Hot Summer Nights

Well, Christmas has come and gone, and I can’t believe it went so fast.  It seems like yesterday that I was having Thanksgiving dinner!

I spent Christmas in Michigan with the family, and it was great.  Getting there and back, however, was a different story.  Delta lost my luggage on the way there, and then rescheduled my returning flight for the next day at 6am.  I officially hate Delta!

It was ridiculous.  When contacting the Delta/Northwest baggage hotline they said they could send an email to the Detroit Metro baggage office to see about the status of my bag.  They said, quote, “we can’t actually call them because we don’t have their phone number.”

Wait, what?  The baggage hotline for  a major airline can’t look up the number for an airport’s baggage office?  Are you kidding me?

Adding insult to injury, they are now charging $20 to check a bag.  Thanks, I just gave you $20 to lose my bag.

Then on the way back it was quite an adventure.  First, the nosecone of the plane was scratched and they had to replace it.  Then, taxiing to the runway we hit a pothole.  The captain got on the intercom and basically told us “That pothole you felt back there was nothing, everything is fine.”

But it wasn’t.  Apparently as we were taxiing around some passengers heard a strange vibration noise from the right engine.  Then the stewardess heard it.  So they stopped the plane and had to get everything looked at.  When we taxied back to the gate and the pilot and mechanics came to the cabin to investigate I kind of knew we weren’t taking off that night.  I didn’t want to fly on that plane anyway – as all this was going down one of the flight attendants said to the other attendant that she would “rather just get off this plane.”  When the FLIGHT ATTENDANT says that, you know you have a bit to worry about.

So we had to go back to the airport, wait on line for an hour, get a hotel voucher for $13 (which was useless because everything was closed), board a shuttle for the hotel, and get 3 hours of sleep before waking up at 3am to make the shuttle for the newly rescheduled 6am flight.  PLUS, adding even more insult to injury, they didn’t let us have access to our checked baggage.  ANOTHER night without any clothes and toiletries.  After we boarded our rescheduled flight we had to wait 2 hours on the runway because they forgot to stock our plane with any beverages or food.  Didn’t much matter to me because they only give any worthwhile food to first class anyway.

In sum:  I hate Delta.  They gave us a $100 voucher for future use with their airline.  Thanks but no thanks.  In another few months all that $100 is going to be good for is checking a bag.

Well, enough about that.

I’m currently up in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, for a weeklong snowboarding trip with my friends Lori, Barb, and Val.  We are staying at Barb’s fantastic apartment for free.  New powder is expected for New Year’s Day.  I’m so excited!

I will update hopefully with some more news about the trip.

I’ve gotta say, even though it’s nice to travel, I will be so happy to finally get home after this trip and get back into a regular routine and schedule.  I just want to relax, and for me it’s hard to do that when I’m traveling – especially sports traveling like surf trips and snowboard trips, where people want to make the most of their time and you can’t always make your own schedule.

I am a bad bloggist.   Well, I’m back yet again.  The problem was that I was still sick and it really felt like someone had taken my brain out and replaced it with cotton balls.  I’m not kidding – it was really hard to function.  My flu turned into a sinus infection and I couldn’t get rid of the lingering cough.  After first trying to wait it out I finally went to the doc and got some antibiotics.  Basically I was sick for a month!!    I’ve only been in California for about a month and a half, but it really felt like I wasn’t here at all – I couldn’t do my normal stuff and it was really hard to concentrate on things.  I went out with friends when I was feeling a little better, but the fatigue was so bad and I really wasn’t myself.  I even went surfing a few times thinking I was almost over it, and afterwords I couldn’t function at all.  I just wanted to go to sleep.  It was pretty crazy.  Then I read that extreme fatigue like that was actually a pretty big symptom of sinus infections.  I’ve had sinus problems before but never had fatigue like that.  Even now I’m still working on getting my energy levels back to normal – I’m still getting a little more tired than normal.

Either way, I’m finally, finally feeling like myself.  I went surfing today, and it was glorious.  What a great day here in San Diego – warm and sunny, no wind.  I got some great waves.  There’s really no way to describe being out there in the water.  Even just paddling around the lineup and watching others take off on clean blue waves is a rush.  I’m so thankful that I’m able to surf and exercise again.  It’s tough on me when I have to get over injuries and illnesses since I’m such an active person.  I get so antsy.   BUT – I should just concentrate on being thankful that I’m able to heal up and get back out there.

I was in New York visiting home this past weekend, and it was pretty fun.  I took the red eye in, and I swear I will NEVER do it again!  I was pretty much non-functional when I got into town.  I was SO tired.  I took the train out to the East End, which would have been cool if I wasn’t a zombie.

Mom and I went to the city and did the usual Christmas stuff.  Unfortunately we forgot to take into account that it was a Saturday.  It was incredibly crowded around 5th Avenue and stores like Saks 5th Avenue were pretty much being ransacked by overeager holiday goers.  On a sidenote, I think strollers should be illegal in highly congested areas.  When I went to Disneyland with Katrin and Donny I nearly got run over by a mom pushing a stroller at about 73 MPH.  Those things are as big as SUV’s nowadays.  They probably have their own GPS units and Espresso bars.

The Window Displays at Bergdorf Goodman

Ornament Sculpture - NYC

I’ll be heading to Michigan soon for the holidays, and I’m really looking forward to that.  I’m even looking forward more to downloading a few episodes of Glee and watching them on the plane.  I’m getting strangely intrigued by that show.  It’s not normally a show I’d watch – BUT – the writing and humor is so quirky/funny in a slightly “American Beauty”-esque way that I really like it.  Also, the singing is amazing.