The weary traveler now checks in from the Flagship Lounge at glamorous LAX. Just completed the Hong Kong to LAX leg and now waiting for the 12:30 AM flight to DFW.

In general, a much more subdued crowd here at LAX. I haven't seen any movie stars yet, although the girl sitting across from me looks like Tex Cobb.

Hong Kong was as interesting as ever. Just a tip in case you ever decide to go: they have excellent Chinese food there. This time my abode was the plush Hotel Excelsior. I haven't encountered such a gap between the name and the actual product since my first "Bistro" meal on AA.

However, what the hotel lacked in luxury it made up in location. Walking distance from Wan Chai, the seamy underbelly of Hong Kong. Home of trendy bars filled with British expats and good-hearted call girls from Thailand and the Philippines. Favorite line of the evening: "You look like movie stah".

Meetings with Dragonair and Cathay Pacific. Hours of boredom occasionally interrupted by malaise. Standing in front of a room of airline executives holding forth on the merits of our product whilst my internal voice is screaming...

"Buy ours! Buy theirs! Who CARES? They're all the same!"

"This graph shows that I have developed a mastery of Adobe Illustrator to compensate for the deficiencies of our product"

"Just read the slide yourself, for crying out loud. What am I, your mother?"

"I was supposed to be a professional baseball player or a record executive!"

Talked to Libby on the phone for a while tonight. She told me a story of something that happened today that made me smile:

Apparently, one of Sam's friends was provoked into a fight that was scheduled for right after school. Sam managed to convince his friend Patrick that it really wasn't worth the repercussions of having to spend time in the cooler (I think he said detention, but I wanted to add a little more color). Nick, the aggressor in this case, then said that they were jusy scared of him and called Sam a "gaywad". Sam responded to this by telling Nick that he "doesn't really worry about what people call him, especially people he doesn't like".

Good for him.

KO