I'm about to fly up to Boston for the weekend for my brother's graduation. He now becomes a real psychologist and can now continue to make no money. Congratulations!

A few weeks ago Amy called and told me that Andrés' spring break was coming up at the beginning of March, and suggested that I fly up to Boston to spend it with them. All it takes for me is an invitation, so I soon bought my plane ticket and made my plans to fly up.

The departure didn't go quite as planned — the flight left at 1:30pm, so I aimed to be there two hours before that. We made good time crossing the lake, so Bryan and Cat actually dropped me off at the airport at around 11 am. I figured I could certainly stand waiting an extra half hour.

Of course, when I checked in I learned that the incoming flight had been delayed due to weather, so my flight was rescheduled to leave at 4:30pm. I called Bryan and Cat and delivered the news, and they offered to come back and pick me up so I wouldn't have to sit at the airport for hours. We did a little thrift store shopping and ate at Denny's, then returned to the airport at 3 pm. I thanked them for helping me pass the time and headed in.

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I think that just like Mitch Hedberg's "One complicated payment," someone decided that since most of the trip had gone awesome, the last part would be made as difficult as possible. My 6:30am flight from Dublin to Manchester was delayed for two hours because of poor visibility, but we didn't find out until we had left the gate, so we had to sit in the plane for two hours watching the sun come up and waiting for the weather to clear. I didn't really mind much, as I slept right through it, but the delay made it nearly impossible to catch my transatlantic flight from Manchester to Boston. To make things more interesting, my duffel bag decomposed a little more at a critical moment. I hurriedly checked in my bag, the woman stuck the label on the strap, and then as I lifted the bag (by the strap) onto the belt, the strap broke. I sighed and showed it to her and she had to cancel the check-in and check in the bag again to get a new label to put on a different strap. That was the third loss of structural integrity this bag has suffered, and this one left a hole for things to fall out of. Fortunately, I only had large things in that pocket, so nothing got lost, but it was disconcerting. Fortunately, the bag made it home without any further incidents, but it's certainly never leaving again.

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