It's foggy and misting in downtown Kansas City as I walk to my bus stop tonight.

-heidi

May this year be more peaceful than the last.

-heidi, kansas city

Normally I'm not one to make New Year's resolutions, but here is mine for 2005:

Don't carry my Sidekick in the same tote bag with my carry out food.

My friend and I just got home from a walk to the nearby Indian restaurant to pick up dinner for ushering in the new year. I usually carry the paper food bag home in a canvas tote, so I didn't notice that the container with the chicken and sauce had tipped over in the paper bag, soaking through the paper and out into my tote--and onto my Sidekick in its case, which didn't protect it from all of the sauce. ...Oops.

I wiped the gobs of orange sauce off, and I think I've got most of it out of the Sidekick crevices except for a bit stuck under the screen right in the part where it's hard to get to. But it still smells slightly of ginger and garlic (which is not necessarily a bad thing, for now).

The photo was post-spill, pre-eating. Normally the sauce fills the container up to the top.

If my Sidekick craps out in the next day or two, I won't have to wonder why. ;>

-heidi

There are three signs on this door:
Do not prop door open
Please close door
Keep door closed at all times


-heidi

I assume the first photo is to signify something like the location of hazmat masks on the plane (behind my seat on that flight), but all I could think of when I saw it was "beekeeper."

The second is the Kansas City airport being a leettle optimistic: there aren't anywhere close to 1,071 stalls in this women's restroom... ;>

-heidi, home again

I'm finally waiting in Mpls for my flight home. I was supposed to be home last night, but my flight out of Wisconsin kept getting delayed so I would have missed my flight, apparently the last one, out of Mpls to home. So far, so good today--looks like my flight home is on time. I'm set for the flight with my print news fix but wish the news wasn't so incredibly sad.

-heidi, gate G12 @ MSP

You know that horrible feeling when you are *almost* to your bus stop and you see the one you really, really need go past when you are still too far away? That is nowhere near as bad as realizing, an hour away from your connecting flight's departure time while you're heading in the opposite direction from the airport, that you MISREAD YOUR FLIGHT TIME and it really leaves an hour earlier than you thought and, after galavanting around downtown Mpls, you really *don't* have much time to meet your relatives where your train is arriving, book it back to the airport, and somehow make it through the always-endless distance of the MSP airport to your flight in time to see your mother for Christmas.

Thanks to my cousin who knew where the cabs where and the cab driver and the airport cart driver, I made it to my gate about three minutes before my flight was supposed to depart. Thank GOD MSP no longer shuttles you out to the regional planes on the tarmac; you now leave directly from the gate, where we're still waiting to board for some reason. But I made it.

I know one thing: I will NEVER get my flight times wrong again! You would think, with all the bus schedule reading I do, that I would be able to read a simple flight itinerary, but you would be oh so VERY, VERY wrong today. As was I.

All I want for Christmas is a brain. 8)

-heidi, gate B8 @ MSP

My dad came here with my grandpa to pick up flour when my grandpa owned a feed mill north of the Twin Cities. Now the mill ruins are a museum. I don't have enough time today on my layover to go through the exhibits since I spent too much time walking around outside (in spite of freezing). I can't wait to come back here with my dad--hopefully when it's warmer.

-heidi

The clothes in these store windows are either completely lunatic or hopeful, not sure which. It's so cold my thighs feel numb in my jeans because I didn't bring a longer coat with me. Mary Tyler Moore would need some legwarmers today.

-heidi

Ticket machine instructions are in English, Spanish, Hmong and Somali, but the rail cars are old school-Minnesota blue and yellow, like the Swedish flag. The train is packed: the Vikings are playing the Packers this afternoon, and judging from the clothing, it looks like the whole car, except for me, is going there.

-heidi