[Billfred]

August 2005. Washington-Dulles International Airport. The 2005 Capital Clash has ended, and I'm on my way back to Columbia. The event went through to Sunday, so driving to DC was out of the question--hence I'm flying Independence Air. Or at least I should be flying Independence, except the crew that's supposed to take us to Colatown isn't in Dulles. Their flight there was delayed, so we were delayed about two hours. This isn't a problem, except that my ride from the airport back to USC had to bail on me due to the hour. Thankfully, my mother bailed me out of that one.

March 2006. Pendleton High School, Anderson, SC. Thanks to some connections, I succeeded in getting a lift to the Florida Regional with 845 (for which I'm still grateful). I had to get up at dark-thirty to make the two-hour drive north to Anderson, but get there in one piece to catch up with Ms. O (who's now doing FVC as I recall). Everyone loads up the bus, and then we wait. And wait. And wait. Turns out the team trailer has a problem, which pushes back the departure time for about two hours. Fortunately, the bus had plenty of room to stretch out and plenty of movies, so it wasn't so bad. (And it was certainly better than driving it myself.)

October 2006. San Francisco International Airport. I was on my way back from Cal Games, waiting for the red-eye flight. My flight out to SFO had been bumped over to US Airways from Delta, due to weather problems where I was connecting. That flight was mah-velous...but now I'm back on plain ol' Delta. With a jet that I think was the one I flew back from the west coast on the last time I flew Delta. The problem is that the legroom that was plenty adequate when I was 5 years old was not quite as adequate for a 20-year-old, especially one with a bookbag underneath the seat in front. Combine that with a pretty lousy snack pack (US Airways charged $5 for their sandwich, but at least it was edible!), and a movie of The Lake House, and it was a rough night for yours truly.

If this is the worst I can come up with, I guess I'm doing pretty well.