After four day break, I'm back. Still catching up on The Box and everything else going on in the CO Forum, but I did want to let everyone know that I survived my first ever violation of the Never Change Continents in Y™ rule. UA E+ to LHR on the 777 wasn't the greatest, but in its defense, it was tolerable. The worst part was that the seat padding was shot, so it was more like flying CO Y in an exit row for seven hours. The return flight today was on a 763 that had recently been reconfigured with the new United First and United Business seats, and United Economy Plus/Economy had refurbished seats as well. It was a lot more comfortable, although UA gets an enormous for replacing the overhead bins and ceiling panels on the 763 with the new style interior panels and bins in the premium cabins, and leaving the old 1980s look intact in the Economy cabin. They also get for the really sorry quality of the catering on our LHR-IAD flight this morning. Anyone who ever complains about CO's turkey puck has obviously never had the turkey and cheese sandwich UA is serving on that route as a pre-arrival refreshment. It's like the CO turkey puck, with bread that's not as good, a slightly thicker slice of turkey than CO that's extremely salty — so salty that honestly, all you taste is salt — and a piece of bland cheese. No condiments, no lettuce, just bread, salt masquerading in the form of a processed meat product, and some sort of cheese product that makes government cheese look gourmet. The breakfast this morning, with hard pancakes, was equally , although the fruit and yogurt on it were both good.

I will say that UA was on its best behavior on this trip. Our seats worked on all three flights, the IFE was functional, and the crews were extremely friendly. As hard as I tried, it was never quite Awesome™ enough to ask for a SkyKit. And amazingly, all three UA aircraft we flew on were spotlessly clean.

Now that I've gotten the desire to fly across the Atlantic for $49 + tax in Economy Plus out of my system, we'll stick to the pointy end of the plane from now on. I've already told my partner that we will not be violating the Never Change Continents in Y™ rule again.