Outside the parameters

You can't have a travel day without passing along a couple of airport stories, however tame:

1. Former Mayor Graham Richard was on the same Fort Wayne-to-Chicago flight I was yesterday morning. He was traveling alone, and I didn't ask him anything, so I have no idea if Chicago was his final destination or not. Feel free to start whatever rumor you wish -- it's pobably nothing more exciting than a Six Sigma consulting gig.

2. They kept us in the plane for about an hour past our scheduled departure time from Chicago to San Antonio before the pilot finally announced that there was a fuel leak that the mechanics said was "outside our parameters" or "safety margins" or some such. They found us a new plane and we had to troop back through O'Hare, then sit on that plane for a while before finally taking off a couple of hours late. When I related this to my brother, he responded, "You mean there are some fuel leaks that are inside the safety parameters?"A little scary to think about.