Greetings fellow Americans!

It's good to be back on home soil, although I must admit I've taken quite a fancy to the United Kingdom, especially Wales.

I could surely live there for awhile and spend some time hiking their huge network of trails and putting forth a valiant effort in helping them to draw down their stock of real ale.

We'll see...

But for now, I'm back and you'll have to start dealing with my regular ramblings again.

Oh goody, you say.

Be nice now...

By the way, it goes without saying that flying is always quite an adventure since 9/11. But coming home I had a most interesting experience...

Seems the gentleman sitting directly behind me spent the first half of the flight from London to Boston consuming 2/3 of a bottle of Smirnoff's that he'd purchased at the duty free shop at Heathrow.

That's a big no-no, of course.

So, somewhere south of Greenland I woke up to quite a commotion behind me.

A number of flight attendants were gathered around this guy trying to take away the bottle of wine he'd ordered, and in attempting to do so, discovered the illicit bottle of vodka.

A good deal of kicking and yelling ensued (the kicking was done to the back of my seat mind you), when the wine bottle was finally wrestled away. But he wouldn't budge on the vodka.

He then proceeded to scream for the FAA rules prohibiting consuming your own liquor while on board a commercial airliner.

"Show me the regulations," he slurred, as the heavy odor of vodka wafted past my seat.

More airline people showed up and had no luck in dealing with the increasingly loud and belligerent jerk.

What exactly don't you get about not being able to drink your own booze in flight?

Duh! Moron.

Anyway, eventually somebody really important, likely from the cockpit, showed up and calmly read the man the riot act, which included landing the plane and having him forcibly removed and arrested.

No more warnings. Now or never.

I nodded my approval to the official looking man.

The I clicked on the GPS locater map on the seatback in front of me.

St. John's, Newfoundland seemed like a good possibility to dump off this loser.

This could be interesting.

But the incredible professionalism of the flight officer worked.

The bottle of vodka was relinquished, the man calmed completely down, and that was that. And the kicking of my seat stopped too.

The next thing I knew we were descending toward Logan.

So no side trip Newfoundland on this journey. But I'll settle for Massachusetts and a bus home to Portland.