I'm on the ground and home again after 24+ hours of travelling. The trip home had a few more bumps than normal.

My flight from Wellington to Auckland was delayed by an hour due to fog in South Island delaying flights. (All of you who watched Saturday's Super 14 rugby final between the Christchurch Crusaders and the Wellington Hurricanes saw the horrible fog in Christchurch.) Anyway, this resulted in a tight connection in Auckland for my Auckland-LA leg. I literally ran the half mile between the domestic and international terminal, trying to find the blue and white line I was told to follow (it starts about halfway to the int'l terminal). Once I got to the international terminal, I had to pay the exit tax (why isn't this built into the airfare?) After two tries on the machine failed, I had to wait in line. I used my last New Zealand dollars to pay. Sweating, I made it to my flight and had a nice icy glass of orange juice to cool down.

Lest anyone worry that I didn't take care of business, I did manage to run through the Duty Free to buy a bottle of Arbeg 10yo single malt (a bottle I've been wanting to try for a while.) A man has to have his priorities straight after all...

I hate LAX. Just let me say that up front. The signage is terrible. The staff is terrible. The flow is terrible. The services are terrible. I don't ever want to fly through there again. The only thing half decent was the United Red Carpet Club. There were a lot of people there who couldn't work it out (staff and passengers.)

In any case, I did manage to sleep at the appropriate times, scratched my Lord of the Rings itch on the flight, and got a little work done. All that said, I'm glad to be home. More later.