Htam::Diary.Thread

This Tuesday, I woke up naturally at 5 something and did final packing.  When Charley woke up a few hours later, I went with him to his work place one last time.  At lunch we went to China Bistro—it was very weird: they had lunch special which included an ``appetizer'' buffet, and thus disallowing us to take portions of our lunch to-go.  I thus stuffed myself, which worked out quite well.  Indeed, in the evening we left his work place at 5.  Originally we were going to have dinner and then go to the airport.  Since the traffic was so bad, we decided to go directly to the airport.  It took us more than 40 minutes to get onto the freeway.  After that, it was a breeze—20 minutes to the airport.  We had a bit extra time, so we went to Quizno's for a quick bite, followed by going to the cell phone waiting lot to pray.

Then he dropped me off a bit past 7 PM.  I went to a kiosk to check in.  A UCLA alumnus saw my UCLA shirt (which is why I like to wear this shirt while traveling) and asked me if I am a fan of the volleyball team.  I told him I've watched a few games.  He told me he was on the volleyball team!!  He graduated 2005 so I don't think I ever saw him play.  In any case, that was nice.  Then I went through security with absolutely no lines.  I got to the gate at about 7:20 PM.  We lifted off at 20:19 and landed at 22:37 after 2:17:47 of flight time.  I watched replays of the Olympics on the flight.  When they showed the relay race of Michael Phelps getting his 19th medal and the award ceremony for the women's gymnastics, I was tearing up for some reason—especially when the US National Anthem played.  In any case, I had a smooth flight; Tina came to pick me up, after she insisted on repaying the favour of me sending her to the airport and picking her up.  It is so good to be home with my sister.

[Non Sequitur: Oleg Shuplyak's illusory paintings]