Heading back to Florida

After 5 days of Reader/Writer Workshop training, I am typing this from the gate at Sky Harbor Airport, waiting to board a plane for Orlando. It's been a decent week, although a lonely one without the kids and Cristina.

Like my departure from Orlando 6 days ago, I had to be at the airport at 5 am, but at least I got a little sleep. It helps to only be 5 minutes from the airport. That two hour drive from Gainesville to Orlando is a killer for an early flight...

I did, however, stay up too late. I hate leaving for a trip when the house isn't at least basically clean (no dirty dishes, no dirty clothes, trash cans emptied). You wouldn't think chores that simple would keep me up late, and they wouldn't have if I hadn't put off doing them until Friday evening. I got it all done, but before I knew it, it was 1:30 in the morning. So I got about 3 hours of sleep. Enough to probably allow me to sleep on the plane, but not so little that I'll feel crappy all day.

I'm taking an online PowerPoint class at the local community college. That is, it's a class that teaches you the finer points of using PowerPoint, which I use on a daily basis as a teacher. I'm almost done with the class, but I have to finish my final project. I'm making a PowerPoint presentation of John F. Kennedy's Cuban Missile Crisis speech. We had a choice. It was that, or MLK's "I Have a Dream" (great speech, but a little too over-exposed), or the Declaration of Independence (too long and wordy). It's been kind of fun making the PowerPoint for the JFK speech. Maybe when I'm done, I could post a link to it or something.

I was surprised that the Wendy's here in the airport serves breakfast. I didn't know Wendy's served breakfast. Although, I must admit, I'm a little out of touch with fast food menus. Thankfully. I should probably get something before I board. I did bring some lunch (leftover chicken parmesan with rotini pasta that I made a couple of nights ago). But the thought of eating that for breakfast is kind of revolting. Actually, I'll be doing good to eat it cold for lunch. But maybe sheer hunger will overcome the cold-food aspect.

We're probably boarding in 1o minutes, so I'll close for now. I realize I didn't discuss much of my week of bachelorhood, but it wasn't very interesting. I went to work, I ran errands, I worked out (had to do 2 hours a day to finish the fitness class). I guess the highlight of the week from a bachelor perspective is that Peter and I finally pulled off the double-feature. We went to see Hancock and then immediately saw Wanted. They were both fun, but I got a little sleepy during Wanted, and that probably tainted my overall vibe for the movie.

I tried the chicken biscuit. Decent.

I think this was the first time I had flown out of the newly-renovated terminal 4. It's very pretty.

On the plane, one of the flight attendants looked like Alex's preschool teacher from a few years ago. The flight from Phoenix to Albuquerque was luxuriously empty...I had a whole row of 3 seats to myself. I sat in the middle and spread out, snoozing during takeoff, then working on my PowerPoint during the flight. It's only about 45 minutes to Albuquerque, though, so I didn't get much done. When we landed, they said the flight from Albuquerque to Orlando would be full. Bummer. My comfort was to be short-lived. As the plane loaded up, I scooted over to the window seat (Southwest doesn't assign seats) and tried to doze. Then I heard the magic words over the PA.

"Attention ladies and gentlemen. We have oversold this flight, so we need one person--" before she could even finish the statement, my hand shot up. She saw me and said "Okay! We have a volunteer. The man in the Florida hat." I followed her to the gate and after some keyboard-clacking and paperwork, I had a new flight, a travel voucher for $344, and a voucher for lunch. It was a no-brainer. Unless I have an important appointment, I always volunteer to get bumped. The Southwest people were so grateful that I volunteered. I'm not used to that. I didn't think the airlines ever had a hard time finding volunteers.

My new flight leaves at 1:30 and it was now 9:00. 4 hours to kill. Not a problem. I have my laptop, a comfortable area to plug in, free wi-fi...I can update my blog, check my email, work on my PowerPoint. My new flight arrives in Orlando at 7:20. I knew Cristina would already be on the road. I called her cell and told her the new plan and she said they would just go to the Orlando Science Center without me instead of with me. That works.

My aunt and uncle live about 20 minutes from this airport, so I should call them. I'm only hesitant to arrange a get-together because I'm tempted to use this block of time to work and maybe catch a little nap.

I sent a few emails, and got a decent little chunk of my PowerPoint done. It must be interesting on some level, because I caught the guy next to me looking at my screen while I played what I had so far. But then again, airport boredom can focus your attention on all kinds of things.

I started to get a little hungry, so I walked around to check out the choices. My lunch voucher could be used for anything in the airport. The voucher was for $8, and while I could always use my own money to supplement the voucher, I wanted to try to use the voucher only. Coffee sounded really appealing. A cup of plain, old coffee was around 2 bucks. And of course all the coffee places had yummy-looking pastries, which ran 2-4 bucks each. And then if I went with a "fancy" coffee (frou-frou coffee, as I call it somewhat pejoratively) that would be closer to $4. I could probably count the number of frou-frou coffees I've bought on one hand, but something sweet and dessert-y, like a cafe mocha, sounded good. I was trying to find some combination of legitimate lunch and coffee and or pastry...within the $8 range. I was about to give up when it hit me: my cold chicken parmesan pasta that I packed! I could eat that as my legitimate lunch and then be free to squander the entire $8 voucher on a frou-frou coffee and pastry. I found a comfortable lounge to eat in and got most of the cold dish eaten. Good enough. Then I found a coffee place and made my selection. Grande cafe mocha with whipped cream and a big walnut brownie that was heavy enough to make a nice doorstop. Total cost: $7.78.

As I reacquainted myself with what a cafe mocha tastes like, I realized that it was tasty in a dessert kind of way, but I wished I could taste more espresso in it. It pretty much tasted like hot chocolate. I wanted more of a chocolate-flavored coffee. I would have even settled for coffee-flavored hot chocolate. But of well. You win some, you lose some.

The doorstop brownie I packed away for later. The extreme sugar and chocolate of the mocha in combination with the brownie would be too much (although I have a sister and a wife who would disagree). Perhaps I'll need the brownie during the flight. Or perhaps I'll save it for Cristina. Score some brownie points. Literally.

Too bad I don't have a camera, or I could post some pics of my airport adventures. One of these days I'll have a phone with a camera. My cell phone is so old, you have to plug it into a phone jack. Okay, that's an exaggeration. But it does not have a camera.

My plane arrived in Orlando a little early...7 pm eastern time. I called Cristina and they were in the middle of eating, so while I waited for them, I grabbed a bite at Chick-fil-a. Through the wonders of airport wi-fi and time on my hands, I was able to update this post, which has grown quite long.

Cristina and family will be here any minute, so I think I'm finally done with this post for the day. In 2 hours I'll be back in Gainesville.