The new Anita Blake novel, Micah, is available. I saw it in the airport and I must say I was disappointed in the packaging. If you are used to Laurrell Hamilton's books, they are normally quite large. This one appeared to be medium sized, but I swear it was double spaced inside. Couple that with the short story collection she put out before Incubus Dreams and I think she is exploiting the market.

The short story in Bite was 30 pages long and you might have bought the book thinking you were getting something major about Anita. Considering that Micah is short and already #6 on some best selller list, I think either it is a short story (for what Laurrell has been writing lately) or part of a larger whole. Or perhaps it sets up Danse Macabre.

So I flew United Airlines through Denver. I'm on the return leg and I must say that as far as service goes, I haven't had an issue with them. In part I think it is due to my being an experienced traveller now - I make sure I do not get into situations where I will get upset and verbal.

But I'm not too happy with their seating. I know I get better seating on American because I have platinum status. I can normally always get exit row. With United, I couldn't even get exit row on the day of travel. You have to buy an upgrade to Economy Class Plus. On the way out, I was able to do that on the long second leg. On the first leg, I was able to just move up right after the doors closed.

But I flew United because it was $70 cheaper than Frontier and $200 cheaper than American. I've already passed that $70 in upgrades and going the extra $130 for the chance to get an upgrade to First Class doesn't seem that bad. Also, consider that the $70 is coming out of my pocket and not Sun's coffers. I'm glad to pay it - I'm 6'5" and in the standard Economy, my knees go about an inch into the seat in front of me.

Another gripe would be the bathroom situation. There were about 8 First Class passengers and 108 Coach Class passengers. There were two bathrooms on the plane and one was reserved for First Class. I understand not wanting a parade through First Class, but when we moved into a small 1 bathroom house in Sunnyvale, my then 4 year old son did some quick math and asked what was going to happen when two of us had to "Go, go!" at the same time. We laughed, said it wouldn't happen, and said he could use the portable one in an emergency. We used it a lot that year and a half.

Okay, the second leg was not as nice. I'm sure the large man next to me was nice, but he overflowed the seat.

Another factor is that I'm first to board with American and last to board with United. At first I liked this, it allowed me to take my time boarding. But that was on flights in which the overheads were not full. The stewardess also felt free to rearrange my bags to make room for someone else's roll-on (I had two smaller, and not stiff, backpacks). She could have asked who owned the bags and if there was anything fragile in them. She could have easily broken my glasses, my laptop, etc. Don't laugh, my P5020D was warped after such an experience on an American flight.

I doubt I fly United again - the savings were not real and I did not enjoy the experience.

When I first started telecommuting, I made sure that if I had a business trip that I got my son a gift. I slowly stopped doing that and only did it when I went to Connectathon. It would normally be 2 weeks away versus the normal 1 week trip. Plus I'd be next to the The Tech Museum of Innovation.

Well, Connectathon this year was held as a 1 week event. I'm on the plane back and there was some coverage of a recent animated commercial where the dad leaves the house, flies to a meeting, sits at a round table, a dragon appears, he splits the table into a shield, and then defeats the dragon. When he returns home, he gives his son a stuffed dragon toy.

And I realized that I didn't get my son anything for after this trip. Now I could scour either the Denver airport or the Tulsa airport, but I am actually bringing something back for him. Four years ago, I had to bring back something physical. Now, I can bring back myself. He has been waiting all week to play Impossible Creatures with someone. I can do that when he gets me back to the house. Other times it might be he wants someone to play Ratchet and Clank or Star Wars Battlefront II.

It doesn't matter what I do, as long as when I give him the gift of time, I also give him the gift of choice. I could say lets go out back and kick the ball back and forth. But no matter how much he would enjoy that, it would be me dictating what he was going to do. No, he wants to drive and I'm more than happy to just play.