Josh departure

Josh is off to Australia.

He had an art project to finish from last semester, and spent a little too much time in December on Call of Duty rather than his actual duty, so he was up till around 4am Thursday morning with paintbrush and charcoal. We got up at 6am, got on the road at 6:40, and made the trip in three hours. With DC traffic, that trip is just as likely to take five hours, as it did for our drive back. Thankfully, we got there in time to meet Josh's professor and turn in his project. Then we packed all the paintings and drawings back in the car, waited while Josh visited with friends--Diana took a nap in the car, I tried to finish reading my new John Ringo book, Live Free or Die--and thence to the airport.

He was booked on a Qantas flight, which would have been operated by American, which had cancelled the flight and re-booked Josh on United, which said that extra bag will be $200, please. We pointed out that our ticket was with Qantas and Qantas had said it would be $135, but the ticket agent said "my plane, my rules". Took Josh to the "ticketed passengers only" point, exchanged hugs, and took a couple of pictures as he headed to the gate. Then Diana and I headed home, quite slowly thanks to the aforementioned DC traffic. I could have, while "driving", read more of Live Free or Die, if I hadn't selflessly given it to Josh.

Josh called a few minutes ago from LAX to say that he'd arrived and found the gate for the trans-Pacific leg. He'll be leaving at 11:45pm on Thursday, Los Angeles time, and arriving at 7:45am Saturday, Brisbane time, so he's missing Friday (although from our point of view, he arrives at 4:45pm Friday).

edit: He called via Skype on Saturday night (our time) to say that he has arrived, gotten unpacked, met people, and had to leave in a minute to go play Australian football.