Woke up now yesterday morning Sydney time (GMT+10hrs) feeling great, sunny day the beach was just glassy and really blue. What a day I thought…all perfect. :)

Upon checking into Sydney Airport for the flight, the check-in lady mentioned extra forms and electronic visa waivers that needed to be done (nothing that 5 mins online didn’t fix – but I still had to fill out all usual visa paperwork as per normal – so I’m questioning the value of my electronic visa waiver)

Before long I had met up with the usual suspects of Guy Riddel, Adam Cogan and new kid on the block Alessandro (from Brazil – Hyper-V MVP) at the boarding gate. Adam – just made it as he was late (I can’t print the *reason* why he was late – but let’s just say it was a unique situation); Guy pulled out the ‘I’m going Business boys’ see you at the other end after a sleep, massage and personal chef……

We were getting ready to go when the plane needed some battery replaced and the recharger – few of use had AA batteries and could find a charger from somewhere…but 1.5hrs later the real guys had done the real thing.

We’re off!

14hrs later we touch down into San Franciso (beautiful place) and Adam didn’t clear customs as ‘gracefully’ as the rest of us, but none the less he made it.

We picked up our baggage, dropped it off for the domestic flight and proceeded to the Alaskian domestic gate – Adam didn’t pass security as he was carrying 3 bottles of water and a Qantas wine bottle. After drinking the 3 bottles in front of the security official they let him carry on the wine (Adam liked the bottle)

So far all good…

We were about to board the 12.30pm Alaska Air flight straight to Seattle – 90 mins away from finish, a rest, shower and a bit of time to walk about Seattle.

The flight had a “Maintenance problem” which they were “fixing”…2 hrs later still nothing.

I made an executive decision to try and get to Seattle either a) road trip, hire a van and we all hop in; b) cycle; c) catch another flight…we took c) – a flight to Portland (I later found out there’s 2 Portland’s in the States!!! One is about an 18hr round trip flight – we got the other)

Portland we were headed – it was a rush and we just squeezed in the door with something that resembled a boarding pass (some of us had one, Adam had none and I had a boarding pass for the 2nd half of the flight Portland –> Seattle at a much later time) – we sorted all that out at Portland.

Finally landed in Seattle after taking another plane with propellers (like the planes that go Syd<->Canberra) and Adam was moaning at me as he’s scared of flying and I was forcing him into another take-off and landing.

Meanwhile our original plane in San Fran was still on the tarmac doing not much at all.

We finally arrived in Seattle at around 5pm – mission accomplished…

…or so we thought…

Our luggage was sitting there getting dizzy – so now the big question is – Where is it?

It’s now 11pm and no sign, don’t think she’s coming tonight and you may see me in shirts that say “I love Seattle” or “Save the Super Sonics”… you’ll know why :)

I just caught up with some of the BizTalk MVP Crew and it was great to see familiar faces after a while.

My brain is fried and I’ve decided to hit the hay.

It’s good night from Me.