I just got back from attending a friend’s wedding back in my hometown. Well, she’s more of my wife’s friend, but that’s not significant enough to matter.

In the interest of saving a few dollars (just over $300) and a few days dog kennel money, I adjusted my stay down a few days and the price dropped dramatically. If I had stayed an additional week, I could have gotten the same deal, but it would have cost me 7 days consulting rates and the extra 7 days kennel fees (as well as taxing my relationship with the person taking care of my cats). I just don’t get it - how can it cost $300 more to go out on the same flight on a different day? It’s not like I hadn’t stayed over a weekend; oh yeah, they don’t do that any more. I booked a return trip; right, that doesn’t matter anymore either. Well, then there is no real way to predict prices. Fees and taxes are another good one. Better than half the cost of the trip was the various surcharges, taxes, airport fees, security fees, etc. Don’t forget, they still offer complimentary drinks (water, juice, soft drinks, milk, coffee, and tea), but don’t ask for a refill if they are busy. food is available - you have to purchase it now. Not even the salty fried carbohydrates are available any more. Stock up on bottled water and a visit to the Tim Horton’s or Second Cup inside the security area before you board the aircraft. To add insult to injury, the flight had mechanical difficulties and we sat on the tarmac for an extra half hour (the plane was filled to capacity - and smelled like it). I did make my connecting flight in Halifax, but it was getting close - the hour I had between flights had dropped to 10 minutes.

Where was I going? Thats it, vacation… Well, the trip out was Wednesday afternoon, arriving around 21:00, so nothing to do that evening except get settled in, have a meal, unpack, and grab some sleep.

Thursday morning - wake up (later than I would have liked, 1.5 hours later in the day). Figure out the sequence of events for the next few days:

• The wedding (Saturday afternoon, evening and night)
• My anniversry (Friday night)
• The combined family get together (Thursday evening - 7 hours from now and running until relatively late)
• Breakfast with my sister and her husband (Saturday morning)
• Get a few gifts for my nieces (right after Saturday breakfast)
• My parent’s wedding anniversary dinner with my side of the family (Sunday afternoon/evening - they had it a few days early so my wife and I could attend)
• Some time with my nieces - take them out for breakfast and give them a few gifts (Monday morning and early afternoon)
• Fly back to Ottawa (Monday late afternoon, arriving 9:30pm)

If I check that list correctly, I had some time on Friday to check my email, moderate a mailing list (over 300 spam messages), attempt to figure out why my father-in-law’s computer was so slow, download my wife’s pictures to my laptop so she had empty memory cards again, and realize that the three or four things I actually wanted to do would not happen. My inlaws also do pretty much nothing but cook these days - there was always a planned (slightly elaborate) meal so no skipping out on that.

I still had a good time. Next visit will be for NO events and just to relax (yeah, right!)

Almost forgot - back to work Tuesday morning, run out and pick up the dog after work (65km away) and get home to call my wife to let her know that the dog is OK, the cats are fine, the house is still standing and everything is as it should be. This is then followed by a run out to a friends house for the weekly visit. Wednesday night, out for wings with a bunch of friends. It’s Thursday morning and I finally feel like I’m starting to recover from the “vacation”

On the plus side, I think I have a social life.