I flew home to Texas earlier this month to visit my family and to spend my birthday out there. I have been intending to write about my trip for some time, and have been lazy. I have not gotten around to it yet. Well, I will do so now. Here there shall be rambling. My flight home was the Friday before my birthday (My birthday was on the 9th). It was early in the morning. Someone stole my GPS a few months back, so I had to figure out the way there without the help of it. I found the airport with only a little trouble. I got to the airport a little late because of this. I did not get there until about 45 minutes before my flight. The e-mail I got said US Airways. I go to their baggage check and ticket claim place, and they look me up. They do not find me. It turns out that US Airways is the mother company of Continental, who I was supposed to visit. I waited in line 3 times before I checked my bags. By the time I got to the ticket counter, I found out that I got there too late to check my bag for the flight. This has already started out wonderful. Ultimately,they put me on a flight to Philly, and I fly from there to Texas. Despite the flight to Philly leaving an hour later, I wind up getting home an hour earlier. I just do not have much time to go from one terminal to another to catch my next flight. I had 35 minutes. The only reason I got to eat was because they said I could bring it on the plane. I just found the restraunt with the shortest line. IT turned out to be a pizza place. Yay airport food. Isn't it wonderful? When I finally get to Texas, my mom picks me up at the airport. We go to the Sprint store to get me a new phone since the speaker on my old phone busted. I need something where I can actually hear the person on the other end of the line. Well, Sprint was launching the HTC Evo that day. We have to sit and wait for an hour so that they can tell us that their system is down. They say they cannot activate phones because of this, so I cannot get a new phone. Wonderful. We give them our number and wait for a few hours before going to the Rangers game (They won that night by the way. They beat Tampa Bay, who had the best record in the majors at the time. Texas now has a better record than Tampa Bay. Take that Tampa!). They never called us. The next day, my mom takes me back to the store. They pull out what I assume will be my new phone. The thing will not activate. I am just sitting there in the store for hours while they try to activate this thing. I have a Rangers game that afternoon (They won again. It was an afternoon game in 99 degree heat. Tommy Hunter pitched a complete game). I cannot stay there all day. I eventually leave to go to the rangers game. They say they will have their tech guy look at it and fix it. I say ok. I go back after the Rangers game. They say the phone is working. I try to call someone. It does not work. Wonderful. They decide tell me to come back the next day and it will be working. They keep my phone to transfer the contacts after they get it working. I went home The next day I go back to the store. They say it is fixed. I think "Thank God." I was thinking Him a little too soon, though. Does that surprise you? No? I did not think it would. I try to make a call from it. IT does not work. This time, they decide to just pull out another phone of the same kind and try that one. It works on the first try. They forgot to transfer my contacts, but I am so sick of being there that I just decide to go home and see if I can use blue tooth to transfer it myself. I was unable to do so, and had to return to the store a fifth freaking time on Monday to transfer my contacts. I finally have a working phone though. This was my birthday present. By this point, you are, surely, asking yourself what kind of phone it was that I got. Well, I got a Samsung Moment. It is one of the earlier models of Sprint Android phones. It has a slide out full keyboard (I missed this so much) and the Android operating system that is the heart of the Droid phone. It is a very cool phone. I am more than satisfied with it. It was actually on sale....sort of. You got a 100 dollar rebate in the mail for it, which means it ultimately cost 100 dollars. Good deal if you can get it. I have a Chuck Norris fact application. You know that's awesome! Anyway, the rest of the vacation was spent visiting places that I know and love in Texas. I hung out with my friend Joe, my brother and my friend Pierce. I went swimming. I went to Half Price Books and looked through their vinyl collection. I purchased 5 albums with birthday money. I got Spreading the Disease by Anthrax, Women and Children First by Van Halen, Wase em All by Municipal Waste, Street Survivors by Lynyrd Skynyrd and British Steel by Judas Priest. My mom ordered me books from Amazon (Mass Effect Revelation by Drew Karpyshyn, Ringworld by Larry Niven, Dune by Frank Herbert and Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith. At Best Buy, I bought Sacrament by Lamb of God. I also visited Gameattack, the Screw Attack store. I would have gotten videos of it if my battery on my phone was not dying at the time. Just something better quality to upload to Screw Attack. I also picked up Dead Space. My copy was stolen, and I am looking forward to playing it again. The rest of the time. I was with my parents, grandparents and dogs. The flight home was just wonderful. I had to get home on Sunday to do a podcast, right? For those that do not know, I have a weekly podcast that I do with my friends on the subject of video games www.digital-delirium.com Shameless self promotion!!!!! Haha! I had to do that. I was flying home on Sunday. The flight from Dallas to Charolette was smooth. I didn't have much time in Charolette, or so I thought,. When I got there, I ran, literally, from one end of their airport to the other because my flight left 25 minutes from when we landed. The pilot said, when we got off the plane, to check the monitors because there are storms in the area. I do. IT says my flight is on time. Upon arriving at my gate at the polar opposite end of the airport, I find that my plane, which should be boarding right now, is not even there. This is wonderful. I get food and sit down to eat. About 30 minutes later, my plane arrive. I board. Everyone is seated., We sit there for 30 minutes or so. We finally pull away and sit in the middle of the big area for plane trafficking. The captain informs us that, because of the weather, people cannot direct traffic out on the field. Why, then, did we board? We sit and wait for another 30 minutes or so. The captain says that there are storms at one end of the run way. Planes will go over there and take off the other way so that they do not take off in the storm. He says this will take a while. We wait for another 30 minutes or so, all while rolling to the opposite end of the run way a little bit at a time. The captain comes on again and informs us that he has good news. HE says we are 11th or 12th in line. This is good news? You need to work on your definition of good. It is news, so he was half right. We wait another 20 minutes or so. He says we are second in line. I watch out the window as 2 planes take off. I think we are about to go. A plane lands. Son of a **** He gets out of the way, and I am finally in the air and on my way back to PA. I was something like 2 and a half hours late, and the podcast didn't even start until something like 11 o clock