Month: March 2026

Always Have a Ticket From The Airline Flying the Plane

by

There are some travel lessons you only learn the hard way, like never packing a full bottle of shampoo in your carry-on, or trusting that a “short layover in Paris” (or worse, thinking you can sprint between Terminal A and Terminal D in Atlanta) will actually go smoothly.

But the one lesson that’s stuck with me through years of work trips and personal travel is this: always have a ticket from the airline flying the plane.

If the aircraft says Virgin Atlantic on the side, buy your ticket from Virgin Atlantic, not from Delta, not from Air France, not from whoever happens to be codesharing that day.

I learned this the hard way, a few times.

Once, I booked a Virgin Atlantic ticket from London to New York. Except it was actually an Air France-operated flight. I didn’t think much of it at the time. A plane’s a plane, right? Wrong.

Everything was fine until the airline changed the flight with a new time, new number, the usual shuffle. Our assigned seats (carefully picked because, you know, kids) vanished.

I logged into Virgin Atlantic’s website to reselect our seats, only to find that Virgin politely told me to contact Air France. Air France, to their credit, were actually very helpful, they just couldn’t do what I needed. The systems didn’t talk to each other properly, and no one could fix it. Since the schedule change was on their end, I had the option to cancel, which I eventually did. I rebooked with my lesson learned and, thankfully, no price change.

Fast forward a bit and you’d think I would’ve remembered that rule. But no.

This time I had a Delta ticket for a Virgin Atlantic flight. Thanks to my American Express Platinum card, I should’ve had access to the Delta lounge. When I showed up, they told me I wasn’t eligible because the flight was operated by Virgin, not Delta. Same metal, wrong ticket. No lounge.

It’s one of those maddeningly small distinctions that make perfect sense to no one but airline lawyers.

From now on, I’m sticking to my own rule: always have a ticket from the airline flying the plane. If you don’t, be ready for drama.

I wrote this late last year. It appropriately is posting while the girls and I are on a plane off on a holiday. And yes I have learned my lesson it’s the same airline flying the plane that is on our tickets.

Two Decades and Change

by

23 years in and I’m still doing this.

I’ve taken breaks. I’ve also posted several times in a single day. It’s been wildly inconsistent at points. But here we are, two-plus decades later, and I haven’t quit.

At some point I got into a rhythm of writing a bunch of posts at once and scheduling them out. Which means I’m not burning myself out trying to come up with something every day, but the blog keeps moving. Turns out that’s a sustainable approach. Only took me about 20 years to land on it.

The thing that gets me is this: if my blog were a person, it would be old enough to drink. Here in the UK, at least. It still couldn’t get a discounted car insurance rate though. That doesn’t kick in until 25. So it’s got a couple more years before it’s truly sorted.

I’ll take it.

Photo montage of the blog theme over the years. I didn’t realise I had taken so may screen captures. The bright orange profile was very early on in 2003.

WAY BACK MACHINE SNAPSHOT
My blog theme before I changed it, again
WAY BACK MACHINE CAPTURE
My first wordpress theme.

The One Where I Was Terrible at Football

by

Both of my girls are playing football now. A started last year, and this summer, T decided to join too. I suspect the end of season party had something to do with her sudden interest. But whatever works.

One of my earliest memories is going to play football. Yes, football, not soccer. I live in England now, so we are doing this properly. My dad used to take me to these fields right off the Grand Central Parkway in Queens, near Little Neck Parkway. I can still picture them, green spaces right by the highway where you could literally see the games as you drove past.

My first team was the Blue team. I remember the jerseys, the cover photo is me standing around during a game or a practice.. Playing was my dad trying to get me into sports. Spoiler: it did not really stick.

I did play for years, probably until I was around eleven. I never had a real knack for it. My mom likes to tell people I was terrible, and she is not wrong. I daydreamed. I lost track of the ball. I think I spent half my time wondering when the snacks were coming.

At one point, my dad started helping coach my team. Then eventually, I think he was the coach. It is funny to look back now, because some of my best childhood memories connect to those seasons, even if I was daydreaming while everyone else actually played the game.

Football also shaped little corners of our family life in unexpected ways. For example, the beach club we joined later was connected to one of my coaches. A whole chapter of my childhood followed from those football years: summers, cabanas, the smell of sunscreen and chlorine.

I played both outdoor and indoor football growing up. The indoor version was wild. No outs, no throw ins, the ball just bounced off walls like some kind of playground pinball machine. Here in England, the kids play outdoors year round unless the ground freezes solid or turns into a swamp. They have trained in rain, cold, wind, everything.

I love it. Watching them do something I did as a kid but better feels oddly full circle. I never pushed them to start early, but I am glad they found a girls club where they feel at home.

My bar was pretty low, to be fair. So the good news is, they have already cleared it.

3000 Days

by

I’ve known for a while what I wanted to write about today.

When I wrote the December 29th post about our England anniversary, I did what I always do: calculated the number of days since we moved. It’s become a thing. I like the number. It feels more concrete than just saying “seven years” or whatever.

This past December the number was creeping up toward 3,000. Which made me curious. So I did the math. When exactly would we hit 3,000 days?

I cannot make this up.

Today. My birthday. March 16, 2026 is exactly 3,000 days since we landed in England back in 2017.

I find that unreasonably satisfying.

Not a ton else to report on the birthday front. But honestly, that little numerical coincidence is enough. Some years you get a big revelation. This year I got a very pleasing number, and I’ll take it.

No fancy cake for me this year, M and I are going out but the photos are a montage of my favourite cakes M has made for me to date. The best so far would not be one for me though!

The Uncle Michael Turkey

by

After my brother in law, Michael, passed away, I wrote down a few small stories about him. Not the big ones. Just the ones that made me smile when I thought about them. This is the first.

We were at my sister’s place after the funeral, when M told this story. When the kids were little, they used to do the usual school projects. One year, A made one of those classic hand turkeys. You trace your hand, turn it into a turkey, and on each finger you write something important to you.

On most of the fingers, she put exactly what you would expect from a three or four year old. Family. Home. Simple, generic things.

But on one of the fingers, she wrote “Uncle Michael.”

That was it. No other specific people. No friends. No teachers. Just Uncle Michael, singled out and given his own finger on the turkey.

Even back then, he just had that way with kids. They were drawn to him immediately. He did not try very hard. He did not need to. They just liked him.

What struck me was realizing how few people knew the story. When we mentioned it, my mom was surprised she had never heard it before. Somehow it had just stayed with us.

It feels like such a small thing. A hand turkey from a preschool classroom. But it says a lot.

Some people leave impressions without even realizing they are doing it. Michael was one of those people.

No photo of the turkey I am afraid. its in storage after thanksgiving and I am not going to hunt for it!

The Slow Goodbye to My Sony Alpha 6000

by

When A was around four or five months old back in 2014, I finally went out and bought myself a Sony Alpha 6000. I keep calling it the 8000 in my head, but I am pretty sure it was the 6000. A mirrorless camera. Lightweight compared to the big DSLRs. And honestly, I loved that thing from the moment I took it out of the box.

I had been thinking about buying a “real” camera for a long time, probably since right around when T was born. We had those little point and shoot cameras back then, the kind you take on dates, vacations, and early married life. They were fine as long as the baby was not moving very fast, which babies do not for the first while. Slow focus, mediocre quality, but acceptable.

Eventually we drifted into using our phones. M held on to her BlackBerry camera longer than I ever wanted her to, and I tried to convince her to switch to an iPhone sooner, but that is a whole separate story. Either way, point and shoots faded out, and phone cameras took over. By the time A arrived, I was completely reliant on my phone for photos.

I know this because so many of those early pictures of her are grainy. Not unusable, but definitely early smartphone camera quality. Ten years ago, that was just how phone photos looked. They were fine, but nowhere near what a proper camera could do.

And then I bought the Sony. You can basically see the day it entered our lives just by scrolling the photo library. Everything suddenly goes from grainy baby in poor lighting to “wow, that looks like an actual photograph.” It was night and day.

I did not use the Sony all the time, but when we went to the park, to a family outing, or on a holiday, it came with me. That camera could shoot thirteen frames a second, which blew my mind. Hold down the shutter and it would just fire off shot after shot until the buffer filled. If the kids were jumping off a diving board, I would get every moment of the arc from takeoff to splash. It was incredible.

And the thing is, it is still an incredible camera. It works perfectly. The only thing it really lacks is built in GPS or any sort of modern connectivity. Even back then Sony sold an add on for that, but I never bought it. Aside from that, I truly have no complaints. It is a fantastic piece of kit.

But I do not use it anymore. Hardly ever.

Even though it is mirrorless and not some heavy DSLR monster, it is still extra weight. Unless I am going to a recital or a school performance or sports day, I just do not bring it. On those special occasions it shines. I get great photos. I am always glad I brought it.

But for everything else, holidays, day trips, everyday moments, I just use my iPhone.

The newer iPhones have such good cameras now. The optical zoom is surprisingly decent, the quick capture is good enough, and while it will never match a thirteen frames per second burst, it gets the job done. And more importantly, the phone is always with me. It used to be that the phone camera was “fine.” Now it is genuinely impressive for pretty much all normal everyday photos.

So the Sony sits around. I take it out a few times a year, but that is about it.

Part of me would love to upgrade it someday, mostly for the built in GPS so I could easily geotag everything. I still tag my photos manually because I like knowing where pictures were taken, but upgrading to a whole new camera just to avoid that step does not make sense.

And as much as it pains me to say it, I do not think I will ever buy another dedicated camera. Not because they are not wonderful, but because I do not want to carry one. Convenience wins. Even over something as genuinely enjoyable and high quality as that Sony Alpha.

It is a little sad, but it is also just reality. The best camera is the one you are willing to carry, and these days, that is my phone.