Home!!

Well, I am back home, for good! Of course, it wouldn't have been a complete trip home if St. Maarten didn't give me one final screw you before I left the island. This time, in came in the form of not having my luggage...still. This was definitely partially USAir's fault, but St. Maarten contributed. USAir sent the wrong plane; it was supposed to be a 757, but they sent a much smaller Airbus. According to the flight attendant, that plane cannot handle the load and has no business in the caribbean. Well, she was right...the plane, not even full, was 7,000 lbs. overweight! But, here's where St. Maarten comes in!

Usually, they would just remove some fuel from the plane and get a more direct route from air traffic control. But, naturally, St. Maarten either lacks the desire or the technical capabilities (maybe both) to remove fuel from the plane. I would think that it would be a fairly easy procedure, and it's apparently routine at pretty much any other airport, but not in St. Maarten. So, instead, they removed EVERY bag from the plane and said they'd ship them out the next day. Again, not surprisingly, they apparently didn't ship them yesterday. So, I got to spend my first night home in Philly, which honestly wasn't that bad since I got home early the next morning, but I still don't have my bags! Oh well...I'm home now, so I don't have to worry about any of that anymore. Hopefully the bags will show up today.

In other news, I took care of some very non-St. Maarten things yesterday. Namely, I got my new TV installed in my room with Verizon FIOS HDTV, got our internet speed upgraded to 20/5 for free (which is insanely fast), and got the iPhone 3G, with a real AT&T rate plan. Today, I need to pick up some stuff for my car, and then it's off to the firehouse to save some lives (or more likely, taxi some people to the hospital).