Airports are amazing places. I usually fly Northwest, but they don’t fly down to Australia, so I needed to pick a different airline. United was my only choice.

I guess the LM travel services has some sort of deal with the major US carriers, but part of that deal is that LM employees must fly those carriers. So, even though Northwest has partners that fly to Australia — partners who would transfer my miles to my Northwest account — I need to fly United, and pretty much waste the gazillion miles I’m going to get by flying twice.

I’ve never been in this wing of the airport. I’ve got a long flight ahead of me in coach, flying to San Francisco, but thankfully, I have business class waiting for me there. Someone in the contracts office was very considerate, and we installers have permission to purchase business class tickets. Ususally, when you fly business, they give you an automatic domestic upgrade to first class, but because of the short notice for this trip, it doesn’t look like that option was available.

Stealing a line from the Apostel Paul, I thank God every day for my DVD burner. I’ve got enough television shows from off my computer to make even the 13 hour flight bearable. My brother Mark also let me dip into his DVD collection, which is populated by movies from Japan. That should get me through the whole flight