Thank God I was able to leave South Carolina without any further delays or cancellation. The snow storm coming from Atlanta showed up just before our plane departed from the upstate. As much as the southern states freak out over snow, I thought for sure they'd cancel. Fortunately, they didn't.

My connection was in Cincinnati, OH.

The airport there is not so bad. In fact, its better than most smaller airports I've traveled through. It was very cool to run into a friend and former professor, Larry Shackley, in the airport there. Dr. Shackley is actually a former professor of my alma mater, and is now doing some amazing publishing and composing work.

While I was waiting in the airport I looked across the room and saw a guy who I thought I had seen on UFC. He favored one of the ulimate fighters and had two gentlemen on either side of him that I thought may be trainers or agents. I got up the nerve to walk over to him and ask him if he was a cage-fighter. He laughed and said "no." I told him that my question was probably the best compliment he'd ever received. He laughed again and said "yep!"

Once I boarded the plane (again, thankfully it didn't cancel) I thought I was home-free as it relates to weird experiences. HA! Yea, right.

I had a great conversation with a lady on the plane who was seated next to me. She was reading "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. This book about a woman's year-long experience of soul-searching and self-discovery became quite popular in 2007. Even though I haven't read it, this lady and I had a interesting talk about it.

On the way to Norfolk we began to experience a lot of turbulence. Then suddenly the pilot's voice rang out over the intercom, although none of the passengers could hear or make out what he was saying. I managed to hear him say "blah blah blah blah we're running out of gas blah blah blah." I immediately sat straight up in my seat and began asking each passenger near me if could make out what he said. All of them said "nope" (and gave me looks like they could care less). I soon stopped the flight attendant as he walked by to explain. He said "no, we're not running out of gas. We've got too much gas!" He further explained "we intentionally loaded too much fuel on board in case we had to re-route to Washington D.C. to land because of the weather in Norfolk. Now that we've been cleared for landing in Norfolk we have to burn off the excess fuel at a lower altitude, which is giving us a less comfortable ride." I had the poor guy so nervous that he immediately got on the intercom and began explaining to the entire plane that we weren't running out of gas! (LoL) Good times. What an interesting weekend.

Labels: Random, Straight Up Funny