rotten travel day, whiner post

today:

• i woke up on time, but after only 3 hours of sleep, i'm not sure whether that's a plus or a minus.
  
• i forgot to pack shoes that go with the socks i packed for my business trip. or i forgot to pack socks to go with the shoes i packed. see the above item for possible explanations not utilizing the term "airhead"
  
• i found TWO dead fish in my tank. one i kinda expected. he was sickly yesterday. the other one surprised me and indicates that i've got a LOT of work to do on my tank when i get home.
  
• i got caught in two traffic snarls and some construction trying to drop off my dog at my sister's house. yea metroplex!
  
• i got a speeding ticket on my way to the airport. harrumph. is it a plus that irving police are so concerned with getting you off to the airport after they ticket you that they have electronic signature pads and portable ticket printers, just like the UPS guy?
  
• my customary parking lot was full and i know from experience that i can't exit the airport to try the "remote" lot without paying the $2 passthru toll. plus, i was running late and didn't have time for that. see all of the above items for explanation not utilizing language i don't want to type out in front of my mother. (hi, mom!)
  
• i wound up parking on the roof of the infield parking zone for $17/day and parked at the wrong end of the building. i am NOT an airhead!
  
• by the time i'd found parking and walked all the way to the opposite end of the terminal, i'd missed the check-in window for my flight
  

on the plus side, i did manage to get to my destination without too terribly much trouble after that. i had a delightful walk across the frozen tarmac in denver that only involved a small amount of ice. the flight was on a prop-driven plane from denver to gillette, but i like roller-coasters and i have a strong stomach. plus, i didn't eat much today so there wasn't anything to feel nauseous about. although i flew standby, i got good seats on both my planes and (here's the important part) my luggage made it with me. in fact, when i got here, i was at the rent car counter getting my paperwork done while waiting for luggage to arrive. the crowd picked the "belt" clean so fast that the luggage guy actually found me and brought me my bag while i was standing at the counter. i have "belt" in quotes, not because i don't know how to use them, but because calling the luggage claim thing here a "belt" in the sense you're used to from places like denver, chicago, or dallas is a semantic stretch of india-rubber proportions. it's more like a metallic ramp that they back a truck up to and toss your stuff on so that it slides down onto the floor.

in other good news, since it gets too cold and dark here to fly out after 4 pm, i'll be flying out on saturday morning after my class at 6:30 am. the upside to a small airport is that you don't have to arrive two hours early to check in for your flight. the plane only holds maybe 20 souls, counting the crew. and believe me, they're only running one flight at a time.