Friday, October 27, 2006

Greetings from Minnesota

I have just arrived in Minneapolis after almost missing a few flights… it seems that US Airways was having some trouble with their computer system. When I arrived at San Diego International there was a huge line to check-in, the line kept getting longer because the US Airways computer system was down. I guess this occurred due to a power failure somewhere… anyway, they kept assuring us over the PA that we did not need to worry about missing our flight because they could not "take-off" planes without the computers… I think this was supposed to serve as reassurance. But it seemed to just raise the tension levels in the terminal. Anyway, making it through security was a hassle as always… but it could have been worse. They could have told me that I had 4.5oz of a particular liquid or that my Ziplock bag was a quart and a half – both of these would have been major issues as they would have been 50% above the legal limit for carry-on luggage. In addition I have a power inverter with me, which, to the untrained eye might not look like something that is supposed to be on a plane. So, yeah, security could have been an issue, but it was not… in fact, my biggest problem was that my plane was about to leave and security was at Gate 97 (or something) and my gate happened to be number 23… I did the only thing I could do – run. And thank goodness I did, the Gate Agents were closing up just as I arrived… they knew nothing about the computer outage.

After a brief stop in Phoenix and a faulty seat cushion (not mine, someone else's, but it was enough to delay the flight for 20 minutes as it was repaired/replaced), I have arrived at MSP. Erin, my travelling partner is running a bit late so I thought it was a good opportunity to provide this quick update…

If you find yourself wondering why I am the land of "You-betcha" read down a couple days in the blog… look for the entry with the map and a line heading from Minneapolis to Seattle… that should give you a good overview.

I will try to write more as our journey progresses.

Uh oh, they are closing Starbucks… gotta run!

-9:00 Central Time

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