Saturday, December 24, 2005

What a flight!

Said I'd get back with you all the next day. Well it's been busy and while I love you all very much, I was enjoying myself here and well to be honest I didn't want to bother anyone to set up the network passwords onto my laptop nor did I want to take any time away from family to come down here and post a blog. Until now when things are quieting down, people are heading to bed, and the internet was up and free to use. I just hope no one here will be upset that I'm taking the opportunity without asking.

OK so the flight.
We left the apartment at 11:15 and headed to the Target in Poway. The parking lot was an absolute mess and completely full, so I held back on that and we headed to Chula Vista hoping the Target would be a bit better there. Well we at least found a spot but by the time we got the cards that we needed to buy and Veronica Mars that I bought for Victoria for Christmas, it was 12:30 and I was WAY late meeting Butch.
So I dropped Victoria off at home and headed to the Rosser Residence and picked him up and we headed out to get lunch. Carl's Jr. We head home and eat, share a bit of chit chat before I give him my Christmas present: My sister Stephanie's pool stick. He was touched and tried to hand it back but I wasn't having any of it. This guy has been a close friend since we were both in elementary school even if there was a long absence between us hanging out. It was my way of conveying my feelings for him without saying anything. No matter what our own family histories and no matter the difference in the pigment of our skins, this man is my brother and in my heart he's a member of my family and so he gets a piece of her and therefore a piece of me.
Anyways...the flight.
So the plane was supposed to leave at 5pm so we called a cab at 1:30. By 2:00 it hadn't showed so I called another company. At 2:30 they came to pick us up and we headed out. $35.00+tip later, we were at Terminal 1 and about 2 hours early for our flight.
We checked in our bag and headed to the security line which was a lot shorter than I expected. It looked long at first but it moves pretty fast. Take off the shoes, the belt, remove the computer laptop from it's case and take off all the jewelry, coins, etc and put them in the shoulder bag. Remove jackets and hats and watches and everything and put them all in totes.
We got through that, put everything back on and sat and waitied.
5pm, 5:15, 5:35, 5:45 and still no word. The board kept changing times and saying our flight would be delayed. Finally at about 6:05pm we boarded the plane. At this point getting to Las Vegas to catch our 7:10 flight to Salt Lake City was out of the question. So then the airport tower decided to hold us on the runway for another 45 minutes. Finally at almost 7pm we took off. JUST as we landed in Las Vegas we got word that a flight headed towards Salt Lake City was boarding. We landed and taxied into C23. The next flight was boarding in gate C5. So we ran all the way across the terminal and JUST made it. We took off and got into Salt Lake City at 11:30. That would be 2 hours later than we were supposed to be there.
When we got there we learned that in our mad rush to get on that connecting flight, they hadn't been able to unload our baggage fast enough and so we had to wait for the NEXT flight coming in from Las Vegas which landed around 11:45. We got our baggage at 12:10 and headed towards the rental car counters because a family emergency kept my dad from picking us up and we had turned down an uncle's offer to pick us up.
Well all the rental companies there had was SUV's for about $150 a day. We couldn't afford that so we called dad one more time and asked if there was still someone who could come get us. Luckily he had just gotten home and would be able to pick us up if we could wait an hour. Well that was better than walking the 50+ miles to Springville. So we waited, bought a couple sodas and just chatted for awhile. He came at 1:30 just as he'd said and we headed towards a place to eat.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that while we got peanuts on that first flight, we didn't eat them and on the second flight a person onboard had nut-death allergy so they didn't serve us anything but pretzels (which had been manufactured in a factory that also made nuts). We broke open one bag so we basically were just as dumb as the flight attendants. Anyways the point is that we hadn't had anything but that to eat in over 12 hours.
So we headed to an IHOP and had something to eat before heading home. We got to sleep around 4am.

WHAT A TRIP.
Let's hope the trip home is better.

Until then have a very Merry Christmas and I'll be back when I can.

Thursday, December 22, 2005

SLC Trip Day 1

I got up this morning around 9:15am. Victoria must have been up earlier. Last night she had a headache so I let her go through her tunes and set up her iPod for the trip while I did laundry, cleaned the living room, dining room, got together the trash, packed the clothes and found a little time for a couple games of FIFA 2005 and dinner. OK so it was a few Fritos and a glass of milk.

Meanwhile she sat at her chair working the iTunes, watching Project Runway and some other weird show before getting her clothes laid on the bed for me to pack. This poor girl has had a headache for about a week and she's been either sick, dizzy, or headachy for about the last 3 weeks. This paranoid side of me is making me a little freaked out. I want to take her to the hospital. I'm worried that she could be dying of something. She refuses to take any medicine saying it's not going to work anyways so why try. I try practically begging, but no go. Frankly, I just don't know what to do.

Woke up this morning and took a shower. Victoria has been sorting out her bag on the bed while she's watching Regis. I've gotten dressed and now it's 10am. We need to get 40 out for the taxi, go to Target or Best Buy and try to get "Veronica Mars" on DVD, and then meet Butch at his place at noon where we'll likely go to get lunch, hang at the Bartlett pad and then I'll give him his gift and we'll say Merry Christmas, safe trip, sayonara and all that before calling the cab around 1:30 to head to the airport.

SW 1844 SD to LV, SW 1113 LV to SLC
Watch us fly

Talk with you all tomorrow!