Here we go again!

This time to Moline, Illinois – John Deere corporate headquarters. Amazingly I’m not going to write too much bad this time. What, has he lost his mind? Partially. Or at least left it behind. This is because I had a 6am flight today. I still don’t know where I am.

I left my house this morning and heading out of the airport. I don’t think I was wearing clothes. With my eyes still mostly closed, I navigated my truck up I-40. Now, I hear from all my friends how bad the traffic sucks going to RTP in the morning. What the hell are you talking about? There’s no one on the road at 5am!

I parked in the new Daily parking place, wheeled my crap over to the terminal and gave my luggage to some guy. I think it was the Baggage Check-In guy, but I really don’t know. I told this blurry stranger where I was going and he said something about the Gates of Hell, or was that just Gate 8? I got on a plane.

Another good ting about early flights is comfort. You are so tired, so can actually sleep in the toilet. This lady offers me a ‘pillow’ and ‘blanket’. I am a small man, but this looked to be designed for the wizard of Oz set. Nonetheless I promptly replied, "hell yes" and when snuggled in it, thought, "other than laying between a fat woman’s breasts, this is probably the best pillow ever."

And so I slept. And slept. And slept. We apparently we hijacked by terrorists, shot down and crashed over the some body of water, where we were taking underwater to visit Willy Wonka’s "Now Underwater" Chocolate Factory, finally rescued by US Marines and drop-shipped 500 feet out of their helicopters (no parachutes), and I didn’t wake up until I smelled that fat police guy’s donut.

So then I went into the Detroit airport, again. Last week it was filled with various travelers and hot dogs form hell. This week, not as many early risers and no hot dogs. Being on this other end had some other advantages as well. First, they had a few actual restaurants. Second, they had this hole in the wall, where they stuff about 5 video games. Very cramped, but interesting. Of course, they had the 2 all-time standards, Ms Pac-Man and Galaga.

I played Galaga first and frankly didn’t fair so well. Then again, there seemed to be a hundred of those little flying ships coming after me. I stepped over to Ms Pac-Man, actually, more like a quick side step. Since most of my friends are crazy about this game, I ‘play one for them’ every time I can now. This is a strangely viscous ritual as I suck. Today I was on the ‘slow’ version again. But I was slower. Oh, so much slower. I died pathetic deaths a this game, which was sad because the High Score was really low ad I couldn’t beat it. Even in this state of confusion I did notice that the Ms Pac-Man back in that mall in Madison was considerably slower than even this one. I mean, that one was slow.

I find my gate, such that it was, and wait. Having awhile to kill I look around for food. I see this guy eating a nice breakfast bagel, which appears to have a good amount of egg in it. Being an egg fan I asked him where he got it. I go get a ham and egg sandwich from this little deli. The workers at this deli obviously are no good at math. Since a carton of a dozen eggs has 12 eggs in it (not a bakers dozen), there are several ways to divide this carton up evenly. 1,2,3,4 eggs would be good example of what to dole out on a sandwich. And how many do you think they used? All of them. She actually produced these eggs from a round container the size of the large Country Crock spread type, heated them up and had to cut this blob in half with a knife to get it on my sandwich. This was incredible. And I ate every last bit, even though my stomach hurt for doing so. Um, um good.

I get on another plane, I fall asleep again. Although apparently no ‘side tours’ this time, I still don’t recall any of it. I wind up in Moline. 49 degrees and sunny, so I’m a bit happier about that. The airport is small. Like 8 gates or something. I get my rental car, this time confirming they had cupholders. Oh yes. Now off to baggage claim. And I say that in the singular – there is only one. Just one little conveyor and track. One. Well, at least it was easy to find.

Next up: Let’s go shopping!