where does the time go

well, i thought i'd be back to blogging more regularly again, but i realized that was a month ago. it's been another little hectic season including two more trips with interesting airline adventures.

for the first trip, i flew to tulsa and spent the holidays with my fam. it was good. i got to spend some really good time with family and friends. i've got neices and nephews and godkids that i got to hang out with too which was way fun. i totally love being 'aunt mindi'. i was flying home on new years eve. i was sitting at the gate when i heard my name called. i couldn't imagine what for so i gathered my stuff and headed to the counter. it turns out that the flight was oversold so i was being bumped up to first class. cool. i arrived in denver a few hours later after a lovely nap in the comfy first class seat. my connection to san diego was delayed so i went in search of dinner. i arrived back at the gate to find they were taking volunteers to take a later flight. i volunteered and ended up with a free round-trip ticket anywhere in the 48. when i boarded the later flight, i was sitting in the row just behind first class. when i boarded with the premiere fliers, the flight attendant commented i should've been bumped to first class again since there were open seats. once i again i ended up with first class treatment. not a bad deal.

i came home for a few days and then headed to orlando for national ministry council. it was really good. it's for national network of youth ministries. it was a couple of days of meetings which were good--tiring, but good. also while i was in orlando, i got a chance to catch up with a couple of friends who live there, one of whom i hadn't seen in two years. we had fun over dinner and coffee. getting to orlando had been no problem. getting home proved more challenging. i'd arrived at the airport in plenty of time and stood in the premiere line which only had about 10 people in it. it took them nearly an hour to get to me. when i got to the counter, i found out that there had been a couple cancellations that had caused all the confusion and slowness. there was confusion about my flight. in one place it showed delayed; in another on time. they told me i'd have to get to the gate to find out. the security line was nearly 3 hours long so united got those of us who had flights in under an hour grouped up and thru the line in about 40 minutes after which i rushed to my gate to find out my flight really had been delayed. as the delay continued i realized i'd definitely miss my connection. i went to the counter and asked. the agent looked at the options and told me i'd end up being stuck in denver overnite--they wouldn't be able to get me out from there until the next day. *sigh* okay. i go back and sit down and about ten minutes later they start asking for volunteers to take a bump and fly out the next day for a plane ticket. i volunteer, figuring that if i'm going to be stuck overnite somewhere, i may as well end up with something for it. when i volunteer, i'm told, oh, no problem. they can get me home tonite if i don't mind going thru chicago instead of denver. no i don't mind. they buy me lunch, they give me a free plane ticket, a first class upgrade and i get home 6 hours later than planned.

aside from the travel, at the office we're in full swing rolling out the core. my role is to make sure the core sales area works visually and operationally. it's definitely busy.

today is the first day in 3 weeks i haven't had anything on the calendar. i've slept a lot, vegged, read and now blogged. it's been nice. i'm glad to be back.