So to finish my story for US Airways Flight 407... last you heard from me, I was waiting to get on a 9:45 flight. When I say Memphis airport is a small airport, I'm not kidding. This is what the airport looked like at 7:24PM:

Anyhoos, the airplane actually got in "early" at 8:45! Yippee! We all pile onto the plane and make it out to the runway, when all of a sudden, there's a bit of a commotion two seats behind me. A middle-aged man starts yelling at the flight attendent; apparently he was not too interested in having his cane stowed away.

The captain then radioed in and notified that we were returning to the gate to escort a passenger out. The guy next to me, "Asshole." My sentiments as well... we've all been trying to get to Phoenix, and this one guy decides to ruin it.

In case you're wondering what happens, the police come on the plane and quietly escort the passenger off. They take statements from the flight attendents and any passengers. This turns into another half an hour of sitting on the plane. FINALLY, we close the door and back off.

And then the captain radios in again: "Uhh ... you're not going to believe this, but we're having some maintenance issues." While the passengers had been (generally) patient, the mood definitely shifts.

Apparently on the Airbus A380, the 300 or so computers will suddenly "stop talking to each other." Apparently, the solution for this is to do a "hard reboot" of the whole system. The captain was very insistent that the computers are not oftentimes shut down, so doing a hard reboot should "fix it." (Roy goes off and shorts a whole bunch of Airbus stock)

Fortunately, the hard reboot fixed the problem, and off we went to Phoenix!

We got into Phoenix airport around 1145, and I got shipped over to the Clarion Hotel to get a nice 5 hour nap before waking up, catching the shuttle back to the airport, and catching the 745am flight back to San Diego. (Speaking of which, the Clarion Hotel was quite possibly one of the worst hotels I've stayed at in terms of quality in the past couple of years, but the staff was amazingly helpful. Normally at hotels like that I tend to get crap service.)

I got in at 9am, went home and changed/showered (I cannot stand that film of travel that covers me whenever I fly) and went to work.

And to think, all of this would have been avoided had I just made my first flight.