I've made the SC to West Coast flight countless times and I still seem to have trouble with the return trip. It's like a hangover without the headache. Somebody call R. Kelly for me, because my body is telling me no and my mind is telling me yes.

It all started when I flew out to San Francisco at 6am on Thanksgiving Day. Which meant I had to be up at 4am to be safe. After doing 3 laps around the airport looking for any open parking space, I finally got checked in. I usually take the first class upgrade under 2 conditions: I'm traveling alone and I'm taking a puddle jumper connection to Charlotte or Atlanta. The first condition is obvious, but the second one is because those little planes don't have first class seating. So I basically get an upgrade on the second leg of the trip for $150. That may sound like a lot to you, but my 6'3" legs appreciate it on a 4+ hour flight. It turned out to be a great business purchase too. As I put my carry on in the overhead, I noticed my row mate had a bag with Space Invaders on it. I asked him if he was in the games business and he said he was. It turns out he is a one man company exactly like me in Washington DC with his primary focus on cell phone and mobile games. I'm not normally very chatty on the plane, but this was an obvious exception.

My travel didn't stop with 8 hours of flying, I had to take an hour long BART ride way out East past Oakland. At that point, it's another 45 minute trip in a car to Brentwood where I was dropped smack dab in the middle of a good ole' big family Thanksgiving dinner. It was complete with hyper kids, stressed homeowners, picture takers, cheek pinchers, and all the other things an only child like myself isn't really used to. Fortunately, there was beer. I'm sure there was a creepy drunk Uncle there too.

I got an expected phone call from my Grand Strand Blogger buddy Roger Yale and we did a quick interview for the Weekly Surge's Working 4 A Living Column. Roger is a great interviewer. It's really hard to tell people about how I got to the point I'm at now without a whole big back story. I hope he can take the fatigue and beer fueled ramblings I dumped on him and distill it all down to his 500 word limit. I don't envy him on that task.

Friday and Saturday seems like it was a lot of shuffling around in the car with the occasional rest to watch a football game or eat. The original plan on Saturday was to hit Napa Valley and do a wine tour or two. But nobody had enough energy to even politely pretend like we wanted to go. Having a giant pizza delivered and piling up in the living room to watch a movie was just what the proverbial doctor ordered.

Sunday we got up as early as we could muster to drive 3 hours up to the South Shore of Lake Tahoe for an overnight stay. It's beautiful country up there. I've had the itch to gamble for a couple of months and I really enjoyed getting some black jack action in. I played conservative at first and was up probably $70 early on. But I played it all back and then the cigarette smoke started getting to me and I got too aggressive. I think I lost right at $75 out of my original bank roll. Not bad for a few hours entertainment doing something I rarely get to do these days. On Monday morning, everyone slept in late soaking in the last few lazy moments before it was time to pile up in the car and head back down the mountain. I was beginning to hate the inside of that car at that point.

The return trip back to the Beach started at 8am PST on Tuesday. This time I wasn't traveling alone which made things a lot more fun. We didn't get back home in Myrtle Beach until 1am EST. I wasn't tired at all. Plus I have a problem where I can't just leave some things until the next day. So I got totally unpacked and cleaned up the house a bit. No matter how awesome your pet sitters are, (thanks Dad and Andre!) a dog and a cat can easily make an unoccupied house start to smell zoo-like. Blech. I think I finally got to sleep around 4am.

I woke up Wednesday with a list of phone calls and emails to make. Not to mention a list of work tasks and 1000+ unread RSS feeds. I didn't take my laptop on this trip, but I had my PocketPC so I could check emails and read my feeds when possible. Note to Google: I love Google Reader, but how about a "vacation" setting that will temporarily suspend feeds without unsubscribing to them? Anyway, I couldn't even lift my head off the pillow until noon. So I figured Wednesday was going to be a write off. I did manage to leave the house at 4pm to get some shopping done, clean the house a bit more, and go through my mail.

I was determined to get up before 9am today to start my new work schedule I had devised on my trip. But it wasn't happening. I did manage to be in the shower by 10:30. But it was a struggle. Maybe I'll get back in the groove before tomorrow... just in time for the weekend!