Tone Parsons

I flew back to Spokane yesterday.

My day started at 4:00am on the east coast.  I was all packed and ready to hail a cab by 5.  The cab I ended up getting in was a little beat up (one headlight was pointing in a different direction than the other) which should have given me a clue that the driver took risks.  This was without a doubt the scariest ride I’ve ever had.

The driver was all over the road (he was talking on his cell phone for the entire drive), followed other vehicles with mere inches between the bumpers, and generally scared the holy living crap outa me.  He did, however, get me to the airport rather quickly.

After finishing “Death Ride, 2006” (and yes… I tipped him), I went about checking in with the airline, getting my suitcase weighed (it was 5 pounds over the limit… but they took it anyway without charging me extra), going through the security checkpoint (both my carry on bags were searched because of all the computer stuff I had in them), and finally finding my gate.

The flight left on time and was fairly uneventful.  First class is nice (and the only way to fly!), but all the planes I few in looked horrible on the inside.  The seats and carpet were very worn and all the surfaces looked dirty.  Even the plastic covers for the recessed cabin lighting looked like they haven’t been cleaned since they banned smoking on flights around 10 years ago (they were yellow and dingy).

My connection in Minneapolis was on time (one hour layover) and I was on the ground in Spokane at 12:20 pm (pacific time).  The total trip took about 8 hours (7 hours of which I was in the air).

After taking the wrong shuttle to get to my car (and ending up miles away from the Airport) I called my wife and she picked me up, drove me back to the airport, and I got my car.  We then met up for lunch and I drove home.

I started doing laundry when I got in (all my jeans were in my suitcase), played with my dogs (oh man… were they excited to see me!), and downloaded the Euro Force expansion for Battlefield2.

I did manage to stay awake until 9pm, but it was a real challenge, since my day began at 1am local time.

Today, I’m back at work (and damn tired).

On a positive note though, the company I went to work at in Boston called the project manager here and told them that I was very friendly, professional, and brought a lot to the table (she relayed that to my manager as well).  That’s great to hear, especially since my annual review is on Friday 🙂