Flying Home

Greetings from 27,000 feet. I am on a flight from Chicago to Denver. It turns out that a flight direct from Chicago to San Francisco is more than twice as expensive as one that stops in Denver. Go figure. Due to expense reductions in the office, I am on a 3 flight relay from MSP to SFO. Nothing like visiting 4 airports in one day.

It was supposed to get up to 13 today in Minneapolis - according to last night's weather guy - but, no - the high was -1. I bought myself a really nice Minnesota toque to keep the head and ears warm. Eric bought some thermal underwear. We managed not to have anything freeze off.

The trip was a good one. Eric and I were able to get the new release installed and accepted by the customer. To celebrate, we took a couple of the guys from the customer out to dinner at a very nice restaurant. Our hero, the sales engineer (local talent in the MSP office), insisted on some really good wine to go with dinner and he picked up the check. We finished with a round of single malt scotches – something impossible to pronounce, and 21 years old. I love expense account dinners. It's one of the things that makes business travel bearable.

I got e-mail from Maurizio during the trip. He wants to get together next Monday. He seems to have the love jones somethin’ bad – which makes no sense – since he is spending the weekend with Stuart. I think I'll join him, as I've got some love jones going on, too - and I can't drown my sorrows with my favorite drinking buddy. Well I can, but that wouldn't be a real good idea. I'm going to need to figure out how to resolve that.

These coach seats are much too small – but I don’t have the frequent flyer miles to upgrade on United. I really need to learn to make more money.

On this flight I did buy a round of drinks for my whole row (6 folks, it's a full plane). I had 9 remaining free drink coupons from Meg (the wonder girl from the travel department) - and they'll probably expire before I go on another United flight. But before I did that, I asked the stewardess to offer a drink to the exotic and beautiful woman seated in 11F. She did so, without comment. Damn, how come only the gay male flight attendants are concerned about who I buy drinks for? Anyway, the lady in 11F took a cognac and gave me a wave and a smile in return.