Torrey Pines

I almost missed my flight to San Diego last weekend. Well, sort of. Pat and I, on our way there, were dropping off Thomas at a friends house. While waiting for the front door to be open and Thomas to be let in the house, Pat rolled down his window to say say something to him. There was an unusual crunch as the window began descending. For a fleeting moment I thought that maybe something had gone wrong, but I quickly convinced myself it was all in my head. That is, until Pat attempted to raise the window to louder, more terrifying crunch sounds. In a moment of rapid decision making we decided to drive to Chris's house to enlist his services. Fortunately he was available, so the three of us raced to the airport in my windowless car.

Upon arriving, Pat quickly ran off to pick up Lisa's van (this is the whole reason he was coming to the airport in the first place), I ran to the baggage check (fortunately my elite status with Northwest allows me "elite" access to "special" check-in lines. After getting through security I ran to my gate, boarding pass in hand. I rounded the corner, prepared to walk straight onto the plane, and as I looked up I saw, in big red letters, "DELAYED".

Most of the passengers at this point were already in the gate area and had a perfect view of the scene; I could tell they were pretty amused. I felt their stares as I calmly walked to an open seat and called the folks to tell them the story of my car.

My week, though, has been much calmer. The installation at SDSU is going well, the weather has been perfect, and San Diego is a beautiful city. How could I complain? I'll actually be a little sad to leave, though I would never pass up a chance to actually be home.

Speaking of home, I'm feeling a stronger and stronger sense of unrgency about getting my own place. It needs to happen, I think, and soon. The search has begun.