This isn't a hotel

It's been an interesting week since my last post. So much has happened that I think if I tried to comment on all of it, this post might be completed a week from now. I guess I'll start with the last of my trip to Dallas, which from the business perspective, was fairly mundane and not needed, but from a personal perspective, allowed me to reconnect with an old friend, who honestly, made me miss being a kid. I never thought I'd want to relive the years of careless frivolty and recklessness that we lived in from 5th grade forward. I mean, it was fun and we found our fair share of trouble, but the grinding through to be an adult and to find our own ways in the world, took a lot, and I don't think I'd ever want to start over. Sharing the stories of those days and laughing about the nonsense though, made me think about the fun under the stars in McCall, Idaho. There was a night, when about 8 of us spent the summer as 'work crew' at a church camp, where we stole the camp boat to go water skiing under the moonlight on the Payette Lake. This wasn't just a boat, this was a 19 foot Ski Natique, on loan to the camp, probably worth about 45k, and we were 15 or 16 years old. Insanity to me now looking back, awesome and exciting back then. Not to mention dangerous. I wonder how many close calls with death and dismemberment we really did have back then? Jeeze, as a father of a son who, by all things inherent, will probably be doing the same type of things in 13-14 years, I'm scared, but if I never know about it, I'll be fine with that. As a 32 year old son, I hope this doesn't scare the crap out of my parents.

Anyway, hanging out with Emily and her husband Scott, was hands down, the best part of my trip, minus the ensuing hangover the following morning. Wednesday night, the three of us headed out to dinner. This time with very clear directions and prior knowledge of the restaraunt. We hit Sushi Axiom and it was fantastic. I'll be honest, I even asked our waiter where they get their maguro prior to ordering it. I was nervous that we might be sitting down for some Gulf of Mexico, fuel tanker bred tuna. He ensured me that they fly it in every two days and I wouldn't notice the difference between Seattle and Dallas sushi. He also kept refilling my sak'e glass every 5 minutes. He was right, after 2 or 3 large sak'es, I had no idea where we were eating at, and the rolls were pretty awesome! Follow that with a world famous, fairly metro, espresso martini, and we were well on our way to needing our designated driver(Scott) to provide us safe passage. Of course, not until after we headed across the street to a bar for a few pints and car bombs.

Ah, the Irish Carbomb. Pour a shot of Jameson topped with Baileys and drop it into a half a pint of Guinness and pound it. It's a wonderful drink normally, especially after a few pints. Probably even better if you don't share a few tall pitchers of sak'e and a martini first. This might have been the turning point of my night out drinking, and sadly, I think it was my idea to have the carbombs. It was after 1:00 am when we decided we'd had enough, and we walked out into the torrential rain that was decending upon Dallas. Thank God almighty for the wonderful Scott driving me back to my hotel. Said our goodbyes, made plans for another get together at a later date(Still TBD) and then I woke up. Foggy eyes, tv on, heartburn, lights on, 5:30 am, dressed still... hotel bed. I don't recall walking through the hotel, or turning on the television, or even lying down. Somehow I managed to plug in my phone. Let the hangover begin...

Based on my waking state, and the uncertainty of my sobriety (unintentional rhyme), I decided my best bet was to hit the shower and work from my hotel that morning. I would be out of the hotel by 11:30 and grabbing some food and hitting the airport to leave on a 2:30 pm flight back to Seattle. Checked in the sweet rental car, blacked out Toyota Carolla, and jumped on the shuttle to the airport baggage check in. Paid Continental airlines twenty bucks to allow my bag a spot under the plane, flight status showed "on time" and made my way to security. 12:45 pm and all is right in the world, breezed through security with my laptop and headed to the gate. Flight still listed as on time, heading to Houston, quick layover and a 4:30 pm flight to Seattle. 1:15 pm and the passengers on the 1:30 still sitting outside the gate waiting to board their flight, still listed as "on time", until the board above the agent changes, the 1:30 is now scheduled for 2:00 pm departure, pushing my flight out 30 min. No big deal, my hour layover in Houston just getting shortened by 30 min on the connection. Headphones on, magazine in hand, found a seat close to a plug-in on the wall to charge the phone. 2:30 pm passengers from the 1:30 begin boarding the delayed 2:00 pm flight, now leaving at 3:00...panic starts to set in as I realize my flight isn't leaving at 3:00, our plane isn't even here. I scuried with a magazine and boarding pass in one hand, laptop bag in the other, to the Continental counter to see the gate agent about getting on the 1:30 flight. He gets me on, sends me down the boarding tunnel and as I'm almost to the entrance of the plane, I'm turned back because the plane is "over weight"! SO CLOSE

This back and forth let down continued through to 11:10 pm when I finally got on a plane bound for Houston, 11 hours in the Dallas airport. By 12:45 am Friday, I got into Houston with no hope for a flight home to Seattle until 7:40 am. I did what I could to get comfortable in an airport full of distressed travelers, looking for a somfy spot to close my eyes and hold tight to my laptop. In all my years of travel, I've never spent a night in an airport and I don't think I'll be signing up for it any time soon. It sucked and every single airport store was closed, no coffee, no muffins or magazines. Every single row of chairs had an armrest in between each seat, so there was no spreading out across them, and the one semi-out of the way carpeted place I found to lie down was covered in dirrty hippies who were snoring up a storm with their shoes off. I was miserable. I never actually went to sleep. Airports weren't designed to be hotels after all.

By noon Friday I was pulling into the house to scoop up my puppies, tired and still feeling hungover, and headed back to my place. I washed the stank of 28 some odd hours of travel off and went about some work. Just another day in the life of Ryan, and one, or 2, I won't be repeating any time soon. Yes, I'm cutting this short and leaving out all sorts of other mundane details to spare this post from being looked over entirely by those of you that preview the length and might come back to it later. I have, however, in all of the jockeying for a plane ride, gotten some good work done on the book. I'm still working on a title and am so open to suggestions. Give me some witty nonsensical ideas.

Stay blessed-