trip to Chicago to get the house ready to put on the market...leave Sat. PM on AA. AA and UA both use T-gates at ATL which is a blessing (no train ride!). MARTA down there from my office, painless. Check in in 45 seconds at the AA Gold line--painless also. Wander on down to the gate--kind of desultory boarding of the 727 b/c only about 1/2 full. Bistro bag with turkey sandwich on dry rye (ha, ha, a rhyme). We literally taxi for no more than 5 minutes and zooom-are off. Right in to ORD 20 mins early--we have about a 7 minute gate hold but end up early in. Flight was about as good as coach gets lately. Hertz economy car on gold service--a brand new 2000 Grand Am with 900 miles on it.

Some work around the house (painting, patching, stripping, fixing). Not fun to do all concentrated at once.

Return scheduled for Tues 615 am, but I decide to leave Mon evening--call 2x to see if can stand by for nothing but am firmly told "sorry, $75". So I go to the gold line-again am told "sorry $75", and I see that the 415p flight is leaving at 615p, the 650p is posted at 730p. I get on the 650p, pay my $75, and go to Wolfgang Puck in T3--usual excellent food. Mosey on out to the gate---they come on to say "since we need the gate, we'll be boarding you but you may have a 1 hour delay on the aircraft before wheels up. Just to let you know so you can grab extra food, drink, reading material, etc." Nice touch. We get on (grabbing our Chicken Breast bistrobags), and the guy ahead is on the airfone working out with the flight attendant that we're going to be in at 11pm with the additional waiting. Then the pilot comes on and says "we can leave immediately", so we're off. The flight was also painless, although seemed really noisy and rumbly (I thought F100s were supposed to be quiet, although we seemed to be flying slower and lower than usual). Get into ATL at 1030p, short wait for luggage, home on MARTA.

Going to be doing this several x more this fall as I get the house ready to sell...had I been staying I was going to expand the house, so had let some things go. It bites you in the end...

jl