I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine

This was a busy week. What I didn't mention last weekend was that while my sister and I were in Roanoke, we learned that John Mayer was going to be performing there on Wednesday. Somehow one thing led to another, and I ended up buying tickets to the concert, plus a plane ticket from Dulles to the tiny Roanoke Airport. I flew down after work on Wednesday, attended the concert, then flew back first thing Thursday morning. I made it back to work in time for a 10:00 meeting. Crazy? Indeed.

It has been forever since I've been to such a big concert. I have to admit, my concert attendance has been rather single threaded lately. I'm not a huge John Mayer fan; that's okay, Emily's fandom made up for both of us. We arrived in time to catch the end of the opening act (Soulive), whose guitarist is an expert dancer. He was especially talented in performing the Junior High Shuffle. After an annoyingly long break John Mayer started his performance... We were too far back to appreciate his good looks. He succeeded in sounding exactly like himself. His ego filled all the vacant seats in the top corners of the Roanoke Civic Center (which Mr. Mayer indicated were the most "structurally sound" portions of the building). The womenfolk of the audience screamed in appreciation.

Don't get me wrong; I did enjoy the concert... :)

In honor of that efficient travel package, I'd like to pay tribute to the shortest flights (and trips) I've taken, and smallest airports I've visited.

- Dulles to Roanoke is less than 30 minutes. They don't even bother to turn the "Fasten Seatbelt" sign off. Or maybe I just flew on an especially turbulent day.

- Canberra to Melbourne. The airport is normal, the flight is of average length. I mention this one because it currently holds the record for my shortest trip--even shorter than this week's 12-hour vacation. When I was in Canberra in January 2006 I happened to hear that a real live (er... frozen) giant squid was on display for a limited time only in the Melbourne Aquarium. I did what any normal fan of deep sea creatures would do; I bought a plane ticket and flew down for a 6 or so hour day trip. I got a few pictures, of course. Hmm... maybe my parents shouldn't have let me read all those shipwreck stories when I was young. I swear most of them were in the ChildCraft Encyclopedias!

- London to Guernsey. The airport is tiny. The Channel Islands are beautiful, and worth their own posting. Next time I visit I'd like to go to Alderney. Its airport apparently used to be a polo field. I don't think it's even paved. According to the airport site, they feature a "knit while you wait" box -- they provide yarn, and you knit until your flight boards. They combine squares into blankets destined for various international destinations.

- Last but not least, my favorite short flight: Sydney to Canberra. The flight is well under an hour, but they still insist on feeding you. The flight takes off, the flight attendants run through the aisles throwing food at you, you shovel it down, they run through and pick up the trash, and then you land. It's very well choreographed. I discovered my beloved Fruity Bix cereal on one of those flights.