A quick look at Friday...

4 a.m. - Alarm goes off. String of profanity. Turn on TV. Start to get out of bed. Realize "Cheers" is on. Settle back into bed.
4:20 a.m. - Get in shower.
5:05 a.m. - Look outside. Realize it's snowing. A lot.
5:27 a.m. - Head into snow, which is falling sideways.
5:54 a.m. - Drive by massive truck fire on interstate.
7:10 a.m. - Board flight bound for IAH. Enjoy settling into seat 1A.
7:15 a.m. - Order a diet Coke. Man in seat 1B orders a vodka on the rocks.
7:27 a.m. - Man in 1B orders another vodka on the rocks.
7:37 a.m. - Man in 1B falls dead asleep.
8:10 a.m. - Plane is de-iced. Always an unsettling experience.

The rest of that flight was uneventful. I watched a by-the-numbers teen flick, "John Tucker Must Die," and took a quick nap. We landed at IAH around 11:15 central time with a 12:20 p.m. departure to HNL, which my friend John and I figured gave us plenty of time to grab something to eat and a beer. We were wrong.

While enjoying a Shiner Bock (perhaps the lone bright spot of being in Texas) and waiting for our food while sharing tales of flights missed in the past, we realized our flight was boarding. A mad dash with our food in styrofoam containers, and we were safely seated on flight #2.

IAH to HNL (where I'll now transition to time remaining in the eight-hour flight):
8:00 - I'm so happy to be heading to Hawaii that I'm not at all bothered by the generous girth of the dame sitting next to me, which precludes the armrest from going all the way down.
7:40 - Holy crap, David Caruso is god awful.
6:50 - Are you kidding me? How can they air an episode of CSI Miami that ends with "to be continued?"
5:15 - No more CSI. Time for new entertainment. "Flicka?" No. "Little Giants?" No. Didn't they expect any adults on this flight? I guess I'll try "Without a Trace" episodes.
5:10 - The guy who just got kidnapped looks really familiar.
5:09 - Oh, Dean McDermott. Mr. Tori Spelling. Why on earth do I know that? I need to get out more.
3:41 - The entertainment pickings are getting slim. Hmm, a 45-minute documentary called the "Chocolate Wars," about the decades-long battle between Hershey and Mars. Sounds better than Gomer Pyle.
2:30 - There is nothing else to watch. I guess I'm actually going to have to read. Time for my favorite trick - pulling out "Us Weekly" and the "New Yorker."
1:06 - My neighbor, a woman in her early 30s, is watching "Little Giants." For the second time.
:51 - My neighbor mentions that her next flight is going from Honolulu back to Vegas. She doesn't have a good explanation as to why.
:03 - There's a rainbow over the mountains as we approach Oahu.

After our close call in Houston, we decided not to tempt fate and headed directly to the gate for our third and final flight of the day. The 20-minute trip to Lihue was uneventful save for the family of three grandparents, two parents and two children that could not figure out their seating arrangements and would not sit down, thus delaying us. And almost raising my blood pressure. Almost.

We arrived in Lihue at 7:32 p.m. Hawaii time (12:32 a.m. NJ time), 20.5 hours after I woke for the day. You might think such a long day would have made me cranky when we realized our bags didn't arrive. Nope. I couldn't have cared less. Within an hour, we were sitting on our friend's beautiful back porch, wine in hand, mahi mahi on plates.

For the record, I made it through the long day without any Vicodin. I'm making no guarantees for the trip back...