New Zealand to LAX. Had to XRay shoes again...so maybe it's just flights into LAX?! The flight was completely filled, but I had good people around me. I was in the middle section next to Sarah, a NZ Girl going to Colorado to visit relatives...and a nice couple from The Netherlands. And behind me was a guy from Vegas, who was going back to school at the University of Kansas. KPAX was the first movie...I'd seen it on the way out so I didn't bother and ate my delicious Lamb Caserole lunch I read a little and slept bits off and on. I tried to watch the Muskateer, but fell asleep about 2/3 into it. Woke up...had breakfast. The last movie was "The Heist", which I had JUST watched so no bother.

We were coming in for a landing and when the altitude on the screen read 58 meters we made a sharp and fast ascent. After the plane leveled out, the pilot told us that the air traffic controller tried to have us land on a run way that still had a plane on it. We had all been looking at each other wondering what that was all about and after the announcement we just kinda nervously laughed til we made it safely to the ground 20 mins later. Now 58 meters didn't seem THAT bad, until the plane landed and it was at 39 meters on the ground. I think we came fairly close to crashing, but we didn't! I got lucky and breezed through customs with no checks. I walked to the other side of the airport and by the time I got to the gate, I only had to wait about 1/2 hour for my flight to SB. At the gate the lady asked if I'd prefer more leg room...I wasn't going to say no...so she re-seated me in the exit row. It was a quick and easy trip to Santa Barbara. I tried calling Sylvia on her mobile phone...no service. I tried calling her house...no service. She was moving to LA, so I wasn't surprised. I tried Rob and Vince...no Answer. I was just pulling out my phone list to see who to call when Sylvia walked up. I had told her I'd just call when I got in and didn't give her my flight info. She had been desparately been trying to find someone who knew my flight info. Finally she called the travel agent. Surprisingly they have it to her, though they told her a slightly later time than the actual flight time(12:30 instead of 12:07). She was currently packing her uhaul to move to down to LA. So I offered to help and went over her to her place where Art(Her fiance) and Carla(Her Friend). We got most everything loaded up and Carla gave me a ride up to the Ranch. I passed Tom & Barbara on the way in...it's official I'm home!

I started downloading my email, deleting spam as it was coming in. It took awhile to get the couple personal emails that came in. The last email was from 3 days before from my ISP telling me I had used all my email space(10Mb) and that any other emails would be returned until I was below my allocation. So if this happened to anyone, that's why...and please resend any important emails. Later I got a call from Rob, welcoming me home and mostly to talk about our upcoming baseball draft on Friday. That night I went for a late run to get some food, because after being gone for almost a month, I had no food in the house. Funny, as I was driving down the road from the ranch, I was hugging the left side of the road. When I got to the reservoir I noticed and laughed and had to think about staying right. After going through the electric gate, I started again going to the left side. I think I've gotten used to driving on the right side now, but it's funny how fast you can start to change. Other than a food run today, I've been mostly working on this website and doing a bit of laundry. Now I'm only a couple of hours away from returning to work. I guess it really is over, but the memories will be there forever!