When you get up in the morning and the radio tells you it’s 3 degrees outside and you’re getting on a plane to head to San Diego where it’s about 65 and sunny, just how guilty do you feel when you know your family is being left behind in the bitter winter cold? Well, you start out with a twinge of remorse until you get into the security line at the airport (which is about 200 people long, not bad for a Monday morning, usually about 20 minutes of wait-shuffle-wait), are told to split into two lines (one allegedly for those in US Airways’ frequent flyer program) and your line (the supposedly “preferred line”) takes about 45 minutes longer to get through security than the other line because you are herded through one security scanner conduit and are constantly pre-empted by airport and airline employees and a training class (!), and you are not allowed to get into the other “non-preferred” line because the wonderfully helpful people who check ID before you go through the scanners (who got you into this predicament to begin with) will not let you change lines and you believe (mistakenly) that they actually have something to do with the security process when in fact they are only contractors US Airways has hired to check IDs and then the TSA supervisor informs you that the TSA does not recognize the “preferred line” concept although US Airways insists on splitting the line, giving the appearance of supporting their frequent travelers when in fact they are coercing them into additional waiting, and you talk to the head of the US Airways Club and she is appalled at this information and gives you her office and cell phone numbers (more than you’ve ever received from the airline in any previous “customer service” contact with them) to follow-up, and you get to the gate and it turns out that the plane you’re flying out on came in from LaGuardia and it was parked at gate C23 and you (and all the other 200 passengers) are at gate B15 and the plane has to drive across the tarmac (which takes about an hour) and you get onto the plane and sit and wait and wait some more and hear a whole series of excuses (more packages to load, the bathroom sensors are telling the pilot they need to be emptied, more bags to load, traffic in the alley, traffic on the taxiway) and you leave 3 hours late, *THAT’S* when you realize that staying at home in 3 degree weather is far better than this bullshit traveling.

Movies: Wimbeldon. This played on the flight out and I did not watch it so much as glance at it as I was enjoying my $7 Café-in-the-Air sandwich. Because it included Kirsten Dunst, whom I dislike intensely for some unknown reason (maybe it’s that pinched, wan look her face always seems to have) I wouldn’t have watched it anyway. I think it had something to do with tennis.