Travel Update: BWI Interlude/Brush with Senator McConnell

For those of you following my travels, I am finished with the first of three major objectives, having spent last week in San Diego with a client.  It was a delightful trip, topped off with the West Coast "Surface Navy Symposium" at which I was able to renew ties to old shipmates and gain closer ones with new.

After a delicious ribeye at Outback last evening, I headed for the airport for a couple hours of solitude in the United Lounge.  At some point, I had paid to upgrade my seat on the flight, and the seat number lulled me into believing that it was a first class seat--always a bonus for the redeye.  Alas, I was wrong, as the first class return redeye upgrade was made for the August trip to SD, and this was only to "Economy Plus".  That said, there was no one in the middle seat for the flight and to my knowledge , the guy at the window slept a well as I did.

I arrived at Dulles at 0620 , and while making my way to the main terminal, had a moment of great pain as I realized that I had lost my parking ticket.  Not only would I have to face the prospect of proving my entry time to the garage without any paper (I use the smartphone boarding passes, etc), but I always write which level of the garage I parked in on the stub so that I don't forget.  What a red-ass.  At one point as I walked through the airport, I decided to just stop and sit down to think what might have happened to it.  This was a fruitful pursuit, as I realized that I had moved all of my receipts from the wallet to a folder in which I keep travel docs.  There it was.  Whew.

Found the car and got myself here to BWI where I have about four hours to kill, so I started with a nice breakfast and some email processing, before moving down here to my flight gate for some serious people watching, a little blogging, and some coffee drinking.  Which is where I am right now.  Just a few minutes ago as I sat here, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sat himself down about fifteen feet from me, on his way to Louisville (presumably).  He's got a security detail with him, so I approached one of them and said, "hey, please let your boss know I think he's doing the best he can with the cards he has."  The guy smiled and said, "tell him yourself".  So I strolled over and introduced myself and told him just that.  This started a very pleasant 15 minute conversation, which included me trying out my "minimum wage for the fence" idea.  He took it in, and then sorta smiled and said, "I like it, at least the concept...but I have a hard enough time getting little compromises!"  He asked me about what I did, where I lived, and he had a few ideas about Maryland and its Republican Party.  Definitely a highlight of this day.

I'm headed to Raleigh and then to Clayton for the 80th Birthday festivities of my sainted mother.