Let the bitching begin !

And so it begins ...

Dear Dorothy

Wow, only twenty three more hours and I'll be off the plane at my destination. That is if I get to me destination. Upon checking in I find that my flight has been delayed departing Seattle over and hour. I had an hour and a half connection in Tokyo and that has now been whittled down to about 30 minutes. To make matters more interesting I am sitting near the back of the plane (in case it crashes - you always see the tail in one piece) which means that every person who is making their trip of a lifetime will be blocking the aisles with their forty pounds of carry-on luggage before me. I hope I can figure out which gate I'm going to and can make it in time, otherwise I can probably extend this leg of the trip an additional few hours.

I tried to get on the stand-by upgrade list to no avail. Tiffany said "Dress nicely, it worked for me one time.". The Seat Guru said "Get a frequent flyer card (I already had one of those with a current quarter million miles on it). American Express said "Get our GOLD CARD and get free up grades." - The ticket agent said "Your ticket doesn't qualify unless you pay an additional $3000 for full fare on international flights." Now if I can just get a crying baby in the seat next to me life will be complete.

Do I always start out bitching about things on these trips ? Now if I could just get an internet connection on the $%*$%# Free-WiFi I could go back and rear my previous emails and find out. But Nooooo.....

The hotel was nice. The room was large. There was supposed to be one of those beds with a balloon as the mattress that you are supposed to be able to pump up at the press of a button - I had a male friend who had something similar, but on a smaller scale, MUCH smaller. The bed's balloon didn't work. The hotel had just gone through a remodel and smelled that chemical smell of new carpeting.  They must have gotten the carpets from a Las Vegas casino overstock. I had read once the the carpeting in casino was intentionally obnoxious to keep you from looking at the floor and looking at the machines and glitter. My room's only machine was the television, but the carpeting brought back an interesting flashback from my wild days in the 60's.

I left the room at 6 a.m. to step outside and immediately remembered I had forgotten something in the room. Could I get the key card to work? Well you already know the answer to that question. I got a new key from the front desk, along with a toothbrush (somehow I forgot to pack one of those (but Ed and Erin - I did remember my floss !!)). That new key didn't work so well either, eventually after half a dozen tries and holding my mouth -- juuust riiight -- it opened.

Grabbed a quick overpriced breakfast and the shuttle to the airport. I was able to get nearly naked and get my annual dose of radiation and somehow got past TSA's "Theater of Security" even with my middle finger extended for the x-ray operator.

So now I'm current. I'll re-boot the 'puter and see if I can coax the WiFi Gods into cooperating with me.