Moon Over Albuquerque?

Living in Charlotte, North Carolina I'll tell you there are some great people in this area, and then there are those you just shake your head and say "He must be from around here." US Airways Flight 705 found that out in spades. On a recent flight from Charlotte to Los Angeles, a 50-year old male passenger decided ENOUGH OF THIS SOCIAL CORRECTNESS! He began taking off his clothes, eventually stripping completely naked. Flight attendants made every attempt to cover him with a blanket, but to no avail. Finally, two off-duty law enforcement officers on board subdued and handcuffed him. Keith Wright, age 50 and originally from the Bronx in New York, was taken into custody without incident after the plane made an unscheduled landing in New Mexico. You'd think that was plenty of excitement for one flight, but there was more. If it were only the constrained jaybird on board, the plane could have continued to LAX. But elsewhere on the same flight, crew members were quietly dealing with an unrelated medical emergency. It was that medical issue that forced the flight to divert to Albuquerque, with the AP saying that "Wright's actions were (only) a secondary reason for the unplanned landing." As for Mr. Moonshine, he apparently caused quite a ruckus before the flight landed in New Mexico. He allegedly was unresponsive to requests to put his clothes back on, and at one point actually punched one of the flight attendants. That put him into a whole different category than "Airborne Naturalist." His family says he suffers from bi-polar disorder, but the suspect is now in Federal custody where he'll face charges of interfering with a flight crew. Did bi-polar disorder exist back when I was younger? I think not. It's a product of the 80's and 90's. When I was a youthful lad, we just called those people idiots.

Toucan play at that game!

Congratulations to the Central American country of Costa Rica, which was named by an independent UK research team as "The Happiest Country On Earth." Silly me - I thought it was Disneyworld. Anyway, the things that were measured (as those things go) was a "happiness quotient", the country's economy, overall life expectancy, and its ecological footprint on the rest of Civilization as we know it. Yeah, they've got active volcanoes that can kill you. Yeah, lots of snakes. Yeah, it rains about 250 days a year in the wetter areas. Yeah, mostly dirt or gravel or weasely paved roads. So how did the UK homeboys do on the list of Smiley Faces Places? 74th. Before you go "ROFL" over the lousy position of the UK'ers, consider the United States Of Oppression, where we came in a neat and tidy 114th! I think the USA just beat out "Hell" by a dozen or so votes. Second on the Happy Happy Joy Joy list was the Caribbean nation of the Dominican Republic, and 3rd was another floating neighbor, Jamaica. So if you want to escape your blues, you can actually get nonstop flights from Charlotte to any of the Top 3, and we always have hotel package deals as well. You may be asking what makes Costa Rica the new Numero Uno. My theory? Monkees and bananas. They're everywhere. Ever go to the zoo? Ever go by the monkey cage? Ever see anybody NOT smiling? Case closed.

Police in Virginia are very good. But they don't have to be. At least not in the case of a break-in last week. A 17-year old juvenile broke into a house, in a robbery attempt. He found the victim's cell phone laying on the counter, and decided to call one of his friends. He planned to use the old gag, "You'll never guess where I'm calling you from," which is usually reserved for Jethro Bodine and Larry The Cable Guy act-a-likes on airplanes. However, the perp wasn't used to this particular brand of cell phone, and instead accidentally took a picture of himself using the phone's camera technology. Nice. Police have arrested the wayward youth, and he is awaiting charges of breaking and entering, grand larceny, and being a complete moron. You can just see it now, he'll get his prison-issue orange jumpsuit, then ask for his one phone call to the outside world:

"Hey Charlie - You'll never guess where I'm calling you from!"