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We're in New York for vacation. Happy birthday to me!

Here's the latest per an e-mail I sent to my dad:

Dad,

We got in a couple of hours ago.

Our flight to Dallas was a huge pain. The first flight we boarded had technical difficulties, so we had to sit there waiting for a couple of hours. As it turns out, the black box was malfunctioning somehow so they had some technicians come take a look. Then, about a half hour after that, the technicians decided they wanted to look deeper into the issue. So we all had to get off the plane and wait for them to get another plane.

So the other plane finally gets there (about 20 minutes after that), we boarded it and we all sit down and get ready for take-off. Then the pilot comes on the mic and announces that there are food carts missing and that they are a necessary integral part of the plane and we can't take off without them. So we have to wait for someone to bring food carts. That had to be at least another half hour.

So finally, we take off and head to Dallas. The flight attendant was able to give us two seats next to the exit, so we had leg room and we could lean back. That was pretty neat.

But then we had to face the inevitable- our other flight had long boarded and taken off. So we had to walk back out the "NO RE-ENTRY" doors to go back to the ticket counter and try to get aboard another flight. So, we waited in line and everything turned out fine there. We had to go back through security and we made it, no problem. So then we took off toward New York; we were able to sleep a LOT.

Finally, we landed here in NY and Sarah apparently didn't know how we were going to get to our hotel, so we had to ask around for the best way. We found the information desk and they set us up with a shuttle and 10 minutes later we were on our way.

We arrived at about 10 or 10:30pm Eastern Time and checked in. The nice lady at the hotel desk gave us cookies. After we checked out the room and left all of our baggage, we decided to go out on the town. I asked one of the hotel staff and he recommend a place called Mimi's a few blocks away. We took off walking, found it, had delicious food and drink (me- red wine and Sarah the usual diet coke).

After all that, we walked back and now I'm typing this from the hotel lobby.

It's been a long day and I'm about to go shower and have a nice long sleep.

I'll give you another update soon but so far, everything is great here.

Love,

Scott