I do not travel nearly as much as I once did. Back in the day with my former employer, I would travel, on average, about 150 days each year and go to about 70 cities both large and small across America. I might also have traveled once or twice a year internationally.

I would try to choose the same airline, so I could build miles and status to receive perks like early boarding and an occasional free upgrade to first class.

My travel is not nearly the same any more. I travel domestically about 5 – 8 times each year, which is a bit more than my travel was between 2005 and 2009. I have to use different airlines. Thus, I have no status on any airline and am like anyone else. When I do fly, I wait for the cattlecar placement on the plane.

Take, for example, the recent boarding experience that I had for my flight to Seattle yesterday:

Passengers who were boarded before me include active duty military and first class; 1K mileage, platinum, gold, silver, bronze, iron, steel, aluminum, tin foil; the airline’s credit card holders, ransom-payment “express” payers, and holders of today’s whatever-special card-of-the-day is; families with babies, disabled people, people with wide-set eyes, purple left thumbs and green feet, then everyone else.

“We are boarding by zones. Only board when your zone number is called.”

Everyone queues up anyway. (But the agent enforces the “boarding by zone” rule.)

The gate agent calls, “Attention, we are now boarding Zone 2” (which by the time all other priorities are called out, it really is about Zone 90 in sequence).

Finally… That’s me. I am a “very unimportant person (VUP)”. This is now when VUPs board the plane.

“Sir, we have run out of middle seats in the back of the plane. Would you prefer to be strapped to the right or left wing?”

Ummm… I guess the left. I do not have it in me to be a right winger.

“Okay, sir, step out here. Good! Straps nice and tight? That’s great! (Who says you’re not into bondage!) It may be a little windy, but the view is excellent!”

This is a joke. This is only a joke. For the above post, this blog tested your bad joke deciphering system. This is only a joke. Actually, I got to sit on the tail…

This is for my man… I will sure miss you while I’m away in Seattle for business!

After a summer without any business travel, the travel calendar is getting kinda busy for ol’ travel-hardened BHD.

Seattle beckons me again — for a whole week! This time, to facilitate a meeting. It’s something I do, something I enjoy, yet is draining. Nonetheless, I look forward to returning to Seattle again; second time this year, in mid-October.

In mid-November, I am leading a major session at a professional conference in Las Vegas. I really get jazzed when I have a chance to do public speaking — and before several thousand people, it becomes quite the “energizer!” Personally, I don’t like Vegas. I don’t gamble and am not interested in the night life. But I will look forward to seeing hundreds of colleagues and friends while I’m there in mid-November.

Mid-December will see me make that trip I have written about before. To the farthest-flung U.S. Commonwealth way out in the Pacific. I will be doing some training, participating in meetings, and getting to know people with whom I have only communicated via email. I look forward to it — and while I have been there before, this will be the first time that I am not going there to pick up the pieces after a severe storm wiped out all of the infrastructure. On my return, I look forward to stopping off on Guam and then Hawaii for more meetings and to decompress.

Too bad my partner is unable to travel. I would love to have him with me. Alas, he will keep the home fires burning while I’m firing up a storm in the western parts of the United States, its commonwealths and territories.

Have I said recently, “I love my job?”

Life is short: show your passion!

This is a message that I received from a guy who tried to travel on a commercial airline within the United States and carry poppers (Isopropyl Nitrite) in his checked luggage. He gave me permission to reproduce this message on my blog:

Hey BHD,

I found your guide to traveling with leather fetish gear when I was looking for information about whether I can bring poppers [ed.: Isopropyl Nitrate] with me on a flight when I was going to Dore Alley in San Francisco. [ed.: a gay fetish event called the “Up Your Alley Fair” and usually referred to as “Dore Alley”. It was held July 31, 2011.]

You said that people shouldn’t bring poppers with them in either checked luggage or a carry-on. You said that drug-sniffing equipment or dogs are used at airports to detect chemicals in luggage.

I found other information on the internet where guys were suggesting ways that you could carry poppers in your luggage if you sealed them tightly in a plastic bag, and used wax to cover the bottle. I didn’t want to believe you. A few other websites said that the chances of the poppers being caught are remote, because they can’t possibly check every suitcase — especially at a small airport where my flight was leaving from.

I sealed up a small bottle of poppers, buried it in a sweaty gym sock, and put it in a pair of sneakers inside my suitcase. When I got to my airport, I checked the suitcase and went through security to wait for my flight. So far, so good.

I was waiting for my flight at the airport when a guy from the TSA came to the gate and the agent called my name. I went up to the desk and asked what was going on. The TSA guy asked me to go with him.

We went into a room and a sheriff deputy was there. He pointed to my suitcase and asked, “is that yours?” I said to myself — oh shit! Why is my suitcase here???

I told the deputy “yes.” He asked me for ID. I pulled out my driver’s license. He then said, “what’s this?” and held up my bottle of poppers.

I told him that it was video head cleaning fluid. He asked me where my VCR was. He knew what it was. Oh shit! He told me that poppers are illegal, and that I was attempting to carry an illegal substance that is not allowed to be carried on an airplane.

I was taken to the sheriff station and asked a lot of questions. I was given a citation, and then released hours later.

I called a friend to pick me up. While I was waiting for my friend to come get me, I called the airline to rearrange the flight that I missed. The airline told me that because it was my fault that I missed my flight, I would have to buy another ticket to San Francisco for $750 more, and the next available flight was 2 days later. I told them to forget it.

When my friend arrived to get me, I asked him to take me back to the airport so I could get my car and then I drove home. Never made it to Dore Alley.

Now I will have a police record and have to pay a fine. I just got a new job, too, and I’m afraid if they find out about it, I’ll be shit-canned. They have fired people who have drug offenses on their record. Shit! All for a little bottle of poppers. Shit!

I’ve learned my lesson. I hope other guys do, too. Don’t try to travel with that stuff. Hell, if you really want it, you can buy it when you get where you’re going. But don’t try to bring it with you!

Man, I’m sorry this happened, and I appreciate your candor in describing what happened. I am rather conservative and don’t use drugs, but I know (unfortunately) that there are many gay men who do — especially drugs in the “gray area” of legality like poppers. I hope this matter doesn’t affect your employment. Good luck.

Not unexpectedly, my circuitous route from Alaska to my home in Maryland hit a severe snag with ugly weather. By the time I arrived in Chicago to connect with my last flight home, the flight to my home airport was canceled.

I kinda figured this would happen.

I was not the only one in this situation. Most flights for the remainder of the night were canceled. Hundreds of people got stuck in this unfortunate situation.

I observed many people becoming upset and angry, which caused the airline representatives to respond in-kind. Bad behavior begets bad behavior, so it seems. While being delayed and stuck overnight isn’t fun, it is not the airline’s fault. Yelling at them, demanding that “I have to get home for [insert lame excuse]” does not help anyone.

When I arrived in Chicago and saw that lovely word “canceled” next to my flight number, instead of going ballistic, I found a quiet place and called the airline. I was pleasantly surprised that a real human picked up the phone after I pressed zero at the automated annoyance (sometimes called “automated attendant” or “call router.”) While the agent began her conversation with me intensely, expecting that I was going to yell, I maintained my composure. I simply said, “I was on flight number ### which has been canceled. Have I been automatically rebooked or will you rebook me?” A few keystrokes on her computer later, I got the last seat on the first flight out in the morning. Had I waited in line at the ticket counter, goodness knows what flight (next week?) I might have gotten stuck on.

However, I still had to wait in that long line to get a discount coupon for a hotel stay. While the airline will not pay for a hotel room if the flight is canceled due to weather, they often have negotiated rates with major hotels, so it is worth it to wait (and wait and wait and wait) to get that coupon.

Five ticket agents were helping customers at the ticket counter. The line was moving slowly. I observed that the agents were just nasty. Some of them made snarky comments that, in my humble opinion, were not deserved. Sure, the jerk who yelled at one of them needed to be dealt with in accordance with his negativism — but the rest of us do not deserve to be treated as if we will all act like that.

While waiting in line, I observed two agents say loudly, “I’m off shift” and walked away. It is a very sad situation when any airline does something like that. They know they have a lot of customers who are unhappy. Abandoning them that way — even if the shift is over — is a poor way to maintain any form of customer relations.

When I finally got to the ticket counter, I smiled a big, broad smile and said, “I’m sorry about this situation. I have gotten rebooked, so I am only seeking a hotel discount coupon.” The agent was so surprised that I was smiling and nice about it, she called the hotel to make sure they had a room for me, and then gave me a voucher for breakfast at the airport. She said that she knew that the hotel offered free breakfast, but did not start to serve breakfast until 7am. My flight is at 6am. She figured out that I wouldn’t get the free breakfast, so she helped me out. I thanked her profusely. She said that she did it because “you were the first nice customer I’ve had all night.”

Hmmm… there’s a lesson here.

I waited for the hotel shuttle, got to the hotel, checked my email and wrote this post, then crashed into bed.

I hope to be home on the day this post appears on this blog. Wish me luck!

Life is short: you can get better service if you maintain composure and be pleasant — even in unpleasant situations.

For reasons that I do not want to say in searchable text, this post has been removed.

Yes, this is Alaska, USA. Yes, I happen to be in the same town made famous by someone saying (and later spoofed on national television) “I can see Russia from my window!” No, I cannot see Russia from here, but I can see America the Beautiful.

“Up” here to teach a course this week for work.

Meanwhile, the blog will go on “auto” until the course is over and I return home.

This is my personal Moose. He is keeping me company and keeping me safe. Admiring the long hours of daylight (before I pulled the blackout curtains shut so I could get some sleep!)