Go west

(Jed, you can skip this post since it's just a version of what I told you at dinner today.)

I love flying west. Here's what I was able to get done on Wednesday with seven extra hours in my day: I got up and exercised. I then showered, ate breakfast, and helped get the kids off to school. Stace and I then watched an episode of 24 on iTunes. I then caught the bus to the train station and caught the train to the airport. I dozed off during the train ride to the airport. I did some work in the airport lounge while waiting for my flight. I then did some reading on the short flight to Amsterdam and had a nice little meal (see earlier blog for the menu). I did more work in the Amsterdam airport lounge and also on the second flight before it took off. After the plane took off, I did some more reading, and then I ate dinner. After dinner, I did a little more work. I then watched a movie, dozed off, and watched another movie. I then ate a pre-landing snack and read some more. After I landed in Minneapolis, I checked into my hotel, got my hair cut, picked up my travel kit from the house, went back to the hotel, dealt with work e-mail, and read some more. See how nice it is to have seven extra hours? Two movies, four meals, half a book, a haircut, a couple of short naps, and work, and still in bed at a decent hour. Gotta love that.

Now, of course, one has to pay a price for that by essentially losing an entire day on the flight back to Europe. So my idea is that we should just always fly west. That's all well and good until you run into this unfortunate little obstacle called the International Date Line. That nasty line is an unavoidable fact of world travel that prevents one from flying west forever without losing a day. It always catches up with you in the end. Oh, well.

In other world news, as if the stories about my luggage weren't already sufficiently gripping, there's more. My bag finally found me on Thursday night. Problem is, it got torn up pretty badly. I have no idea what happened, but the airline now owes me a new bag. They're trying to figure out how much they owe me. At one point, they asked me if I had the receipt from the purchase of the bag, which I've had for two or three years. You can imagine Stace's reaction to that question. Anyway, I found a replacement bag that should do the trick for about $85, so now it's just a matter of convincing Northwest Airlines that they owe me the $85. I'll have hourly updates on this riveting saga, so check back often.