Friday was fantastic. I woke up in my parent's home, walked downstairs and heard the doorbell ring. It was Michelle. She had been to dinner with me and Tiago the night before (sweetwater, baby!) and she was here again to spend the day with me!

We went through Great Falls. I gave her the Pretentious House Tour™ and ultimately, we ended up at Lake Anne for a yummy Italian lunch right by the water. Good times.

Michelle drove me to Dulles and I whisked through security. This was one of the few times I hadn't been stopped. Good thing I didn't have to break out my 9 and bust some caps. I gave my clients a call from the gate and did tech support from Dulles for the next hour and a half. The flight was uneventful. The man next to me was no friend of deodarant, and I'm pretty sure that somewhere over Boston, he shat himself. I spent the flight sending out business emails and finally felt caught up with the hustle and bustle of the prior week.

I touched down into Portland around 7pm on Friday night. The Independence Air jet's wheels required an unscheduled maintenance which had set the schedule back by 45 minutes. The weather in Portland was so dreary that ours was the last one allowed in for the day. Other flights were re-routed. I met Dad at the baggage claim and we walked outside where Mom was standing by with the rental van. They had taken the van all the way North from Virginia. I wasn't interested in sitting in a car that long. Had I been alone and driving by myself, I would have jumped at the chance.

The sky opened up a bit and we drove for more than two hours, through bright blue skies, with lush green trees along either side of Rt. 95. My first impression of Maine is that it is full of plant life... everywhere along the road there are dense forests. It could be said that Maine is a persistently vegetative state. ;-)

We drove in the direction of the Bangor Airport, where our home-base hotel was located. After driving around a bit, we found our place, dropped our stuff off and searched for some late dinner. I went back to the room and worked on my paper, due Monday night.