UMTravels

Didn’t take Ambien last night — as a 6am wake-up call is early, as is waking up at 4:30 and tossing and turning.

I was out of the house at 6:15am with Peter looking perky and Linda looking, well, like I look at 6am.

Forty minutes later I was at Heathrow — not bad for Transport of London!

Checked in — thought there might have been a possibility of an upgrade on the LA-SEA flight for $30, but she couldn’t get it to work, and I wasn’t about to pay $200 for upgrade coupons (and use $100 worth on a commuter jet flight), and the 500 pounds ($802) for an upgrade to business class on the LHR-LAX flight would have been 150% of what my round-trip ticket cost.

A little breakfast (huevos rancheros), but no duty free liquor because of the connecting flight problem in LAX. No worries.

Boarded the Boeing 777 for the 11 hour flight to LAX and was pleasantly surprised when they closed the doors, that in the 2-5-2 seating row that I was in, the “5” had one person on each aisle seat and 3 seats between us.

After the initial beverage/food service I stretched out across three seats with my friend Ambien and was out for 4 hours, then another beverage, then another 3-4 hours until the final food service.

The cheap United bastards actually had the gall to try and charge $3 for the mid-flight snack on an 11 hour flight. It’s bad enough that there isn’t free booze on trans-Atlantic flights anymore.

Got to LAX and through passport/customs — and yet another security (hence, the no liquor — at least SFO has fixed that problem) and checked into the Route 66 Bar/Grill where I had dinner on my Christmas trip to Santa Fe. A double shot of Maker’s Mark and I was ready to be stuffed into a cigar tube sitting next to a hottie. And back to sleep it was again.

By 6:45pm I was back an home and defrosting a steak for dinner. Open to wine, start the ice maker for after dinner drinks, and go through the mail while chewing on cow.

After dinner. Boob tube. Email. Catching up.

[218.9 in the evening]