Today is the Ides of March, famous largely because Julius Caesar was assassinated on this day in 44 BC by his enemies in the Pompeii Theatre, where the Roman Senate was meeting. He had been warned in early March about some danger that would befall him no later than the Ides of March by Titus Vestricius Spurinna, an Etruscan haruspex (soothsayer or astrologer). Caesar encountered Spurinna on the way to the Senate on the 15th of March and made fun of him saying “The Ides of March are come”, to which Spurinna replied “Yes, they are come, but they are not past.” Caesar should have heeded these words because later that day he was assassinated by his enemies. But he didn’t. Oh well. (At least it gave Shakespeare something to write about.)

But what are the “Ides” exactly?

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I got up at the extremely uncivilized hour of 4am this morning so that I could catch a 6am flight to San Antonio, Texas via Newark, New Jersey.  (Those of you who know me know that I am not a morning person so this was a major accomplishment in and of itself.)

We boarded the plane on-schedule and then spent about half an hour driving around the airport visiting the de-icing pad and then holding before taking position for take off in order to allow the engines to warm up since this was the first flight of the day.

Although we arrived about 20 minutes behind schedule, the flight to Newark was uneventful and I got a nice picture of sunrise above the clouds.  This made the connection to the flight to San Antonio was one of the tightest I’ve ever had in all the flights I’ve taken over the years.

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