I am sitting in the Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood airport. It is early. I barely slept last night and left my hotel at 4 to get to the airport for a 6am flight... Well, it is now 6am EST and why am I not on my flight? Oh, cuz they canceled it, and put me on the 8am. Yeah, go Delta.

Oh, and last night, I was outside about to go swimming and I saw this guy...

So, sitting here in the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport... at gate E17... waiting for my flight to Sarasota, which will be on a little plane. These women sitting next to me are Obama supporters and have been canvasing here in NC, and are going back home. I am kind of laughing in my head at what they are saying... not because they are backing Obama, but because they are excited that a black man that "had to suffer so much" will be in office. Really? I have read quite a bit about him... he suffered? That seems a little overkill. Then they are also saying that people who are out of jail often don't know they are eligible to vote and there is a conspiracy that white probation officers do not tell the black inmates they are allowed to vote... Maybe it happens? But really why do they not try to register and find out for themselves? Are people not responsible for themselves anymore? Hhhmm, I will let you make your own judgments on that one... but I can tell you, the moment I turned 18, I registered to vote - and no one told me I was allowed to or not.

On the plane here I listened to this hypnosis download that I got from Audible. It totally relaxes me, but for some reason when the guy says you might feel your fingers tingling, and that is when my right arm always fall asleep. He also wakes you up at the end, which sucks, but I swear 36 mins of hypnosis is like 4 hours of sleep. I feel great, and it is 5:10am, my time.

This airport is very cute. Everyone has accents, they have trees randomly placed next to white wood rocking chairs, and Wright brothers airplanes scattered throughout.

Here I am... row 16, seat C on US Airways flight 1248 from Seattle to Charlotte. It is still always a bit weird for me when I realize that my new home base is Seattle and not Detroit. I am flying on a free ticket that I got when I took a work trip to LA in September. These red eyes are harsh but I cannot sleep quite yet as it is only 11:17 Pacific Standard Time and my usual bedtime is around 2:00am PST. Also, the flight would be so much better if it had Wi-Fi, as I could post my blog in real time, but in truth, if there were Wi-Fi on this flight, I would have, however, probably lost about $30 bucks on Full Tilt Poker by now.

Tom drove me to the airport tonight. It was weird having someone drive me to the airport, because usually I am traveling for business and I get car service from Driver for Hire. I will post their phone number when I actually put this on the web, because they are wonderful. I've used them quite a bit, they always show up a few minutes early and their prices are about the same as a cab from SeaTac to Belltown, but they have towncars or Limos that are very very clean and smell really nice. Plus the driver are not crazy drivers like most of the airport cabs I have taken. I highly suggest Driver for Hire. Call them... 206-423-9603.

I am going to Siesta Key, Florida which Jeff tells me it is just sugar sand and sun. I cannot wait. I was trying to think of the last time I took a "real" vacation and really, it was October 2006, oddly enough to Florida, with Jeff. I travel a lot, but it is usually for work and when I can take an extra day here and there it is still never a destination I would normally not choose (except Chicago to see Warfield!!)

There is a baby sitting in the row next to mine, and he is slightly crying. Usually this would annoy me, like on my 7.5 hour flight back from Orlando a few months ago, but he is gently crying and in a way it is sort of cute...

So, I haven't blogged about my day yet so far... or last night. Last night Dan came over after a little work get together he had going on. I cooked us a dinner and then we fell asleep so early. Wait, no, Dan fell asleep so early and I laid there and worked for a bit, watched some SNL... listened to the drunks at Tia Lous in my alley... and then, around 1:30 I heard my door jiggle. I was about 1/4 asleep and thought maybe it was a dream. Nope, happened again... So I woke Dan up and told him about it but no more jiggles. I went to the door and no one was there through the peep hole, so I am assuming it was a drunk neighbor of mine walking to the wrong apartment or something. It still freaked me out, especially with the whole crazy exboyfiend type of thing.

Then Dan's brother called him early and they went to brunch. I stayed at my house and packed for Florida. Dan came back over about noon and we went to Pike's for some fruits to put into my juicer. We got pears, bananas, strawberries, and mangos. It made a yummy juice. Then we listed a bunch of his stuff and my stuff on Ebay.

After that we went to eat at this new restaurant in Belltown called Cellars. It opened a few weeks ago at the old Jai Thai on 1st and Blanchard. They have happy hour all day on Sunday, which is nice. The happy hour food was pretty tasty and not too expensive. Their happy hour draft beers were $2.50 a piece which is a steal in Belltown. They usually have Mack & Jacks but the keg was broken so Dan went with a Manny's and I had the Hef, which was Whistling Pig, and I loved it. We got some apps which were not great, but not bad either. Our server was really nice and very attentive. I think I want to check out the dinner menu at this place one time. They did have a garage door type of window which was open at the bar area, which made the crackhead watching even better than usual. Plus it was a nice day and nice to be in the open.





Then Dan went home, Tom picked me up... which leads back to where I am now... Flight 1248...

11:43pm

Tom is on his way over... to pick me up... to take me to the airport... where I will fly for 10 hours (including my layover)... and land in Sarasota, Florida tomorrow at 11:37am!

Yea!