It was meant to be.

I made it to Hawaii! And to assure the good tax-paying citizens of the U.S., I am working hard. The fact that I even made it to Hawaii is a minor miracle in itself. This trip was meant to be despite my best efforts to screw up the trip.

Read on...

Sunday, 27 February 2005

6:45 AM - Alarm goes off.

7:30 AM - Call cab

7:40 AM - Cab arrives.

8:00 AM - Reach airport. Check in for my 10 AM flight.

8:10 AM - Wander through Powells. Wander through Nike store.

8:20 AM - Go through security.

8:30 AM - Reach gate and see my boss, Mike.

"Hey, it's about time you showed up! The flight was delayed. But we're now about to board at any time."

"Uh, yeah. We've got plenty of time. What do you mean delay? Why are we about to board?"

And so it begins to unravel and the situation slowly begins to reveal itself.

The flight from PDX to SFO was always scheduled to depart at 8:10 AM.

And for the past week, I was convinced that the flight was supposed to depart at 10 AM. The only reason why the plane hadn't left was because of cloudcover in the SFO area. Mike had reached the airport at 6:45 AM - the same time I had set my alarm. It took a while for Mike to believe that I hadn't known about the delay. He thought I had looked up the flight status online at home and then decided to take my time to reach the airport.

I was shocked. I was stunned. I had never before spaced out to such a degree. With my heart pounding, I went to get a cup of coffee (as if I needed more stimulants at this point in time). When I returned to the gate, I looked at my boss and said, "I can't believe I almost screwed up this trip to Hawaii. I guess the only way I can think about this is that there is a REASON why I'm going to Hawaii. Some higher power must be intervening to make sure I make it over there."