For our 10th wedding anniversary, Berta and I stayed over night in Philadelphia. The interesting story is less about what we actually did than what we tried to plan.

Mostly, you wouldn't call it a plan. Friday night, we dropped the kids off at Mom's then raced home to decide what to do. It was still early enough to consider flights out of Philadelphia, provided that they were late enough.

We'd been thinking about getting away for a while, specifically to exercise our passports one more time before they expire. Berta has stamps from Mexico, and I've got stamps from France, and we both have stamps and visas for India. I thought it would be nice to be "world travelers" and add another stamp to the book before it was retired.

It's kind of strange explaining these trips we take. It's like we just need to get away for a while, and it's not about being pampered or being extravagant (although the travel might seem that way), but more about just getting away from home. And so on Friday night we simply looked for a reasonably cheap flight to anywhere that wouldn't keep us away longer than the weekend. This is harder than you might think.

There aren't any places that really answer the question, "Where can I fly to from Philadelphia in the next 30 minutes?" Thinking too much about it, why would there be? Not many people plan trips like that. Usually you at least know where you want to go, or you're leaving well into the future. On the other hand, there have to be more people like us that would just like to get on a plane and go, right?

As we looked for a flight that worked, it got later, and as it got later, it came down to choosing a flight out on Saturday morning. There just wasn't enough time to get to the airport. As it turns out, the best places to look for flights when you know the origin and not the destination are the small airline sites themselves. Since the small carriers only run between certain airports, that lets you limit your options significantly.

One of the carriers we checked was Spirit Airlines. Spirit flies out of Atlantic City, and had we left in the morning, that would work out fine. We could leave really early and simply fly out, or leave Friday evening, spend the night at a hotel in Atlantic City, maybe visit a casino or two, and fly out the next morning.

I skimmed the list of destinations available from Spirit. Aruba... Atlanta... Cartegena? Ok, I gotta see this...

Keep in mind that we had spent the past hour or so looking at flights to Europe, so flying to South America had certain things against it in our minds at the onset. First, the cheapest flights to Europe were about $1300 per person. Second, there weren't any that fit our timeframe, or at least, none that would let us leave the airport after we arrived. I clicked through on Cartegena, just to see what crazy price we'd get, have a laugh, and continue down what looked to be another dead end.

Imagine my surprise when the Spirit checkout showed two (that's both) round-trip tickets to Cartegena for $1200. More than that, the flight was at 6am out of Atlantic City, and would arrive in time for lunch. Berta and I looked at each other for a bit, and looked at the itinerary in front of us, and looked back in disbelief.

I said, "Ok. What's in Cartegena, anyway?"

As it turns out, it looks like a pretty neat place. There are beaches, and what looks to be a lively old city with shops. The city is on a coastline, and was a beachhead in the early explorer days. As a result, there is a very large fort with a city inside. The hotels looked pretty extravagant for what I expected to find in South America. All of that and it's not only a different continent, but one we haven't been to yet!

So... We obviously didn't go. What stopped us? The return flight.

The flight wouldn't have gotten back to New Jersey until 11:30pm on Sunday. Then we'd have to drive back, pick up the kids and be at work the next day. That just didn't seem tenable for such a short trip.

Even after noticing the warning on the State Department site on Saturday, I think we're still interested in going. Sure, we might be kidnapped for ransom by Columbian drug cartels, or mugged while on a hike through the woods, but that could happen just about anywhere, right?

Instead, we decided to shelf the trip to Columbia for later in the year. I think we should make plans to go for a weekend. It'll be cheaper if we wait, we'll appreciate the warmth if it's cooler here, and it'll have almost as much wow factor if we do it later as if we just jumped on a jet and headed south.

This is not to say that our trip into Philly was unpleasant. Actually, that is a story all it's own.

In the Standard Hotel lobby, behind the reception area, there is a large glass enclosure. Inside the enclosure, hanging from the ceiling, is a makeshift claw apparatus. This claw is not unlike the claw you might find in a midway game to pick up stuffed creatures to deposit in a chute as a prize.

Like the midway game, this claw enclosure is filled with stuffed white teddy bears. Also like the midway games, there is a single special prize that everyone attempts to grab, but nobody ever seems to accomplish, leading to much profit for the midway operator.

In the case of this claw machine, the special prize is a live girl in her underwear.

No, I was not able to get a picture of the girl in the case. The guy at the counter frowned upon that. But I did try, for which I think points should be awarded.

Instead, I surreptitiously took a couple of photos of the tank during the day using my camera phone If you look closely, you can see the claw and perhaps the heads of a couple of bears poking their noses up to the glass. Sorry, no half-nude girls.

But if that sort of thing floats your boat, the Standard Hotel has your number.

I have more to write about the Standard, including a much better photo of something that I think epitomizes the entire establishment, both of the ambiance of the place and of the quality. But I will expound later, since I am now completely exhausted.

After work in the client's Hollywood office, I took some time to walk down Sunset looking for something to do and/or eat.

What strikes me as an oddity in bars in LA is that there doesn't seem to be any draft beer. Surely, I haven't been in many bars here, but of the ones I have been in (and there are a few within walking range of my hotel on Sunset) there isn't a single tap. It's all about cocktails.

I walked down to the House of Blues, thinking that maybe there would be some blues, beer taps, and maybe some dinner. I found none of those three there, sitting at the bar. I was struck by the decorations in the building. Everything from the paint on the walls to the dress and demeanor of their employees was worth noting. The use of incense was unique.

The walls weren't the usual "stupid things screwed into the wall" motif that is rampant among the cookie-cutter restaurants, but a painted-on creole-style factory-built organism. Sure, it's not the same spray-on decoration as any other restaurant, but the same spray-on decoration as every other House of Blues.

The bartender spun his bottle opener on his finger obsessively while doing a crossword, and he was the anti-stereotype of a good blues-house bartender - not chatty or interactive at all, not even enough to take my dinner order. He did give me a calendar of their concerts for the next month, supposing I looked in place here in this bar in this strange city. Well, if I'm in town, maybe I'll stop by, thanks for offering.

I walked back to the hotel and stumbled around the lobby and pool areas looking for the restaurant. They were serving food in the lounge, but I didn't feel like sitting out there exposed with the folks in dress suits and bikinis, so I went on to their diner-like restaurant.

This place, decorated like a hipster diner - like the rest of this hotel, really - had funky 60's-colored lamps, weird leathery seats, and candles all over the place. No taps, but a selection of 10 or so bottles of beer.

So, here I am in LA, toddling about on the Sunset strip. I'm walking around in clothes that I bought to look presentable for this business trip -- a style that I'm not really accustomed to wearing. I'm eating somewhere that is right out of... I don't know what. I half expect a guy in the corner with a microphone reciting bad poetry and an audience of wine-sipping finger-snapping beatniks.

Clearly, the veneer here is affected. They've made this restaurant look like this. Unlike authentic diners, like those around home where the grease-colored vinyl seats are a byproduct of vinyl and grease, the seats here came "brown". At the same time, even though the place is manufactured, I wonder what it will look like in ten or twenty years, after the "new" sheen has worn off. Will it look like a "real" diner? Or will it look like an aged mock-diner?

Where are the real places that these places are trying to emulate? Do they still exist, or have they knocked them down to make more room for the next look-alike? Is there really a place that looks like the House of Blues; a place that has grown that decor organically over the years instead of having it painted on by a crew of construction workers? Where is that original beatnik diner?

In ten or twenty years will I be someone who dresses in these clothes? Or will I be a person who dresses in these clothes trying to pass myself off as a person who dresses in these clothes? I'm very much not feeling like I'm in my own skin. When I get home, I'll be taking a long shower and forgetting that I was ever here, and perhaps the person I was while I was here will wash away with that memory.

I'm about four hours and ten minutes into this light to LA, and I'd like to take an account of the experience of travelling by plane these days, since in the near future, everyone will be cryogenically frozen when they leave their car at the airport and loaded onto their destination flight. For their protection, of course.

The first thing I would like to complain about is the passenger in front of me, who is one of those people who believe that it is their duty, without the regard for the people around them, to recline their seat into my face for the duration of the flight. I think that in this age where the leg room and, lets face it, breathing room of the jet capacity is so low, that people would be considerate of their fellow man and just not do it. I know you're awake. Sit up! Sit up!

With all of the weird security at the airport, I've seen a few strange things happen today. Some lady was allowed to board our plane without a boarding pass or ID. That doesn't sem right. She was with her husband, and the attendant looked up her name before sending her onto the jetway, but is that fair? Here I am practically freaking out over procedure - don't accept strange bags, keep everything with me, have my confirmation ready at check-in, present ID at each checkpoint, have boarding pass ready at gate - and then this old lady pops onto the plane with a "he's my husband, and I might have that piece of paper around here somewhere." What?

I don't know what the in-flight movie was. It had Cameron Diaz, Jack Black, Kate Winslet, and that dude that ws in AI whos name I presently forget. I did not listen to the movie, but being that I kept nodding off during my audiobook, I sat up and stared at teh screen for a while to keep myself awake. It is strange in that I have no idea what the movie was about from just watching it. I think that these two girls wanted to get out of their current life situations, and so they swapped apartments cross-country or something and then ended up with each others' boyfriends. No idea.

My audiobook, Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman, is something thatI did not want to read. I figured I would get the deed done by getting it in audio. This story is particularly frustrating because the main character is powerless in his world, and he's an idiot, I think. The voice acting in the recording is fantastic, though. It's not that the story is bad, just that it seems a little plodding, and when the main character seems to have no hope of getting things right for himself, it's grating. I'd like to know more about the Anansi idea, but perhaps not experience it from this particular telling. I guess we'll see as the story unfolds.

Soon I will have reached my limit as to how long I can sit in a confined space without losing my mind. I hope that we land before that happens.