I think my last blog post was in 2009. It is not like I have not been thinking about anything since then; it's just that I haven't been thinking coherently about anything since, maybe even before, then! I can't say that all of a sudden I am thinking coherently but I can say that I have a desire to do so, so maybe that is a good place to start up again... If I think about the past three years it all gets blurred together so I will just think about today so far. I dropped off Takeshi at LAX again. This is about my 12th time dropping him off this year so far. Not the most he has ever traveled in one year, but these trips are longer so he is actually gone more that usual. Today's trip was different in that "carmaggedon" ended last night so the freeway message boards said, "The 405 Freeway is open! Thank you. Los Angeles" It is the first time I have been thanked by the city of Los Angeles for using their freeways. In addition to dropping off Takeshi, we dropped off the seven remaining participants of the A2/JCGI retreat/tour who are headed back to Japan. I helped two who were traveling on American Airlines. We did the self check in and then came time to take the bags to a woman who was waiting to check in bags. She gave us a hard time about using the check in process properly. After explaining that we did, she asked the names of the passengers and then realized that she DID have their luggage tags. So, she gruffly asked to see passports and boarding passes. Then she gruffly told them to put the suitcases on the scale one at a time. The first one was 42 pounds. No problem. The second was 54 pounds. Overweight. "It is overweight. We can not take this." I politely asked since the two bags were together wouldn't it even out? She said no but you can take the bags and even them out yourself and come back. So we took the suitcases to the side and tried to figure out 4 pounds. When we took the bags back to the scale, the woman was gone and in her place was a smiling man. We placed the 42 pound bag on the scale and it had become 55 pounds! He said, no problem. We will take that as it is! And he tagged it. The 54 pound bag was now 41 pounds, but its previous contents would now end up in a different household. So, we figured there would be no harm in reverting them to their original configurations, which we did. I wonder if the woman would be angry to know that her instructions were ignored in the end. People talk about service and serving others. They say it is their value. I think it is our value--at least when we are the recipients! It is much easier to recognize bad service when we get it than when we are giving it! This is what I will think on today.