InterStellar News Network

981217
Can anything else go wrong today?! Sheesh. United Airlines is quickly moving toward the bottom of my preferred airlines list. Why?

I called in this morning to find out if there would be any problems going standby on a later flight this afternoon since I really didn't want to put up with a four hour layover in Oakland. The agent checked and said, "Sure, no problem. The flight is wide open. You're looking good for standby."

So, I get to the airport about a half hour before the flight. Plenty of time, right? After spending ten minutes in the check-in line, I get there and get told that they close the flight twenty minutes before departure. Let me get this straight: no stand by, no changes 20 minutes prior. And just when did this start? They don't even call standbys until 10 minutes before the flight! But the guy wouldn't even attempt to check my luggage! Told me I had to go on the next flight. Fine. I'll complain later.

But, due to several things that happened today, all flights from San Francisco and Oakland are delayed almost two hours. Did they inform me of this? Hell, no! So, guess what? I get up to the gate and wait until the appointed time and ask why the plane isn't here and the gate agent tells me that the flight has been delayed. "Since when?" I ask. "Since this morning", she responds. I think I just about went postal at this point ... not only did they deny me a flight due to some asinine new rule, they tell me that the next flight will get in at 3:20pm instead of 5:05 which they knew full well upstairs!

To spare all of you the rest of this, in summary, I get to Oakland and miss my connecting flight to Seattle. Luckily, Alaska Airlines was able to rebook my flight through Portland so I still got to Seattle only four hours late instead of six. Thank you Alaska!

Well, so much for saving that layover time. I just spent it on the back end. United's quality of service is just about ready to hit the floor in my book.

Catch y'all laterz; I need to get some serious sleep!

981216
I think I can say today was ... crazy. I've slept less than 5 hours, drove nearly 300 miles, worked on site 9 hours, fielded 4 separate support incidents on the phone while working on site, shopped for gifts, washed my clothes, packed, paid the bills, went to the bank ... is there anything I haven't done? Whew!

But, thank God, I'm going on vacation tomorrow! Now, next time you read from this will be from the Pacific Northwest again! See ya!

Thanks again Michelle for letting me crash on the couch. Best of luck on finals and thanks for always enlightening me on what goes on in the family. You are always such a crack up ...!

981215
Aaron and I felt the need for buffalo wings and beer tonight. Well, he got the beer; I had to pass since I was gonna drive down to San Diego later tonight for work. It was just cool to go enjoy some "guy food" - it's not exactly the place you'd bring a date. And it was great just to kick it and reflect over our usual travails of this thing called life, or the lack of it. Pondering what we have done, what we passed up on, what we still want in life, yadda, yadda, yadda. I think he tells it better in his journal entry for tonight, but here's a few quotes that came out of the evening I thought were worth remembering:

Live life with no regrets.

I rather be able to say "Been there, done that" instead of "I wish I had done that ...".

Life is too short to second guess yourself.

Instead of worrying about where you might go wrong, take life one step at a time.

Aaron, I appreciate the times we get to hang out and talk about those things that we always find are never the easiest to find answers for. Each of us brings a perspective that is shaped by our experiences and I value yours. Especially since we seem to derive ours from opposite ends of the spectrum sometimes!

Thought for all of you tonight is that you may find life to be all that you can make it to be and not something you plan to isolate or avoid. There's enough mediocrity and indifference in this world and you have it within yourself to rise above all that.

Work hard, play harder, sleep ... remember?

981214
A full day of work, a full evening of wrapping gifts. Catching a flight and trying to catch some zzz's. Just all in a day's life in the field this month, I guess.

981213
I guess you can do anything no matter how tired you are if you put your mind away from feeling the fatigue. Think that was what I did today.

Went to church this morning and stayed and helped out Yvonne and JT with the youth jam session after. And Aaron was asked to lead too! (I think this boy can't say no to any gig) But, I admit, it was fun to work the board with JT - and giving Yvonne a little bit of a hard time cuz she wasn't working the mixer for the jam - she was on vocals! So, since she was on the other end of the board, we were having a ball telling her she shouldn't mess with her sound crew! "We can make you sound good ... or ..." Of course, she knows that since she usually does sound ...!

Dropping Aaron off on the other side of the Bay, we meet up in San Mateo to go shopping (again) and a quick dinner. Yvonne wanted shoes. JT wanted some laserdiscs. KC and I just wanted to stay out of trouble. None of us got our wish!

But, when you're with friends, sharing a meal is always a fun opportunity. Tonight was no different. We went and chowed down at CPK and watched the fireworks as Yvonne and JT engaged in their usual tete-a-tete while KC and I sat back and watched. Yvonne playfully threatened to catapult some ice cream in JT's direction in response to a less than satisfactory answer to one of her questions. I'd post the photo I took of this but I think I'd probably pay for it later ... and I value my physical well being enough to not be that stupid! <G>

Returning back to my uncle's place afterwards, we start the taping of the video for this year's family Christmas dinner. My uncle has done lots of these family video clips over the years and , since he's one of those video editing hobbyists, he's got some relatively serious equipment to work with. I remember that he did a pretty good job parodying the opening clips from "In Living Color" (remember that show?) when they ran stuff on the Wayans family. He did it to ours. It was pretty dang impressive for its time.

Since I was able to be in town for the taping, the guys in the family got me to be *in* the video. We're doing our take on the Boyz II Men song "A Song for Mama" and I think the gals shot their version of "Summer Lovin'" earlier. We'll see what the finished product looks like. Maybe I'll even put clips on if they look okay ... scary ....

NAVIGATION

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