** Note: ** I wrote this on my trip home to NY for Christmas this year. It’s late because I didn’t have a place to post it. It is trimmed from its original form because I’m not a good enough writer.

**Begin Post:**
It’s 5:30 am and I’m writing this in the dark from seat A, row 20 of this Boing 737 aircraft bound for Atlanta, GA. It’s luck that I am writing this from an airplane seat instead of a terminal bench. Back-story GO!

I woke up this morning around 3:45 am and headed for the airport. I get there, park, and walk up to the shuttle which thankfully was waiting right by my car for me. Upon entering the bus, Bob (the driver) informs me that Airtran does not fly out of Houston Intercontinental, they fly out of Hobby. He senses my shock and horror and gives me directions to Hobby. Great, it’s on the other side of Houston, it’s now 4:15 am, and my flight leaves at 5:35.

Back in the car, go! 100 MPH down I-45, fingers crossed that there are no cops out at this ridiculous time of the morning, Vroom. A few corners taken at speeds that were admittedly unsafe, tires squealing. 55-60 down a 35 mph road, hang on. Into parking ramp with spiral ramp, more tires squealing. Park, grab bags, run into airport. Get through the security checkpoint with no delay. Jump onto the plane with very little time to spare, *ahhhh*.

So that brings the story up to now. It’s dark in here, we’re sitting on the ground and we haven’t yet pulled back. The power has completely gone off in the plane and not even the emergency lights seem to be on. Oh.. there they are. Ok, we’re taking off.

Now at 33,000 feet I’m finally able to relax. I’m looking out the window at the sunrise coming over the horizon. It’s beautiful. The horizon starts as a deep red color and transitions to dark orange, light orange, yellow, light blue and finally to dark blue. The clouds above are curious purple color because of the blue and orange/yellow colors mixing together. The saying goes, “Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning, Red sky at night, sailors delight.” WIth any luck the race to make it on time was the warning part and the delight is coming up next.

— Story continued after plane lands in Atlanta —

It’s now 3:30 pm and I’m still not home ( I was supposed to land in Buffalo at 11 am), but it wasn’t in the cards for me this time around. I landed right on time, walked, rode the train, and walked some more to my gate. I walked up and noticed a large number of people standing around and the guy on the intercom saying something about volunteers. After a little public polling I discovered that the plane was over booked and that despite having a confirmed seat on the flight I was not going to get on the plane. Meanwhile, a girl came walking back up the ramp in tears because her she was not allowed on the plane, despite the fact that she was bumped in a similar fashion from a flight the night before *AND* the fact that other people who were already seated said they didn’t mind waiting till 5:30 if she could get on. Needless to say, I’m not very impressed with Airtran for pulling that move. We all got rescheduled for the next flight which was 8 hours later.

As soon as all that was settled I called Kerry up and arranged a liaison. Fortunately he was able to take an extra long lunch and pick me up at the subway station up north. We went by his swank new pad and hung out for a few minutes before going over to thai-coon for thai and talk.. Good times indeed. Back to the station and back to the airport I breezed right through security, no problem. Great! I thought all the crap was done, but it wasn’t. In the bathroom I reached into my backpack only to find out that my hair gel had exploded during the flight and sprayed the inside of my bag. The bright side was that it for some reason I put it in a pouch that only had my deodorant and my power source for my laptop (I’m not very big on spending time to pack efficiently or effectively). So I spent 5-10 minutes cleaning my bag out and my stuff off. Now I’m here waiting to get on the 5:30 plane (it’s now 4:30).

I guess I could be upset, but I’m not. Sure I would have liked to get there on time, but instead I got to have lunch and spend a few moments with one of my greatest friends, and I’ll still make it there quicker than I could have in a car.