Airline international flight bookings

It surprises me that, after so many years, the median airline website remains fairly dreadful, it's not as if people with multiple citizenships are rare. This time it was American who failed to impress. In trying to buy my ticket for returning to Scotland, of course it still does not allow me to input multiple passports so it can figure what I can do with that combination. If I am lucky, I can pick the right one to get through their silly checks.

This time, again, I guessed wrongly. I thought, as the trip is one-way to the UK, if I provide my US passport then they might worry about my right of abode. So, I provided my UK passport and, bizarrely, it fussed greatly and irrelevantly about my right to enter the US. Entering my UK passport worked fine. But, really, this is not that difficult to get right: allow entry of multiple passports and flag only stuff that would be flagged with all of them.

It is thus typically the case that I have to check in in person. Sometimes that's also a matter of my guessing the correct passport, perhaps the opposite for check-in than I used for booking.

Sentimental about inanimate objects

Paying over $5/lb to ship items back to an already furnished apartment makes one reevaluate their importance. There are things I've held on to for over twenty-five years that I've now disposed of. Admittedly, one of the items that I'm sadder to give away is my poker chips but, well, the metal cores make them heavy. It was also sad to say goodbye to my car. It is nothing special, a 2016 Kia Rio5 EX, but it has served me well and I have spent plenty of time with it. Since selling it, I drive a rental that I will return to the airport as I leave the country. I held on to the battered wooden chest that my grandfather used in his military career and to the landscape that his friend painted, I wish I knew more of the story there, the mists of time swallow so much that once mattered. I'll give away the television I've happily used for maybe fifteen years, the new apartment already has one but, again, it matters to me that it was a pleasure to use. I am also giving away books ranging from technical texts like The Art of Electronics, Mathematical Illustrations, and my vector calculus textbook, to even the large children's Bible I had when I was small.