My, where has the time flown...

First off, many apologies for the delay in this posting. I know people say this all the time, but there just hasn't been enough hours in the day lately to get everything I need to accomplished. Including writing on here and CollegeSportsMatchups.com. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks, enough time will open to bring you faithful reader(s) up to speed.

I wanted to say that San Diego was awesome. From a night out on the U.S.S. Midway to a 9-0 Padres victory over the Brewers, I had a great time in one of the most friendly environments I've ever visited. I'd love to go back, but I could never see myself living somewhere like that. When you're dropping $60 on a dinner for one, it's not exactly friendly on the wallet. (Thankfully, BancorpSouth paid for the week in full.)

Getting back to Birmingham proved to be a chore. I had an 11 a.m. flight out of San Diego with what was supposed to be a three-hour layover in Minneapolis. No offense to any Minnesotans that read this, but I hope it's a long time before I'm ever in that airport again. To no fault of the city, Delta had a plane issue that kept us grounded until 12:30 a.m. when we were finally allowed to get in the air.

Now, I was supposed to take off at 8 p.m. That first got moved to 8:30 p.m., but a gate change rectified the first delay and got us back on time. After a quick dinner at T.G.I.Fridays, I arrived at the gate and watched Arrested Development (thanks, AT&T Wireless card and Netflix Instant Queues) for the next couple of hours. When they announced we were delayed again to 8:30 p.m. thanks to maintenance work on the plane, I didn't think it was that big of a deal.

Then, 8:30 became 9:30 p.m. Still working on the plane. Soon, one old man that did not shut up from the time he sat down in the gate began trying to spread rumors of our flight being canceled. All I could think about at this point was getting back to the South for a certain appointment in Nashville that Saturday night.

Once 9:30 came and went, it was "We'll get you on the plane as soon as the paperwork is wrapped up. Please do not leave this gate while personnel is wrapping up their final inspections." No big deal, we'd be in the air by 10:30 p.m. at the latest. As the ticketing agent promised, we were on the plane at 10:15 p.m. and headed towards the runway.

Now, those of you who know me well know that I can sometimes have a smart mouth when it comes to being around bammers - especially ones that don't have the knowledge radiating through their appearance and actions that they've ever stepped foot inside a college classroom, much less graduated from their beloved universitah. As we were getting into our seats on the plane, one such gentleman sitting behind me said, "It's that there Auburn fan's fault we's having to wait to get out of here. I'll tell you what, at bammer, we don't have silly things like plane maintenance issues."

(No, I'm not exaggerating.)

Then, some of his buddies had obviously been wanting to say something about my Auburn attire all night at the gate and chimed in, "Yea, we should get him off this plane so we can get out of here. He can worry about them Tigers up here." Due to close quarters, I just turned politely and smiled then said, "Hey, you guys got your crystal football. Does it really have to be an Auburn grad's fault that we're still stuck in Minnesota?"

(I emphasized "grad" in that statement, by the way.)

We got to the runway when the plane stopped and the propellers turned off. I thought about how odd this behavior was and then got freaked out when they OPENED THE DOOR AND TOOK SOMETHING UNIDENTIFIED FROM MAINTENANCE. You can't even use your cell phone at this point in the flying process and they've opened the door? I began wondering just how easy it would be to change my flight the next day direct to Nashville.

We were instructed to deplane back at the gate because maintenance did not fix whatever issue they were having before, and we would be notified of any and all further instructions inside the airport. I'm continuously talking to my parents, who were in the process of dropping Jeanie off in Birmingham so she could go to Nashville with Brad, Amber and I the next day.

A funny thing happened, though, at this point: the "amusing" bammer thought aloud how this "always happens to (him) when he's trying to get home from somewhere. (He) ain't never had an easy trip back to Sylacauga since (he) started flying years back." The rest of the plane, including his bammer buddies, turned on him at this point, allowing me only to say, "See, it's not my fault. Blame this guy."

And blame that guy they did. I even had one couple come up and apologize to me in the sitting area while we waited for a new plane. I'd just really like to thank Delta at this point for the additional sky miles they credited my account with for all the hassle of this ordeal.

I was nervous about getting back on that particular plane, but I also did not want to stay at some low-rent hotel when I had a nice room waiting for me in Birmingham if we could ever get there. We took off at 12:30 a.m. and touched down around 2:45 a.m. I got to the Hyatt Place on 150 around 3:30 a.m. and got some more sleep.

Jeanie and I got going around 9:30 a.m. Saturday and headed to Sylvania to meet up with Brad and Amber. We were to head to Nashville to see Jimmy Buffett that evening. It was the highlight of my entire week out of the office. Now, the date for this concert was May 1. If you pay attention to current events, you'd know that this was the day of the 500-year flood that is still plaguing the Music City today.

We left anyway, more afraid of tornadoes and stormy activity than the fear of flooding. On the road, we got texts describing the hysteria the rain was causing in the Nashville area, and we started to get just a bit hesitant about attending the concert.

We stopped off in Manchester, Tenn., and this lovely town has one of two Coconut Cafe's in existence. So, thinking this was like a Jimmy Buffett-themed restaurant, we stopped off for some pre-concert grub and weather tracking. What we found on the Weather Channel and through other meteorologists out there amongst our friends was nothing but bad news.

After waiting things out a few more minutes, we made the smart adult decision and turned back for Sylvania. If we had gone a few more miles up I-24 from that point, we'd have been caught in the water and possibly worse - this is where the mobile home was floating along the road.

So the concert did not happen, but we all got back to our desired locations in one piece and without any damage to any vehicles or bodies. Had we still been in college, I'm pretty sure we'd have kept going but you gotta grow up sometimes...and that's a little sad in a way.

I'll have more stories later when this audit is over. If any of you out there work for the FDIC, please know that we can't be friends right now. Maybe later when the dust has settled, but you have really thrown a wrench into the lives of a lot of people I know here lately and I'm not a big fan at the moment.

Have a good one folks, and we'll talk more soon. As always, War Eagle.

Chris