean “drivel.” I assume that this is because people are either mispronouncing, or they are mishearing the word, and have never seen or noticed it in print.

That is all.

For now.

…since Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley. I was doing some research in the corporate library at the Aerospace Corporation, when the librarian (who I knew) came over and told me.

…to Professor Reynolds, who has a sad explanation of why he posted nothing since before noon today. His grandmother died. It sounds like she had a good life, well lived. We should all aspire to that.

Some good tips for improving your writing.

Gerard Vanderleun writes about the decline of Florida, both the Keys and the mainland. It’s funny, as someone who is currently living here, and has never particularly liked the place, he makes it sound much worse than the reality seems to me. But then, he’s writing as someone who apparently did love it once upon a time, which I never have. I haven’t been diving down in the Keys yet (though we still plan to), but he certainly makes it sound uninviting, and I hadn’t realized that the deer were in such deep trouble.

Gerard Vanderleun writes about the decline of Florida, both the Keys and the mainland. It’s funny, as someone who is currently living here, and has never particularly liked the place, he makes it sound much worse than the reality seems to me. But then, he’s writing as someone who apparently did love it once upon a time, which I never have. I haven’t been diving down in the Keys yet (though we still plan to), but he certainly makes it sound uninviting, and I hadn’t realized that the deer were in such deep trouble.

Gerard Vanderleun writes about the decline of Florida, both the Keys and the mainland. It’s funny, as someone who is currently living here, and has never particularly liked the place, he makes it sound much worse than the reality seems to me. But then, he’s writing as someone who apparently did love it once upon a time, which I never have. I haven’t been diving down in the Keys yet (though we still plan to), but he certainly makes it sound uninviting, and I hadn’t realized that the deer were in such deep trouble.

So we decided to upgrade to the HD version of DirecTV, which involves (of course!) replacing, or at least supplementing our current satellite dish. It has a triple horn on it, and looks at three birds simultaneously, instead of just the one, as the standard dish does. This means that not only are azimuth and elevation important, but there’s a third axis adjustment, that they call “tilt,” to make sure that you’re seeing all three of them.

I put up a new mast, got it plumb, set the settings on the tilt and elevation to what they’re supposed to be for southeast Florida (45 degrees for both), hooked up the cable, pointed it in the general azimuthal direction (about thirty degrees south of west), and got nada, bupkis, no signal.

Is the cable good? Yup, and here’s the weird thing. When I drop the elevation to thirty degrees or so (fifteen below where it’s supposed to be), I get a reasonably strong signal on the upper transponders of Satellite A, starting with number 22. No signal on transponders 1 and up (which are the ones you’re supposed to use to align the dish). Also no signal on either of the other two birds.

So something’s happening, but not what should be happening. What are the chances that this is an LNB problem? The first dish I ever installed, years ago, had a bad LNB right out of the box (which drove me crazy trying to figure out what was wrong–fortunately, part of the deal was a free upgrade to a dual LNB, and when I put in the new unit, I got the signal right away).

Is there anyone out there familiar with the situation who could diagnose this, so I can just take the LNB back to Circuit City and exchange it? Or are these symptoms of something else that I’m doing wrong (though I’m wracking my brains at this point trying to figure out what else it could be).