We bought a tent on sale from Big 5 a few months ago, I have no idea why — I think I had malaria and was suffering from a fever of 108 and had this vision of a family outing in the mountains, sitting around a campfire and roasting marshmallows, pointing out constellations in the night sky to Zoe, cooking a hearty breakfast in the morning over an open fire… Camping, in other words. But I forgot that Beth doesn’t do camping. To Beth, camping is staying in a hotel that doesn’t feature round-the-clock room service. To Beth, the Great Outdoors is just that: Great. Outdoors.

So we have this tent we’re not using. Well, for Zoe, this is just WRONG. We have to go camping! Now! And if all the campsites in the area are completely booked through November, well we just have to go camping now anyway!

So tonight Zoe and I are going camping. In the back yard. We’ll be eating donuts in the tent later, and then I’ll tell her a ghost story (“…but not too scary of a ghost story, okay, Daddy?”) and then we’ll bed down for the night under the stars of suburbia. She’s so excited she can hardly stand it. I’m… Well, resigned is a good word for it.

Somehow it just doesn’t feel like camping when you have to make sure the sprinklers are turned off before you set up the tent.

I decided to take an unscheduled comp day from work today, so I got up early to call in to let my supervisor know. I got her voicemail, so I left her a message. When she hadn’t called me an hour later, I called a co-worker to see if she was around yet. Turns out she’s working from home today.

I probably could have just stayed home under the radar if I hadn’t left that voicemail for her.

But that would have been wrong.

But I would have had a free day off.

But that would have been wrong.

But…

The moral dilemma continues.

I get a lot of spam. That’s bound to happen when you have your email address at the bottom of just about every one of the hundreds of pages that make up your site. You’ve gotten it, you know what it’s like — it all starts to look the same after awhile.

Today, I got a weird one. Subject line: archeologovych spargentique. Whafuck?

I didn’t read it; I let my spam fighting software preview it for me. But I have to give them credit for an attention-getting subject line. It caught my eye, stood out enough to make me write about it here. End result, though: delete.

(Speaking of spam software, I recommend MailWasher. I use it, I like it. Check it out.)

Somewhere along the line, I’ve developed the habit of saying “Oopsie!” when I make a minor mistake. It’s sort of vaguely funny and gets weak laughs every once in a while, which I guess is why I started doing it.

But. One of my gay coworkers just gave me a look and said, “That’s so gay!”

Guess I need to butch it up a bit.

My company’s network migration started nearly two weeks ago. I still don’t have reliable email access. Reviews of the situation are mixed.

Oopsie, it’s gone, deleted in a spasm of belated sensitivity.

Don’t dwell on the past, move on!

Ahhh…. Home again at last. Only 13 hours later than expected, but that’s 13 hours I had to spend in Dallas that I’ll never get back. I’d rather have spent them in, I don’t know, Weehawken or Flint or any other place that isn’t Dallas. I’ve done Dallas to death. I’m done with Dallas.

At least my bags were waiting for me in Burbank. Woo.

Greetings from Room 251 of a Dallas Radisson hotel. I got as far as DFW, but no further. I missed my connecting flight to Burbank. Or so they said…

My flight from Boston — which finally took off 2 hours late — landed 3 minutes before the flight to Burbank took off, but then we sat on the tarmac for a good 20 minutes while Ground Control did whatever it is they do to delay flights that are already delayed 2 hours. Then we finally were cleared to our gate, except our gate wasn’t empty yet so they had to find a new one for us. Which they did pretty quickly, but then we still sat there for another 15 minutes before we finally parked.

I got off, tracked down the gate agent, and was informed that my Burbank flight had already left. She handed me two meal vouchers and a hotel voucher and told me to go to the ticket counter to get booked on the first flight out tomorrow morning. I almost decided to handle it myself and could have flown stand-by on a flight to LAX in the neighboring gate, but my checked bags wouldn’t have followed me so I went ahead to the ticket counter to see if they could pull my bags and maybe get me on one more flight to LA later that night.

I’ll leave out all the circling and cart riding and train riding and running and fast-walking and huffing and puffing and sweating I did over the next hour as I tried to track down my bags, go stand-by on another flight, get taken off the flight to Ontario (60 miles from home) someone mysteriously booked me on, and etc. I’ll just sum up by saying I logged a lot of miles and frustration before I happened to glance up at a departure monitor and noticed:

My original Burbank flight hadn’t left yet. It was still sitting there waiting for me.

It had been delayed an hour, it was boarding right now and if I really hauled ass across most of two terminals I just might make it. But I didn’t make it. My bags did, apparently, but not me.

So now I’m here in the Radisson with nothing but the clothes on my back, my laptop, and a surprisingly nice “personal hygeine kit” American Airlines gave me. I’m booked on the 10:35 flight to Burbank in the morning, and I hope when I hit Burbank I find my luggage is waiting there for me.

Surprisingly, I don’t want to kill anyone right now. But let me sleep on it. For one more night away from home. In a hotel bed. When I should have been in mine. With clean clothes. And a wife.

Ah yes, the rage is coming back.

Well, there’s one good thing about the Boston airport: pay-as-you-go internet access. The bad thing is that my flight is delayed. My 3:32 departure has turnedc into a “they’ll be ready at 4:15 … we think” — and they’re not sure if 4:15 means take off or board or what.

So I’m still here. Not for long, I hope. As for my connection in Dallas… Well, I’m hoping I actually do make it home tonight after all.

Less than one minute left on my dollar access. Time to go. Somewhere.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Elvis tattoo has left the building!

Thank you! Good night!