2008 is going to be a year of travel for me, without a doubt. In fact (subject to change), I will be traveling away from home for at least one day, usually more, out of each the months of January, February, March, April, May, June, July, and October. January’s trip happens this week (January 10-12) at my next State PTA Board Meeting in Riverside, California. Hopefully, it will be better than my last board meeting in Long Beach. The good thing is that there haven’t been any recent fires, and my allergic symptoms have been moot for a few weeks now (although I’ll bring some allergy meds JUST IN CASE). Also, given Riverside’s great distance from LAX, I will not be taking Virgin America this time; instead I will by flying with Southwest Airlines (Skoker’s favorite) to Los Angeles/Ontario Airport. As I have posted before, here’s my itinerary.

I will be at school this Thursday until the end of lunch, around 1:10, when a friend of my parents (from our church) will be picking me up from school. (My parents both are working on Thursday.) She’ll pick me up from school and take me to the Millbrae BART Station via my house (to pick up luggage, etc.). I’ll take the BART Richmond train from Millbrae to Balboa Park, then transfer to the Dublin/Pleasanton train from Balboa Park to the Coliseum/Oakland Airport station. From the station, I then transfer to the $3 AirBART shuttle to actually take me to the Oakland Airport (since the station itself is at the Oakland Coliseum).

At this point, you’re probably thinking “Why is he going all the way to Oakland Airport? Southwest flies out of San Francisco now!” That’s what Skoker said, which is true, except they DON’T fly to LA/Ontario (ONT) out of SFO. In fact, there are no convenient (and inexpensive) flights out of San Francisco, there you go.

Once I’m at Oakland airport, I’ll be on Southwest Flight 835 departing OAK at 5:05 PM and arriving ONT at 6:20 PM. My hotel has a free shuttle which will pick me up in Ontario.

Just in the nick of time, too. Assuming my flight is not delayed (which I’ll be praying for), I’ll probably get to the hotel around 7-7:15 PM, just enough time to drop off my luggage with the bellhop because my first meeting is at, you guessed it, 7:30 PM. The Convention Management Committee meets during 7:30 PM-9:30 PM, and I’m somehow on it. Based on my experience from the last Convention Management Committee meeting a year ago, I’m not sure why I’m on it, since most of it doesn’t pertain to me, but nevertheless, I fall part of a subcommittee of a subcommittee of the Convention Management Committee because the other student board member and I are responsible for the Student Orientation.

After that meeting, I’ll check in for my room and get ready for bed. I don’t think I mentioned it, but this time the PTA is putting us up in the extremely fancy Historic Mission Inn. Pretty good digs, eh? I’ll bet it’s as expensive as heck.

Friday morning starts out bright and early with a Student Involvement Committee meeting at 7 AM in the morning, going until 8:30. (Breakfast is provided at this meaning, although I hope it’s a more substantive breakfast than Long Beach served us at the October SIC meeting.) After that is the Communications Commission meeting, conveniently located in the same room, which runs from 9 AM until 3 PM. (In the middle, however, is a Board of Managers buffet lunch at 12 PM and a BOM group picture at 1 PM. The picture was originally scheduled for last October, but postponed due to the number of board members displaced by the SoCal fires at the time.) After that 3 PM mark, I have the rest of the day off! Homework, here I come!

Saturday morning also starts at 7 AM for a Board of Managers buffet breakfast, followed by Board Development as we discuss a plan about Arts in Education. Then, at 9:30 AM-12:30 PM, we have our actual Board of Managers meeting. Once that’s through, I go home. I’ll grab the hotel’s shuttle to take me back to Ontario Airport, checkin, and maybe find enough time to grab lunch before I hop onto Southwest flight 1890 departing ONT at 2:40 PM and arriving at OAK at 3:55 PM.

After grabbing my bags at OAK, I’ll grab the $3 AirBART shuttle to take me back to the Coliseum/Oakland Airport BART station, and then hop a BART Millbrae train to take me back to South San Francisco station (this time without a transfer to Balboa Park, just because BART’s system is weird like that), where I’ll get picked up by my parents during their weekly visit to my grandfather in South City.

So that’s my travel plans for later this week. As for today, winter break is over. I’m back to school today with a Reg Room schedule as 2nd semester begins today (and I slowly find out what the few grades that haven’t been posted on Edline yet are), and then in two and a half days, I’m off. Yes, you can see why I’m unsure about how much time I’ll be spending at Macworld next week.

Well, I guess it’s time to let January (and thus, 2008) begin in earnest! Stay tuned to the Comments section for the inevitable set of overly-detailed information about my flight that Skoker will be posting soon!

Tags: AirPort, BART, Board of Managers, California State PTA, flight, itinerary, meeting, Oakland, Riverside, schedule, School, Southwest