Late lunch/ early dinner at Pearl Street Grill in Buffalo, New York.
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Today I’m in St Louis, Missouri. I’m happy to announce that I have eaten at yet another Waffle House! Waffle House #307! This brings me to a current total of 12 different Waffle Houses (that I can recall), and I’m well on my way to eating at 100 different locations! This particular one was the busiest one I’ve been to, so far. I actually had to sit and wait for a table… sheesh!
My sister Melanie and her husband Pete are visiting Utah for a few days. Their son Doug is graduating from college in a few days and so they’ve come to visit with the family. Since my parents won’t be home until 17:00 tonight, Pete and Mel came to visit me- their first visit to the house. I told them when the arrived that we were going to play a fun game. This game is called Pretend Dav’s House is Clean. It’s a fun game and anybody who comes to visit me on short notice gets to play it! Actually, had I not just gotten home yesterday, I would have had more time to clean. They understood. After a brief visit, we drove into town and had Mexican food for lunch. It was so good, but the company was even better!
I had to wake up very early this morning to take some of my crashpad roommates to the airport. I thought I’d take advantage of the fact that I was out and about and ran to Walmart to grab Reba’s new album. I would have grabbed it yesterday when it was released, but I didn’t have vehicle access. Plus I didn’t feel up to walking this far. Without any further ado, here’s41-secondond video for you.
Easter Sunday (yesterday) was a pretty fun day because I got to hang out with some family at my parents’ place up in Liberty, Utah. My sister Lori and her husband Scott happened to be in town so we had a great little reunion, even though so much of the family couldn’t be there. I snapped some pictures of my family.
My brother surprised us by bringing some “cookies” that he made for everyone. The joke was that he actually frosted some breakfast sausage patties as a joke. A few family member took a big bite, many spitting the treat out into the trash. My dad, however, liked the taste.
My sister Melanie reminded me a couple weeks ago that I hadn’t updated the blog in awhile. Perhaps it’s time for me to check in. Today I worked with only half of a cylinder. This is what is also called zombie-mode. I am so tired that my head aches. Last night I was in Atlanta and was not able to fall asleep and then having my alarm wake me at 04:30. At first, I think I had too much on my mind- thinking about things I need to be doing and things I want to be doing. I have started to plan my next trip to Scotland and even though it’s about a year away. I’m already getting excited. You know when one of those lap dogs gets so excited that it has to pee? That is my current status.
Today I’m thankful for the gift of forgiveness and healing… I’m not focusing on myself being forgiven right now (which I’m also grateful for), but that I’ve been able to forgive a coworker for the most part after almost 8 months, I’m ready to move on. Many flight attendants have what we call a “No Fly List”. This is simply a list of crew members that we would rather avoid working with, if humanly possible. I worked with this certain person this past summer and at the end of that three-day trip, I really wanted NOTHING to do with him ever again. I won’t post any specific details, but just understand that I really thought he should have been committed to an insane asylum somewhere- I’m totally not exaggerating either.
We were recently assigned a work trip together, once again, and I feel that I am so blessed that we were both able to say hello, shake hands and work together without any problems or friction from our past. There’s so much more to this story and if I told you all of the details, you’d most likely agree with my original decision to avoid working with him ever again. No, he’s not my favorite person in the world, but now I know that I don’t have to give him the power to change my day.
Speaking of Atlanta, I had dinner last night at yet another Waffle House. It’s the small victories that feel so good. As you may (or may not) know, number 100 on my bucket list is to eat at 100 different Waffle Houses. Last night, I found one in College Park, Georgia, near our ATL overnight hotel. This is Waffle House #105, and the 11th location that I’ve visited so far. That’s 11 down and only 89 to go!
At the moment, I’m working a flight from New York City to Denver. Most of the passengers are fast asleep, so it’s nice and quiet! I’m looking forward to having 4 days off starting tomorrow. The plan is to be lazy, spend time with the old folks, watch General Conference, and get some things done around the house.
My job has always been a great escape, especially in the cold winter months.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy the cold and the snow (because I literally do), but it’s nice to be able to pop down for even one afternoon or evening and thaw out. I know plenty of friends who would happily live on a beach for the rest of their life, but I can honestly say that I’m not one of those people. I do love a good snowball fight!
I love it when I’m given trips with awesome, funny or quirky flight attendants.
This makes all the difference in the world! Make the day fly by (pun intended)! This is Kevin and he’s very “bendy”.
Once we were off the plane, we walked through the maze that is the SJU airport. After a bit of a wander, we found the shuttle that would take us to the hotel. A quick change of clothes, and my crew and I met back in the lobby. We walked down the street to Plato’s Restaurant. I ordered a dish that was pork inside of fried plantains, covered by cheese. It was incredibly delicious, even though I’ve never really been a fan of plantains. I may have been converted to loving them! One of the front desk clerks suggested this when we asked her if she could suggest some authentic Puerto Rican cuisine that wasn’t too expensive.
After dinner, we returned to the hotel, changed clothes, walked behind the hotel, and stood on the white-sand beach for a few minutes. We ended up sitting and chatting in the hot tub for about an hour. It was incredibly relaxing, but I don’t think I’m relaxed enough to fall asleep yet. Tomorrow morning we have to go back to the cold country! I’m not looking forward to having to wake up at 04:40 local (that is 01:40 to my mountain time zone body).
The hotel shuttle dropped us off at Boston’s Logan International Airport at about 0730.
Our flight was scheduled to leave at 0815. After the passengers boarded and we were ready for pushback, our captain got on the P.A. to inform us that some kind of indicator light was broken. This meant that we’d have to call contract maintenance over to take a look. We all crossed our fingers that it would be a simple fix. As it turned out, it wasn’t an easy fix at all.
About half an hour later, the mechanic informed us that the plane would be out of commission until he could get the necessary part flown in from Dallas to fix the problem. We now had to deplane all the passengers and wait for another plane to be available. It took about 3 hours to get the needed part from Baltimore, rather than Dallas, and another 2 hours to be fixed. It ended up being about a 6-hour delay when we boarded the same plane, pushed back from the gate, de-iced, and flew a close-to-five-hour flight to Denver.
I’m thankful for the fact that this is an A.M. trip. If this had happened later in the day, we would have been stuck an extra night in Boston, and my work’s scheduling department would have had to pull my next trip, and I’m really looking forward to that one. I’m also thankful that all of the passengers were extremely nice to us other than one rude man. Sometimes passengers tend to blame us for things out of our control since they need to blame somebody present.
Every other passenger understood that this wasn’t our fault and that we had places we needed to be just like them. The rude man I’m referring to came to the front galley, just before we were getting ready to leave and told me (in a very grumpy tone) that he was agitated because not only was it his wife’s birthday, but they were going to be late for their dinner reservations in Denver. I wanted to say something very sarcastic to him but held my tongue. All I could do was apologize for something that was 100% out of our control.
I’m happy to be lying in bed at the crashpad and am about to drift off to sleep. Even though I only had to work one leg, that long wait this morning has caused me to be extremely exhausted. Tomorrow I’ll rest and get ready to fly again on Monday.
DavTravels 