Hectic

Well, I'm in Boston and I'm having a great time. Getting here was quite the adventure and I think the best way of explaining it is by posting a tilmeline of yesterday's events. Keep in mind that my flight was scheduled to leave at 8 AM. Here ya go:

6:33 AM: Kele, Danielle and I leave our apartment. It's about 30 minutes to the airport from here but we need to drop Danielle off at work first so I figure we'll make it around 7:15.

6:57 AM: We drop Danielle off at work. Usually this would take 5-10 minutes but traffic is horrible. I start to worry.

7:13 AM: We get off of I-5 because it's not moving and take the Coast highway for about 10 miles. There are stop signs and lights on the Coast highway but at least it's moving.

7:30 AM: The Coast highway ends and we get back on I-5. We're far enough south that the traffic has slowed and we drive faster.

7:38 AM: We take the airport exit off of I-5.

7:44 AM: Kele drops me off at the American Airlines departures terminal.

7:46 AM: I get to the express check-in Kiosk. The machine tells me that I need to talk to an agent because I can't check in less than 30 minutes before the flight. The agent informs me that she'll have to re-route me and ignores all my pleas. She puts me on standby to Dallas and after a layover I'll get to Boston aroung 8:30 PM. My original flight had me getting to Boston at 4:15. I'm not happy. She gives me a coupon that I need to show to the agent at the actual gate and they'll try to get me a boarding pass once I'm there.

7:50 AM: I get to the security check-point and am delighted to see how short the line is.

7:52 AM: I get through security in record time. I look at the gate listing and find that my original non-stop flight to Boston isn't too far away. I run to the gate.

7:55 AM: I get to Gate 29 and there's no one there. No one at the desk, no one in the waiting area. I see the plane sitting there and decide to head down the tunnel.

7:56 AM: I reach the end of the tunnel and there's an American Airlines agent there. He says, "I boarded everyone, what are you doing?" I say, " I just got here, I was re-routed, can I get on?" I'm not lying but I'm implying that I was re-routed to this flight. He says, "hurry up, give me your boarding pass". I hand him my weird standby coupon and he turns to the blonde lady who is in the process of closing the door and says, "wait a sec, let this guy on". She whines about how they're trying to get off the ground on time and I hop on the plane. They tell me to find any empty seat and I get on the first avaiable middle seat, between two nice old ladies.

8:00 AM: The plane starts its taxi. The whole time I'm worried that the guy will look at my weird standby coupon for Dallas and call the pilot and have him turn the plane around.

8:04 AM: We start to accelerate down the main runway and I know I'm home free. I showed up to the airport 14 minutes AFTER my plane STARTED boarding but somehow made it on the plane. God bless America.

I made a ton of sloppy mistakes this time around. I forgot to charge my iPod, forgot to check the weather(or forgot to use common sense) and only brought one pair of jeans and one sweater but 3 pairs of shorts and a ton of t-shirts. I'm not used to makeing dumb rookie travel errors but I guess I don't get all riled up for domestic travel anymore. Oh well. I'll survive the 35 degree weather in my sandals.

Hopefully everything will be less hectic for the rest of my stay. Yesterday we went out to some bars and caught up on things. Justin is engaged to be married next summer and I hadn't seen his fiance since the engagement. We're headed to all-you-can-eat sushi for lunch today. Tomorrow night, Carl arrives and we're driving down to Foxwoods. That's when the real fun begins. Thanks for reading.