that's right, part 1. of how many? i don't even know yet.

so apologies for the delay, but i've had a hell of a week. i'll leave the excuses for some other time and place and just get into it. the last time we spoke (roughly) i had canceled my first class ticket into DC after having 3 flights canceled on me. i was moping around the apartment alone, on no sleep at all, having woken up at 5:30am to catch 3/3.

the godfather saga was on tv, so i watched the first part of it. then another channel showed the godfather, part II, so i figured i'd watch that too, since one of the greatest movies of all time should be able to shake off the doldrums. when hyman roth started talking about cuba in terms of cake, i started vacuuming. and by vacuuming, i mean watching a roomba go around the living room.

i was bored and miserable.

for the fun of it, i checked the usairways site for flights to DCA. since it was the shuttle and there were flights every other hour, the price stayed relatively low - $250 roundtrip. i stared at the 3:45 departure for a while... and then decided i was being an idiot because i was half-asleep. around 2:30 i decided to shower and then make a final decision. my bags were all still packed, so the transition from shower->airport would be as easy as possible. i got out of the shower and called geoff. him and drew were eating lunch after working all morning. i tossed out the idea of still coming down there. geoff heartily endorsed the idea, and drew said if i could get down anytime before 9 i should do it. when would i get down? 5:15pm.

"oh, ship that"

so i did. of course, by the time i bought the ticket, it was pretty close to 3pm. and i had a flight in 45 minutes to catch. and i was at home.

ass-hauling does not begin to describe what i did. i called jen and told her what i was doing. i got my shit, ran to the car, and started down towards storrow drive. i got down to where 28, storrow, and 93 meet, and the bridge was... up? a rare event, and one that would have me missing my flight for certain. i pulled a U-turn and followed a few other like-minded drivers to an alternate on-ramp to 93 south. i flew through the subsequent tunnels and got to the parking structure at 3:10.

i want you to think about that. i got from somerville to the airport in under 10 minutes with the f'n bridge being up. in theory this seems very possible, but once traffic is taken into consideration, this is one of the greater feats of my driving career. since i didn't have to check a bag, i got a boarding pass and through security before the flight even boarded.

we did sit on the ground for 45 minutes or so due to a storm coming through the area, but i slept through most of that (and most of the flight) and ended up in DC at 6pm.

talk about your all-time fast turnarounds.

tomorrow's part 2 includes: getting picked up at the airport, jason tyner, and scaring trilling into doing the best jig ever.