How do they do it?

I got to the airport this morning feeling somewhat carsick from the limo driver’s jerky driving style. Thinking some food might settle my stomach, I headed toward the most visible option, the Golden Arches. McDonald’s can’t possibly ruin a bacon and egg sandwich, can they?

Well, the bad news is that indeed, they can! They’ve applied the same level of salty mediocrity to the breakfast sandwich that they’ve used on hamburgers to successfully club them to death for forty-some years.

I remember when McDonald’s was the new kid in town, back in the late 1950’s. My mother would pack all five of her children into the family station wagon and drive the ten miles or so to treat us to 15-cent hamburgers. The even bigger treat was the milkshakes. We loved turning them upside-down to prove they were so thick they wouldn’t spill. It worked… most of the time. (Is that a good thing?!)

What I don’t remember about those outings was a complete lack of taste in the food. Is that only because I was too young to have honed my food discrimination? Or has McDonald’s gotten really bad over the years?

Fortunately, I have some really good food in my immediate future that will more than offset the memory of this morning's awful sandwich. I’m on my way to Phoenix for the Southwest Fox Conference (aka SWFox). The conference hotel is actually in Mesa, which is rumored to be breathtaking. Some very dedicated friends have spent the last year planning and preparing for this conference and it promises to be the FoxEvent of the year! It’s going to be several days of relaxing, networking, and partying with computer-industry friends, in a gorgeous setting, picking up pearls of wisdom about technology I love.

It’s difficult for me to get-up-and-go these days, given my limited energy, penchant to tire easily, and overall anxiety level. But this is a last fling before starting my next cycle of chemotherapy and I’m getting more and more excited as this plane approaches Phoenix. What a treat!