Christmas 2007

Christmas was fun.

Travelling – not so much.

Arrived in NoVa just in time for Christmas Eve dinner. It was great, as always. Too much food to recount, but suffice to say I love red cabbage with apples and the marinated asparagus and mushrooms.


Christmas morning we just eased around the house until it was time to go to my niece and nephew-in-law’s for Brunch and to watch the kids open their loot.

A&R DiD served us a splendid breakfast. French toast with homemade strawberry compote, sausage patties, fruit with, I think, a yogurt based topping. Coffee, Mimosas, homemade cocoa – it was great.

CA and BA and Aunt S were there (as well as for Christmas Eve dinner).



It was a fun time watching the kids (Will and Drew) and enjoying each other’s company. Those 2 guys are a couple of the happiest campers you’ll ever be around!

Later, turns out that United was so affected by the bad weather in Chicago on Sunday – they had a lot of planes and crews out of position. So, they decided to preemptively cancel flights and use Christmas Eve and Christmas day to put their system back together.

My flight, of course, was cancelled.

So – instead – I flew to Philadelphia and then caught a US Airways flight back to Raleigh.

Got home around 2130 (9:30) so I was only about 3 hours later than originally planned.

Popped into the USO at RDU to see if anybody needed a ride to Sanford or anyplace on the way. The only soldier there was waiting out United’s cancellations.

Worked some today. Back home and I've just built a nice fire. Listening to music and I'll probably do nothing but read.


Back to the usual routine tomorrow.

A Final Word About TSA

Their disorganization at Dulles is text book. Dulles has the most chaotic screwed up airport security I’ve ever been through. Not just this year - it's always that way.

No clear directions on where to go. Had to take my tagged baggage to one end of the terminal where it was thrown in a pile along with other backed up luggage – not enough scanners or people to handle it. You had to take it down there because they were so backed up – the conveyor belts behind the ticket counters were stopped.

Then back to the other end of the terminal to stand in an unbelievable line. That is – if you got lucky and chose the correct line. There were no signs, or people to tell you where to go or what to do. It was bedlam.

I stood in lines at Dulles for well over an hour.

Mismanagement, disorganizers, should be ashamed at their incompetence.

And fired.

Contrast Dulles with Philly. Had an hour layover so I stepped outside to have a smoke. Took me all of 3 minutes to get back in through security.