Taking a red-eye from the West to the East coast creates this weird effect of giving you--depending on whether you are a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty type--a very short day or a very long day. I could say that I had a very short day yesterday, since it really only consisted of 21 hours. Or I could say I had this mega-day that I'll call "Satursunday". Here's a chronicle:

• 7:15 a.m. PST: Get up and go to work. Work until 3. That's the problem with being hourly--you'd better make up some hours if you're going to take a week and a half off. Pick up some library books for the trip.
  
• 4 p.m. PST: Get home, pack, relax a bit, watch the schizo Vikings and the incomprehensible Patriots.
  
• 8:30 PST: Head to the airport, spend a lot of time but not as much as expected in line for checkin and security, find that nothing but McDonalds is open, read.
  
• 11:45 p.m. PST: Take off for Chicago. Packed plane, window seat. I may have gotten an hour and a half of sleep on a 3.5ish hour flight.
  
• 5:30 a.m. CST: Land at O'Hare, seek out Starbucks gingerbread latte and lemon poppyseed muffin. (For those keeping track, I've now had a McD's #1 with a shake, the latte, and the muffin--for over $14 in airport money worth of sustenance--
  Yeesh!) Discover that the gate is--of course--in a different concourse as required by law when stopping over at O'Hare. Hurry to C10 for next departure.
  
• 6:25 CST: Departure for Pittsburgh called. Seating areas one and two loaded. Inexplicable ten-minute delay in which the word "mechanic" is overheard from the desk. Uh-oh. Just as inexplicably, the delay lets up and we continue the planing process. (If you can "deplane", you can certainly "plane", right?) Another packed plane, this time with the dreaded middle seat between strangers. Luckily, though, even a relatively small change in personal circumference has made this much much more tolerable than it used to be. No more sleep beyond a brief nod and wink is noted.
  
• 9:15 EST: Land in Pittsburgh. Get picked up. Luggage arrived safely . See ugliest transvestite ever at baggage claim--at least I hope, for his/her sake. (Bill can vouch.) Get to the doors at the parking lot and get hit by the first wall of cold air in the face. I shudder, but compose my self. Bill tells me I've gone soft, and let me tell you, I'm fine with that. Head to Pamela's in Oakland for the first of two Pittsburgh signature culinary treats: the Pamela's crepe-style pancake.
  
• noon EST: Leave Pamela's, go CD shopping, head back to DEK's to prepare for Heinz Field departure.
  
• 1:45 EST: Heinz Field departure. Traffic and parking easier than expected, so we have a lot of time to kill before the game. Kill that time. Watch the game. Seats are high but near the 50. And free, so good times.
  
• 5:20 EST: Halftime. Head down a hundred Heinz Field ramps (or so it seemed) to choose between the more specialty food--Primanti's sammich (which is Pittsburgh for "sandwich") or Quaker Steak and Lube wings. Choose the wings. Spend 3rd quarter in line. Spend first five minutes of fourth quarter walking back up the ramps, because the escalators have reversed. Eat lots of wings.
  
• 7:10 EST: Good guys win. Yay! Let's get in out of the cold! After more surprising traffic ease, drop off DEK, stop at Wal-Mart to say hi to mom (she's on 8-8 overnights Saturday-Tuesday), and head home. Referee some good old-fashioned Adam-Dad bickering. Watch the late game.
  
• 11:30 EST: Fall fast asleep on the couch.
  
• 3:45 EST: Wake up, spend three seconds wondering where the hell I am, remember, walk upstairs to bed to collapse, exhausted and glad to be home (but equally glad to be leaving again in a week).