To solidify gold (why, I ask myself) on US and to save
20K miles on DL from going away:

US3706 BWI PHL 0905 0948 CRJ 9D
was 3305 BWI PHL 1150 1240 E70 2A

Phyllis at the club deemed it wise for me to get onto the
earlier flight, as Philly was fogged up, and I ought to get
as far on my journey as possible as early as possible. She
called to the gate just before 9, and when I trotted there,
the plane was mostly loaded up, but my boarding pass was
waiting for me. The plane was full except for the last two
rows and the exit row, so I slid into the exit row and sort
of snoozed. We took off half an hour late and landed half an
hour late. No biggie for me, as I had a 4 hour cushion now.

I'd had just a pint of Silk for dinner the night before, so
the hunger pangs sent me to the food court, where among the
uninspired offerings of a hot dog place, a Chick-Fil-A, a
Sbarro, and a sandwich shop, I found the equally uninspired
Asian Chao, which at least had stuff I could tolerate: had
the $7 special of lo mein (tasted okay but the noodles were
really pasty), bbq chicken (too sweet, too dry, too tough,
even though made out of thighs), and spicy Szechuan-style
pork (not spicy at all; this dish usually has abundant fatty
pork, which I like; the current version had a tiny amount of
lean pork and a large percentage of onions and various
colors of bell peppers, hotted up with a shake of black
pepper only). Did the trick, but I'm not sure I'd do it
again, especially as it doesn't serve beer. And as I found
the Independence Brew Pub just down the way, which has daily
early bird specials, viz. Yuengling for $3 a pint, Bloodys
for $4, and a hot dog and chips for $1.50. On this occasion
I settled for a mild but reasonably well hopped IPA at $3.50
a pint.

Checked at the concierge desk: not a chance on the upgrade,
so I was relegated to the wayback on a fairly long flight;
sigh, builds character, and I owe the universe one, having
just a few days before beaten a Chairman's out of his
upgrade for no apparent reason.

US 965 PHL SFO 1405 1706 321 7A

Took off pretty late, completely full plane, and my Benadryl
didn't kick in, and the full 321 wasn't about to make time
against the headwind, so I got the full coach experience.

The minicabin carved out of the lost first-class seats is
pretty cramped: 4 rows in the space of 3, one TV monitor. I
find it more objectionable than the similar cabin on the 757
(having been in each once). I managed to get a little
shuteye and watch part of a particularly inane movie, about
which I remember nothing.

The person behind me grabbed my seat and pulled often,
despite my having reclined two inches at most. Landed an
hour late, and with the BART its irregular self, I got to
Rockridge a bit after dinnertime. My host and hostess had
had something to tide them over but offered an assortment of
the sorts of snacks you'd expect former flower children to
have, sourced from places like Trader Joe's and World Market
and Whole Foods - Sobe beverages, hummus, that kind of junk.

Next morning I took my friend East Bay Fisher and his son
to that bastion of gastronomy on College Avenue, Barney's,
which offers, and of which we partook, various kinds of
burgers - mine the standard issue, rare, this being an 8-oz
football-shaped patty on a pretty good bun, your choice of
lettuce, onion, tomato on the side. Good dill pickle. Had
an order of curly fries (quite spicy!), at the urging of
the son; also a black cherry soda. Fisher, mindful of the
fact that I was paying, just had water; his son, mindful of
the fact that I was paying, had a big old coffee milkshake,
half of which went away in a go cup. The meat was quite
good, the fries pretty good, the available combinations
interesting. B+ to A- I'd say, not the top top, but very
respectable.

Watched a couple baseball games on Fisher's HDTV, and it was
time to head out for a mini-FT do. Francesco's is a scant
half mile from OAK (walkable, but, as one of the locals
pointed out, not with a bellyful of beer). We were arranged
in a row, with rch4u and lucky at the head, so we were sort
of split into an east and a west coast. The conversations
revolved, not surprisingly, around points and miles and
BBSers not present. lucky handed out sets of UA trading
cards, apparently originally from the famed Capt. Flanagan.
I was tempted to do a little guerrilla marketing and putting
a few of these into the Sky magazines on my next flights
with the notation "hey, kids, you get these when you fly
United."

Present: lucky9876coins; rch4u; Flyinryan; mahasamatman +
"I'm with him"; sy7; cepheid + Mrs. cepheid; me.

I ordered a Maker's Mark straight up, which came
suspiciously frothed and frosty-looking in a martini glass.
The waitress apologized, saying that this was what the
bartender had given her; I told her that I'd wait for this
to warm to room temperature, but meanwhile get me a Maker's
Mark straight up, which came straightaway and was good. As
my flight was 40 minutes before lucky and rch4u's, I ordered
the broiled petrale sole to come early, which it did, only
it was grilled, with the underside of one of the three
generous fillets kind of burned. As the two good fillets
constituted a decent meal (counting the side of spaghetti
Bolognese), I didn't complain (and in fact ate up the third
fillet because it was there). I then started working on the
warmed-up drink, but one sip told me that it was in fact a
Manhattan, not just a Bourbon shaken with ice. Sent it back
for another Maker's Mark. During this negotiation and the
wait caused by a no doubt pissy bartender, everyone else's
food came and was devoured, and the party broke up around
quarter to, so Flyinryan took lucky and rch4u as well as me
over to the airport: I got my boarding pass (zone 6 - this
itinerary was to solidify US Gold and to prevent about 20000
Delta miles from dying, 5 segments, 2 transcons for the
price of anyone else's one way Washington to Albany - okay,
fifty bucks more than Southwest, but I'd gladly pay the
premium not to fly Southwest), hustled in 2 mins through
security, and heard my flight announced in the distance.