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The trip started on a Saturday. Everything went well: as I was going to the airport I received an iPhone call from my brother, whom I was going to meet in L.A., and he reported everything was on schedule on his end. At the airport, security was a breeze, with one exception: in my haste to strip for the metal detector (shows, wallet, keys, etc.) I forgot to remove the iPhone from my belt clip and set off the alarm! Fortunately, my bag hadn't gone through the x-ray yet, so I tossed it inside and passed the metal detector and retrieved all my things on the other side safely.

Portland International Airport (PDX) has free wifi throughout the airport, so I gave it a try on my iPhone. The connection strength was not great (two bars), but worked fine. I read through some emails and answered a couple. I decided to sent an email to my great-uncle who I was going to visit in Missouri, letting him know I was on my way. But the message could not be sent. This was either due to a problem with my email server or the poor connection. I tried switching from wifi to Edge, but that didn't help. I turned off everything by switching to airplane mode, and then turned the wireless back on, but still the message just sat there trying to send but not going anywhere. I thought about canceling the email but couldn't even do that. The iPhone's email program places pending messages in a temporary folder called "Outbox" -- but though I could see the message there, I couldn't edit it or move it. Eventually the plane started boarding and I had to shut the phone down to get on board.