Adventures in air travel

I went to San Francisco for the weekend to celebrate my friend's birthday and had unusual experiences flying there and back.

On the way there I was walking up to the security line escalator and a couple of people with "crew" badges said to me, "don't look at the camera, just keep walking straight". The next thing I knew someone yelled "action" and a bunch of actresses and actors dressed as flight attendants were walking next to me. I looked around at the lighting, cameras and white screens surrounding me and realized I was on set of some massive production (which someone later told me was a TV ad). It was very sneaky of them to use me as a cheap extra, plus I have no idea how they were allowed to film in the main American Airlines terminal of LAX on a Friday afternoon. If anyone spots me in a commercial, let me know!

Then, on the way home I got to the San Francisco airport at 1 pm, checked in, walked up to my gate, and found out that my flight to LA (as well as almost all others that day) was cancelled. Having learned my lesson from past experiences I phoned the AAdvantage Platinum desk (it pays to have status!) and asked for another flight. The earliest they had room on was in 7 hours so I strongly insisted they look on another airline. They found me a flight departing 3 hours later on United, so I checked in and stood by on an earlier flight, then lucked out and caught a standby seat on an even earlier flight that had been delayed an hour, getting me into LA about 10 minutes later than I would have on my original flight. Much better than waiting 8 hours at the airport! I was proud of my airline maneuvering skills.