Where Is Hawkins?Where travel is cheaper than psychotherapy.

Christ, I’m tired. Hotel door to home door: 17 hours.

A few things:

1) Manchester Airport. It sucks, but the BA EC rocked.

2) The Jerry Springer Opera. Definitely worth seeing.

3) Camden Markets. Lots of fun. Had some shitty Moroccan food while I was there. But I had some crepes near Golders Green and that made up for it.

4) Raleigh Durham Airport sucks. 3 hour delay for “bad weather in Chicago”, meanwhile I’m watching the Cubs game at the Admiral’s Club and it looked nice out. How’s that work out?

Also got caught in Leicester Square for the Harry Potter premiere, which was sort of cool.

More later, must get sleep.

Oh, I forgot to mention. Last Saturday night after staying late at PJ Clarke’s and getting dropped off, I saw a pair of ducks in front of the Bachelor Pad and they must have been on a date and they were just chilling out and taking a walk. It was sort of cool to see two ducks walking on a major shopping area, albeit at 1:30am. I did manage to snag photos with the camera phone, but didn’t get a chance to Photoshop them and post them. They were cute ducks. I wanted to take them upstairs and have them watch TV with me.

Anyway, I saw the ducks yesterday when I darted across the street. They were still roaming around, so I figure that the front of the Bachelor Pad must be some interesting place.

From the Flagship Lounge at O’Hare:

It’s a little weird sitting in a First Class departure lounge. I’m easily the youngest person in the room by a good 20 years, and I feel out of place, initially how I felt when I first joined the Chicago Yacht Club. But it’s becoming familiar. Everyone keeps to themselves, plays with their electronic gadgets, and is quiet. You can hear a pin drop. It sucks. But there’s free champagne and munchies, so it gets me full so I’m not dying for coach food.

Yes, I said coach. I figured that it wasn’t worth burning a VIPO3 on this flight, considering it’s only a two-class flight. Whatever. It’s a short flight (3800 miles and change), so there’s no sense in going all out. Plus, Burger King has a breakfast sandwich with HP sauce, which is, without a doubt, one of the best inventions man has developed.

I brought Carol’s Cookies for the flight crew, so I’m sure that they’ll either be indifferent to a fat kid bringing them cookies, or think I’m trying to poison the crew. It’s either that, or I have to eat $35 worth of cookies myself, which will suck.

Anyway, time to go read The Onion and finish another dozen or so pages of a political/environmental science book that’s interesting, but not exactly a page turner.

Ta!

Of course, less than 24 hours to go before I leave, and I haven’t planned anything. I don’t know why I’m worried. It’s just a walk in the park, comparatively speaking. Since my plan was foiled for meeting with the RTYC membership committee, I’m able to shamelessly whore for being bumped. I’m just worried about the ride back because in case of anything going wrong, there’s a great chance of me getting screwed and stuck in North Carolina for the night. Woo.

I should really consider getting a Treo 600 just to decrease the amount of clutter I carry. It’s not the most perfect device, but I think it would suit me until something better came along. Plus, my Blackberry pisses me off.

Foiled again!

My secondary objective in London fell through, so I’m left with a little more free time. Not good free time, mind you. Oh well. I’ll be able to get some shopping done for everyone who requested gifts.

A few things.

One. Jury Duty. I had the eye-opening experience of serving on a civic trial for the Cook County courts. It was a personal injury case, and it was very frightening to see the level of racism and bigotry from my “peers.” I did what I could to stick to my guns. Three days, $51.60.

Two. Exhaustion. I came back into work on Thursday absolutely beat. It was very tiring and annoying to come back and deal with sheer asshat-ery.

Three. Travel. I’m off to London in 6 days, but haven’t done much in the way of travel prep. I did write my 72 Hours in London travel guide. I’ve got a few left over postcards, so I can go ahead and be funny and just prewrite a few of them. Like they’ll know. I think this is the 5th or 6th time I’ve either been in London or passed through in 14 months. Mr. Passport says #6. I’m thinking about a day trip to Paris on the Eurostar but seeing it’s a bank holiday, but who knows. Maybe another time.

London in 14 days.

And I have changed the descriptor of the site. Mainly, I feel feisty. I’m like a junior Maddox in a way, without the legions of fans.

Hurray for puns.

Marathon work week at work, coupled with a non-fun Mother’s Day makes Nick exhausted.

London in 17 days, interview with the RTYC in 18 days, and a weekend of actually enjoying myself. I’m very much excited.

Blogger’s updated itself, so I’ll have to change layouts *and* go with the internal comments.

I talked myself out of going to see Philly girl in SF over Memorial Day versus London. I know she met some guy she really likes, and I’d just be an obstacle in the way. So I figure she really didn’t like me in the first place, or just rebounds rather quickly. It was just very bizarre. Had the trip planned, and was literally a click away from booking. It’s not fair on my part. My job is to stay away and not hurt her. And I know we’ll never see each other again. It’s not out of *wanting* to do that, but it’s about trying to make her happy. And in the end, my job in life is to be a crutch despite the heavy costs.

London will be weird. This will be the first trip where I’m not getting nice text messages, or phone calls saying I’m missed. It’s just like the old days. I hated them.

Thought I had a date lined up for Friday, but I didn’t want to. Thought the training wheels would be up, but my bike is on cinder blocks. :(

Why can’t I learn to be happy?