When I woke this morning, I pictured in my mind how this next, great year would look.  I focused on my goals like any good visualization, I just forgot to look at the details, the how to get from here to there stuff, the stuff that fills each of our days.  Today was supposed to be an easy day – after all, it’s my Birthday – a celebration of a life still being lived or…a long day doing trivial travel things that take forever, apparently I have to hold off on the celebrating part.

Basic packing ensued in the morning, followed by a trip to DFW for a flight to LAX.  DFW is a big place and they appear to have decided not to use the same terminology or plans as every other major airport in the US.  Instead of long-term parking, they use “remote parking”; the airport isn’t built in a circle, you know, that works everywhere but in Texas, no it is built in a straight line, so if you enter in the North and drive straight through to the South, they get to pick up their dollar for driving on their road.  I’ve flown through DFW before, but never had to fly from there.  When we got to the pay station after having driven by all the terminals and found ourselves leaving again, Big asked the guy about long-term parking – he stared at him and said, “no, we don’t have long-term parking, you can park anywhere.”  We thought that was odd, until he went on to explain that parking at the terminals is fine, it cost $19/day, or we could use remote parking for $8/day.  I think I would call the remote parking long-term, but that’s just me.  Heaven forbid we should Mess with Texas – they’re going to do it their own way, that’s for sure.

After the standard long line in security which we all passed with flying colors – it feels like such an accomplishment, doesn’t it, when you get through the checkpoint without any problems, like getting a gold star on your homework.  Anyway, we flew Virgin this time, first time, I guess that made us Virgin virgins, and while the flight was delayed significantly, it was pretty cool.  They are certainly tech savvy on their airline.  Everything was available on your individual tv screen and your little remote.  Josh and I even chatted seat-to-seat.

Two guys sat behind us who obviously had a long history, they had been in each others wedding party, so they talked non-stop, and it was entertaining as hell.  They covered the basics first, family, mutual friends, jobs, then one started talking about some of the other things he does.  Guy 1 told Guy 2 that he had tickets to NASCAR at the Texas Motor Speedway, Guy 2 was beside himself – “You like NASCAR?” He couldn’t believe it, WHY would anyone go to that.  Then as the conversation continued and Guy 2 mentioned getting some hunting gear at Cabela’s, Guy 1 said, and I quote “What’s Cabela’s?”  I almost couldn’t stay in my seat anymore – What’s Cabela’s?  Really – what rock has he been under.  I personally have made the trek to the mother store in Sidney, Nebraska numerous times, of course it helps that they have awesome wild game food and a free RV dump and water on-site.  You know how it is, my needs are different than most.  Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed Guy 1 and Guy 2 for all three hours of the flight.

Our next adventure after landing late was the rental car, I couldn’t remember where I had made our reservation, so we hopped the Avis bus and dove through the crowd of people to get to the front of the line and drive our shiny silver bus to one of my favorite hotels.  Josh kept everyone entertained and distracted while Big ran off the bus.  I just wasn’t ready for anymore delays tonight.  A quick stop at Inn-n-Out at two minutes to midnight completed a very long Birthday day.  I never managed to Create the Life I Imagined today, so I’ve opted for a re-do, a mulligan – so today is my Birthday too.  As a bright spot, Facebook has made birthdays very enjoyable.  How cool is it that no one has to actually remember your birthday anymore because Facebook will remind them.  I love that.  Oh and happy birthday to the other members of the 10-4 birthday club, Jon, Sheryl, Claudia and Chad – all of which I spoke to in one form or another yesterday.

Avis at midnight