The Longest Friday Ever!

(written in DFW airport last Friday)

My Friday has now lasted 24 hours and there's still over eight hours left of it. I don't understand why travel agents, who are supposedly experts on travel, expect that you can make a connection within an hour and a half of your arrival on an international flight. Between getting through immigration, picking up bags, customs, back through security, and changing terminals, it is not humanly possible. Yet travel agents continue to book tight connections for me. This is the second trip in a row that I've missed my connection, and now I'm sitting in Dallas from 10:50 this morning until my flight leaves at 3:50.

Okay, rant over. I've been up 24 hours with only a couple naps on the flight so I'm a little cranky.

I have had a chance to observe a lot of people here at the airport, though. There's not much better to do. One thing that I saw that was pretty cool is the respect people are showing to military personnel who are going through the airport to go on R&R or to redeploy. Seeing some people go up and express their appreciation for the work the service men and women are doing was good to see. So much of what is on the news revolves around the negative, but the men and women of our armed forces are professionals who are doing their job to the best of their abilities. Decisions from the top may sometimes hinder their progress, but as long as we have people like I've seen here in Dallas, the job will end up getting done right.

On a less serious note, it does feel good to be back in the U.S. I'm normally able to cope pretty well with being in a foreign place, but so much in Japan is so different from what I'm used to. There's never a level of comfort there that I feel in other places that I visit. That probably comes from not being able to understand the printed language at all. I don't know any language other than English, but at least I can read the characters in the European languages. In Japan I don't have a chance. For instance, if a menu doesn't have pictures or an English description, I have no clue what I'm getting. In contrast, in Europe I can at least recognize several foods in Italian, German, and French. Just guessing in Japan might end up with me getting raw octupus marinated in slime, or whole miniature squid that crunch when you bite them because of the beak.

On the move front, not much has been happening. I've been out of town two of the last three weeks, so it's a little difficult to get much done. I feel bad for leaving Fiance with all the wedding planning, but I do what I can when she asks. My focus has primarily been on getting the house ready for sale. I hope that I have enough energy to get the floor in the kitchen done this weekend, but that might be a dubious proposition.
Sorry for the rambling without direction. I'm going to hide behind the excuse of extreme fatigue.

Cheers,
Frog