The Firstish Day

1. Checked in. Discovered that seat upgrades disappeared when
itinerary changed. (Still ticked about that.)

2. Re-upgraded only available leg of flight for same price as AirTran
last year, where we had a divider and got free snacks and drinks. With
Spirit, you get a one inch bigger chair and wider armrests.

3. Did not sleep. At all. Ever. Nada.

4. Snow on ground in Detroit. Neat.

5. Round 2: did not sleep and horrible bout of Restless Leg Syndrome.

6. Ride crowded bus with driver annoyed at stowing a wheelchair.

7. Rent a Nissan Versa. Being a huge Heroes season one fan, this is
awesome.

8. Lunch at Friendly's. Yum. Am reminded to be jealous of east coast.

9. Buy staples (bread, peanut butter, etc.) at Walmart.

10. Check in. Lady likes Patrick, so we get a taxi voucher for a free
taxi rode back after returning Versa tomorrow.

11. Begin to think day is turning around.

12. In HUGE complex, room is near pool, food court, and bus stop.

13. Get to room. Keys don't work. Miraculously, one does once. Go
into room to call front desk, find no remote.

14. Three people later, have remote and working keys.

15. Power nap for 20 minutes. Leave for Magic Kingdom at five.

16. Get to Magic Kingdom. HUGELY crowded...but it is a Saturday.

17. Ride: monorail, train, PeopleMover, (have dinner), it's a small
world, Peter Pan, Big Thunder, Splash Mountain (way better than ours),
Pirates (not better than ours), Carousel of Progress, PeopleMover, and
ferry. Leave at 11:00.

18. Am only person to inform Cast Member of elderly woman who has
been vomiting for five minutes, despite others complaining of
resulting smell.

19. Trudge back to car, park at hotel, remember room wrong room
number at first, fix it, twitter, blog, snack, SLEEP.

Pre-Trip Randomness

Somehow, I always spend most of the day before a trip updating various iPods.  Now that Patrick has his iPod touch, it adds another level of confusion: keeping the video contents of his iPod from overlapping with mine, so as to save space.

That said, watching the progress bars creep across on various iPods was amusing, especially....

This is my iPhone.

The free space is to make sure I have enough to snap some photos and blog or twitter with them along the way.  Notice that it is largely audio, for listening to during long lines and such.  It has a gorgeous screen, but video slurps too much battery life in case emergency calls are needed.

(Yes, I'm taking a charger -- I mean in case we get stuck at an airport or something, though right now the FAA says Detroit is within 15 minutes of takeoff on all flights.)

Anyhow, this is my iPod classic:

Notice that it's largely video, with very little audio?  That's for two reasons.  One -- some hotels have TVs with A/V inputs, so in case of too much Disney channel, we might be able to watch our own stuff.  Two -- even if the battery gets drained to zero on this, we won't be incommunicado.

Now, I also have battery backup -- a nifty little doohickey that takes 9 volt batteries (which I prefer for gadgets instead of AA or AAAs 'cause you can test the batteries using the tongue test), but I loaned it to my mom for her phone during a recent power outage and it's MIA.

About to shut down computer and put phone in Airplane Mode to conserve battery power, but will probably switch it off for twittering here and there.

See ya.