My trip to the west So, I started at Midnight (EST) and got all the information I needed for the trip. Then got 5 hours of sleep, midnight - 5:30am (EST). Dad and I were away just after 6am (EST) from Amherstview and made it to the Hill Island border crossing by 6:40am (EST). The customs dude, took the forms and I had did some work on his computer as for his optional $6 USD fee and I was out of there before 7am (EST). Next stop Syracuse ... Realize I didn't write down Murthy's address in Los Altos, well I have his phone number... The plan is to hit the syracuse bus station in time for the 10:30 bus to Buffalo which does stop at the airport, or at worst the 1:30 bus which doesn't stop. Anyway, so Dad got some directions off the 'net, using some Microsoft database, to the Syracuse bus station. Unfortunatly the directions were completely bogus and we ended up driving around a block in Syracuse about 3 times before finding a Police volunteer who was directing traffic for a triathalon. The Volunteer was about to help us get to the bus station without any trouble. Now if we only knew to look for "Regional Transport Center" signs on our way in. If we did know to look for those signs we may or may not have seen them since I didn't see them on the way in, but I did see them on the way back out of Syracuse when we did find the bus station. So, I got my tickets without any trouble and waiting in Syracuse for over an hour. The bus to Buffalo was actually a bus to Rochester then a different bus to Buffalo. The bus to Rochester had a at most 10 people on it. The bus to Buffalo was probably at 60-70% capacity. I had a quiet man, drinking his coffee through a straw up until Batavia. He got off there and a woman who had just got out of rehab sat down beside me 15 minutes later when she finally had things settled with the driver. I got dropped off at the Buffalo International airport and got my bags without trouble. The door of the buffalo airport was strange. It was a self-rotating door that had only two sections with a circular wall at the ends of the barrier separating the equal-sized sections. The walls covered an arc of about pi / 4, 45 degrees. So, I go to the united airlines section of the ticket desks, the line is empty but for one man waiting for someone. I ask about my ticket, the clerk looks up my name and asked if I want a sooner flight, BOOYAH!, so I take it and now have a 3:24pm flight out of Buffalo to Chicago. I go through security, get frisked have my carry-on bag unpacked, and repacked fairly well and am off to wait for two hours. That time is rather uneventful although I didn't get any sleep. The plane out of buffalo was a bit late, but the man who was waiting for someone in line ended up in the seat ahead of me with the woman he was waiting for with her 9month old son beside me. He was cute. There was also a 19 month hold girl behind me. I was in seat 2D, so I had a window view in the Canadair regional jet. The kids were well behaved all trip and I got a bit of a nap in once we were above the clouds and couldn't see anything interesting out the windows. We arrived in Chicago on time, but we had to wait to unload because the terminals were full. We did get unloaded onto the tarmack at gate F11, the last gate in that terminal. The time is now 4:30 (Central) and my plane for San Francisco leaves at 4:55 from gate C21. I didn't find the shuttle bus, so I'm off for a run. By 4:45 I make it to the plane and have time to board. My seat on the second plane is 41D. This time I'm in the center of the 767 in the last full row of the plane. Before we are able to take off though we get an announcement from the pilot that the plane will be a few minutes late leaving because some baggage has not arrived. Yup, that was me, I caused the plane to be late leaving because I made the transfer before my two checked in bags did :) The flight to San Francisco had some turbulance and an inflight movie, Along Came Polly. We arrived on time in San Francisco. I got my bags without any trouble just before 8pm (PST) and had to find my way to the RRX bus. So, after going from the 1st floor, to the 3rd, back to the first, and then back to the third I had figured out where I could go. So, I took the airtrain from the third floor of the airport to Garage G. I got a ticket for the BART, then took BART to Milbrae where I discovered I had arrived two minutes late to take the RRX south. Humm, now what. Well, I looked around and discovered the Samtrans was leaving in ten minutes to the Palo Alto caltrain station. The Samtrans is 1.25, so I give them a dollar USD and a Canadian quarter and stay on a city bus for an hour ride down El Camino Real. After a long trip on the bus I finally get to Palo Alto Caltrain station to discover I have no clue where to go. Since I don't know Murthy's address. Anyway, I try the pay phone a couple times with my two remaining Canadian quarters. No love there. Fortunatly, there is quite a few people around and I am able to get change. I called Murthy to get his address and to ask how much a cab might cost and to my surprise he offers to come pick me up. Huzzah. Well, another ten minute wait and Don shows up to find me. We take a bit of a side trip to see the Stanford campus and are in Los Altos in no time. So, that was a long day. Jim