well....starting from newark was not the most auspicious beginning to a trip. i just don't like that airport. it's huge, it's terrible noisy, and there are too many people. i like laguardia in a pinch, but westchester airport is still my favorite. it's small and new and clean and not that bad. trips from there usually go pretty well. but newark is different.

well anyways...i had e tickets. not only e tickets, i had a northwest-issued e-ticket for continental airlines....taking a gamble that the continental terminal was the terminal for me i got my bags on a cart and wandered around terminal c looking for check in. i realized that while newark is renovating the parking, what they really want is more and bigger elevators.....anyways, there's some new fancy e ticket system now, you have to swipe a credit card or a one pass card or whatever to get your boarding pass printed electronically. then you check your bags and run like hell for your gate. that accomplished, i got there and waited....ooooh, they announced the flight was overbooked! they needed 10 volunteers to give up their seats, in exchange for $400 in travel vouchers and a first class flight several hours later. done and done! i hurried to the podium, thinking well that can get me to the wsts all right....i was third in line, it was looking good.....and then the guy ahead of me had nine in his party -_-.... no first class and free trip to san diego for me. ah well.

so, i convinced the flight attendants to let me take all my carry ons on board, got my seat, and waited for takeoff.....and waited....and waited....holy smokes. we were about an hour and a half late! they kept announcing 'if we leave in the next 15 minutes we'll still make all our connections...' you know what, people eventually stopped buying it. finally amidst whoops and cheers, we made our way down the runway. off the ground without any trouble and up into the air. i said and waited for the food, cause i was pretty hungry at this time, and my food was up in the overhead bin (cause i wanted all my breakable stuff--ibook, scanner, gba, digital camera, etc--down where no one was going to jam their stuff on top of them) and they kept yelling at people who were getting up 'we could be taking off at any time!! sit down!!' and once we were in the air, there's always a wait til you level off before you can get up. anyways then they announced the meal service, so i waited eagerly for my--i checked my ticket to see what i was getting--'snack.' oh well....snack is better than nothing. the cart went by....you know, no matter where i sit, the other end of the plane always gets their $%^&* food first. geez. if i sit in the back the front gets it. if i sit in the front the back gets it. and if i sit in the middle they get 2 carts and start at both ends. altho ...the worst is when they bring you your drink first and by the time the food gets there you've finished it and you have nothing to drink with your food. where was i? oh yes. well, finally the food cart made it to me. it was a....meatloaf sandwich? wow, that was a first. meatloaf sandwich, tray with lettuce tomato onions and pickles, packet of ketchup, bag of baby carrots, and some sort of pecan chocolate thing. and a bag of chips. wow! you know what? it was actually really good. and it was meal sized for me! and i got the whole can of soda! things were looking up.

i decided to read my book. with the card game and the movie and all i figured i'd get a harry potter book and read it. so, i got the first one and started that. good book! i can see why it made the times best seller list. i need to go get the other ones now. well, the flight went pretty unventful, but as we were preparing to land, they announced that due to the lateness of our arrival, there would be uniformed ticket agents waiting to assist us with our connections. fine well and good. plane touches down..as we are taxiiing for the gate, we are told that actually there aren't any connections, cause the plane was so late that all the other flights have left. fortunately for us, we are all being given rooms at the marriott, overnight kits and a meal allowance. glory allelujiah... just so long as i don't have to sleep on the airport floor. plus, they let us keep the headphones! cool! we got off the plane and ranged ourselves in varying degrees of irritability around the poor ticket agents. that job would suck. i am embarrased to say that a large number of people seemed to think it was those guys' fault the plane was late. i was just happy i was going to get a room, so i waited patiently to get my paper with the hotel voucher and rescheduled flight info on it. then it was off to baggage claim to get my overnight kit (couldnt get suitcases tho) and on the underground tram to the marriott. i must say the tram was impressive. the tunnels it went thru were very clean. this is the george bush intercontinental airport by the way. so, once at the marriott, we decanted ourselves from the tram and headed en masse to the registration desk. that was a bit of a wait, but i got my room and headed to the hotel gift shop, before it could close. thank goodness they had a decent selection of stuff one requires when caught without luggage.... i got a few toiletry items absent from my snazzy continental airlines overnight kit, and a few articles of clothing. um, some underwear and a kid's t shirt to sleep in. the kid's shirts were six dollars cheaper, and it had a keen picture of an armadillo on it. i got some juice and snack food cause i was hungry, and headed up to my room. oh man..it was nice to relax. called my family, told them where i was and when i was going to get to utah, called vash to tell him i was staying in the marriott on continental's tab, flipped thru the room service menu, went and got some ice, because it's fun; wished i had dune and ryle's phone numbers, and then had a shower and went to bed. zzzzzzzz.

next morning i got up, dumped the water from the ice bucket in the sink, got myself ready and back to the airport. at the last minute i decided to pass on the free breakfast buffet, cause i was afraid i wouldn't get on the flight if i wasn't there really early. so, i hurried to the gate, checked in, got a boarding pass from the new flight, and sat down to wait. we got to board, i got on, got all my carry ons sorted out, and waited to take off. this flight moved along and we were in the air on time. there was no food tho, except for a packet of pretzels and a can of soda. i finished my book, then got out my ibook to work on some stuff, got tired of that and decided to start pokemon silver. i'd gotten as far as mr. pokemon's house when we started the descent. we landed, i got my stuff together, and got off the plane. both my mom and dad were waiting for me and i was really happy to see them.

and, well, that's about what happened getting out here. i'll add more from time to time and maybe some pictures and things. hope that was fun to read!