I checked out of the hotel at noon and headed to the airport. There are probably 15 or so stops between where I was in Chicago and O’Hare. Despite all the things they say about the EL, they really did try to design it to be a pleasant experience. This is at the Jefferson (I think) stop. Notice the nice tiling on the ceiling and floor.
It was starting to snow when I was on the train. As Chicago is called the Windy City, it naturally was and I don’t know if you can tell in this picture but the snow was actually blowing sideways. The snow was really dry, though so it wasn’t very successful at sticking to anything and holding.
I caught an earlier flight home. Success! It was supposed to board at 1:35 and leave Chicago at 2:05 pm but we didn’t get off the ground until after 3:00 pm. Apparently, before I ever got to the gate I thought was the original one, it had already changed gates once and it changed again about 10 minutes after I had arrived at Gate H11B. No matter, I am in the air, headed back for Austin in the great State of Texas. I took some pictures of the airport pre-security. You’ll see here that it was quite empty. It wasn’t that way when I finally got to the gate(s). In fact, I was trying to figure out how to take a picture without seeming like a weirdo. Couldn’t do it so there is no picture of the chaos at the gate(s). It’s pretty much what you see on TV, though.
I don’t think I blogged at all about my flight to Chicago as it was unexciting but I do need to mention that Paula Crider was on that flight with me. On this flight home are Jerry Junkin and his wife Stephanie. It’s been a UT book ended trip!
There are several dogs on this flight. One is a Rat Terrier and it’s his first flight. They’ve got him a bit dope up on Benedryl. He’s very calm and cute. Seeing how cute this little guy is makes me want a small dog. I’ve actually wanted to get a small dog for quite some time now. I’m really afraid of how the cats might treat it. They are big, bully cats, you know.
The Benford clan (minus Trish, this year) will be doing our annual Christmas brunch at the Austin Four Seasons. I’m really sad that Trish won’t be joining us but I am glad that she will be able to go with Chris to Colorado New Mexico and spend time with his family for the Holidays. They really like Trish and it’s been a rough year for them. I wish them a very special Christmas.
Still not 100% what New Years Eve holds in store. Crystal and I are getting dressed up and going downtown. We just need to make sure that we get our VIPs in order so we don’t have to pay cover. It looks like Martin Montoya will be joining us. Whatever we do, it will certainly be a fun night!
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I wrote all the above on the plane. Last night, I set up a flight notification for my original flight. I just got another call telling me that that flight has been delayed until 11 pm (this is the 2nd delay) and it’s gate has been moved for the 3rd time. I sure am glad I flew home early!
Things have been a lot of fun lately. My friend Crystal and I have celebrated Halloween to it’s fullest by going down to 6th Street on Halloween night. The crowd moved pretty quickly and we were looking for some friends so we really didn’t get too many pictures of the crazy but we had a lot of fun. You had all your typical slutty costumes as well as men dressed as women. We saw quite a few people dressed up as Jehovah’s Witnesses, minus the bicycles. That was pretty funny and a little ironic on 6th street. One of the doormen at Shakespeare’s was dressed in a speedo and swim goggles; we thought that was pretty brave. Another brave soul was our friend Ryan who dressed up like Tom Cruise again. I think he ended up hurting his feet being in just socks all night. I decided to dress up like Doctor Meredith Grey again (from last year) so I could wear tennis shoes. We ended up in The Blind Pig, where we know Ben, the owner. Because a majority of The Blind Pig is outside and on the roof, they don’t serve bottled drinks. Crystal is collecting can tabs for her friend so we started asking everyone for their tabs. We ended up with 151 tabs and some dude gave us a $20 to help out. But don’t ask what she’s collecting them for because it’s not nearly as charitable as the Ronald McDonald House.
The SPHS Tiger Football team is District 14-5A football CHAMPS!!! The game against Georgetown HS was so good, I actually watched the whole thing. The stadium they’ve been playing at for years is an old community stadium with no track and it’s HORRIBLE to watch the game from but luckily, because of the lack of the track and the shortness of the stands, our 10 foot drum major podium was besides the stands, just waiting for halftime. The band directors decided to sit up there to watch the game. Let me tell you about GREAT SEATS! The entire 1st half kept going back and forth in points but in the end, we beat G-Town 48-38 to secure the title. To go from no winning seasons to being District Champs is wild. On a college football Saturday, our win took 
Benford's Musings 
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