I've made it halfway there with no serious snags yet. Unless you consider a seven hour layover in a boring airport a snag. This is the first time I've set foot in Texas since my exit from indentured servitude five years ago. So far I've wandered around the airport (pretty boring, even for an airport) I had some BBQ at one of the places in the food court, I'm upstairs at the Fox Sports Skybox having a cold Shiner Bock and watching about 32 screens of various Fox Sports channels (but not Fox Soccer Channel) and curiously, CNN rather than Fox News but it'll be a cold day in Cayman when I complain about that. :)

I've been here since 1:45 and it's3:45 right now. Two down, five to go. It's odd, I'm counting down the minutes of the layover... only to get on a plane and be trapped in a smaller place for another four hours. How does that make any sense??

Eventually it got dark out, I got hungry, and I wandered back to the Fox Sports Bar and had a bite to eat and then moseyed down to my gate around 7:30 or so. At 8:15 they announced that they wanted to double-check everyone's boarding pass, which didn't bode well. I got up there and they gave me a boarding pass, (I was on standby for this flight) so I called my brother in Vancouver and told him that I had a seat and would be on the flight so I would see him in about four and a half hours.

I boarded the airplane and found my seat: 6B. A middle seat. Awful. The plane looked pretty full, too. I sat down between two guys, one of whom had gas and the other just smelled of fish stew/soup or something and was just about resigned to the fact that it was going to be a crappy four hours when I heard my name being called on the plane's intercom and would I identify myself to the cabin crew. Great. I'm going to get bumped after all this and spent the night in Houston. Exactly NOT what I wanted to do. I identified myself and she asked me to collect my things and come with her. Not good. We got up to the galley at the front of the plane and she told me I had been upgraded to first class. WOOHOO!!

I stowed my gear, took a seat, had a glass of wine and settled in for four and a half hours of comfort. I actually slept for a couple hours, and woke up just in time for some fresh squeezed OJ and a landing in Vancouver at 12:15am. I collected my bags, met my brother and headed to my parents house... where they told me that they were still painting the bedroom I was supposed to be sleeping in but hey, the couch is really comfortable! I fell asleep pretty quick and slept through til morning... the morning of the stag party.