Well, the vacation started off with a bang, as we got rear-ended on the way to the airport. We were sitting in stopped traffic, when suddenly the SUV behind us lurched forward and slammed into us. Fortunately, a State Law Enforcement Officer was in the next lane and saw the whole thing. Unfortunately, he couldn't write up an accident report; he had to call in a Florida Highway Patrolman for that. By the time he'd arrived, taken statements and written the report, there was no way we could make our flight.

We got to the check-in counter five minutes after our flight left. We explained what had happened, and asked if there was any way we could get another flight to JFK in time to make our connecting flight to England. "Do you have a copy of the police report?" the gal at the ticket counter asked. Fortunately, Karen had stuck it in her purse, so she was able to get us a new flight without any extra charge.

The only problem was, there were no flights to JFK in time for us to make our connection. However, she had one going to La Guardia. We said we'd take it. She started to process us, asked for our IDs, and then frowned. She picked up the phone and made a call... and then started reading out my name and other information. It turns out there's someone on the terrorist watch list with my name.

Fortunately, my birthday is different from this other person's which was apparently enough to determine that I was not, in fact, the potential terrorist or critic of the Administration. Hooray. So we caught our new flight, made it to La Guardia, and caught a bus to JFK with plenty of time to spare... where we had to go through the watch-list rigamarole a second time.