Headin' Back to Raleigh

After landing at LAX, I got to the hotel in LA last night around 8:30. I could have taken another red-eye flight home to Raleigh and arrived at 6:15am this morning, but I HATE overnight flights. The one from Manila was bad enough at almost 13 hours duration, but at least I was in Business Class. My domestic flights here are always coach and there was no way in hell I was taking a red-eye in coach.

It also turned out to be cheaper (to the tour) for me to stay overnight in LA and fly home to NC this morning.

The downside of that is that on the flight from LA to Dallas, I sat across the aisle from some schlub who coughed, hacked, sneezed, wheezed, sniffled and slobbered the entire 3-plus hours. He looked like shit and I just knew I was gonna pick up whatever the fuck it was he was sharing with everyone on board.

Which I did.

On the second flight, Dallas to Raleigh, we were still an hour out when I got that funny feeling in my throat. By midnight, my tongue was swollen and it hurt to swallow.

Asshole!

As soon as Paige picked me up at the airport, we bolted straight to my house to drop off my luggage and the brand new, top-of-the-line, 17-inch, MacBook Pro I bought the other day and had shipped to her house.

Cranked down the AC to artic levels, and we headed out to the fairgrounds to the Daughtry show at Dorton Arena, the worst sounding building in America.

Daughtry's tour manager is my buddy Shabba, so I told him I'd be out to visit as soon as I got home. The show was sold out, and by the time we got parked and inside, they were probably 6 songs deep into it. Shabba put us up on stage left, in monitor world. I had seen the show once already in Raleigh (a few months ago) and again a few weeks ago in Melbourne, Australia, on a night off.

After the show, we hung with Shabba for a few minutes, then headed out onto the fair's midways to find something to eat.

Needless to say, not too many healthy options. But when in Rome…

We opted for the deep-fried peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. Interesting, but I don't think I'd ever eat another one.

Paige dropped me off at the house a bit after midnight. I was wide awake and knew that sleep was merely a fantasy at this point, so I had a beer and caught the news on TV, then decided to walk over to Northside, my neighborhood old-man bar. Nothing going on there, only about 6 people in the joint. I stayed for one beer (that the bartender bought for me, thanks), then headed home. Finally got to bed around 3am.