It has become my ritual to not sleep the night before a flight. It started when I was in the Army and it has pretty much stayed with me ever since. So I go into today, Sunday, exhausted and hoping I can make it through the day in one piece. Little did I realize fate had other plans.

When traveling it is best to make sure you know where you are going. Seems like easy enough, but I broke that rule when I purchased my tickets. Instead of selecting Reagan Airport, which is very close the the Omni Shoreham, i.e. the Summit, I chose BWI (Baltimore Washington International), which is some 35+ miles away.

I have always been quick on my feet so as I get my ticket I decide to see if I can change my flight. Its about the same distance, but flights were not full and both flights left at the exact same time. The attendant from North West told me, "nope that doesn’t happen."

Normally I can sweet talk my way past such defenses, but this was a different matter. Not only had the attendant told me off, she walked away before I could utter a single word more.

Resigned to my fate I spent the rest of the flights in silence, writing up notes mostly.

I will say this, after experiencing the horrid customer service both on and off the flight, the seats, which proved to be smaller than my waist (I forgot my shoe horn at home too… sad), and the evil attendant, I am pretty much set on never using North West Airlines again.

I hate driving in DC. I hate driving in most big cities in fact. So with 35+ miles to go I had to check my options, and a rental car was not one of them.

In the end frugality won over comfort and I choose to ride the metro. Actually I was surprised at how wonderful the experience was. Some might call me odd cause I prefer the New York City subway system, but the DC system would have to be a close second.

Having reached my hotel, I figure I can finally go to sleep (it has now been 36 hours since I last slept).

The folks at Parallels were generous enough to pay for my hotel, so all I had to do was pick up my keys and enjoy a few quite hours before I needed to get to work.

Or so I thought. The hotel lost all the information and after arguing with the clerks for an hour I decided to pay for the room. It’s not the money I am mad it, it was how I was treated that really bugged me. I go to my room and got a hold of Ravi to see what the deal was. I had read that the Marriott Wardman had a history of doing this so I wasn’t too worried about it. After talking to Ravi from Parallels all was right with the world.

And then I found out the shower didn’t work. It’s going to be a long four days.