Up in the air, junior birdman

As I'm sure most of you are aware, I'm a pretty big statistical geek in a trivial sense, so when Tyler posted his list of airports he'd passed through, I was compelled to follow. Below the list, with explanations, organized by airport code rather than date since my chronology is occasionally a trifle fuzzy.

AKL - Auckland. This was the airport into which we flew on the People to People New Zealand trip in 2000, as well as out of again on the way to Australia.

ALB - Albany, NY. This one I would never have remembered/known on my own, but my mom informed me that when I was a little kid - really little, like in the early 80s - we would fly into Albany to visit her family in upstate New York.

ATL - Atlanta. I've connected here a couple times, including on the way to the Super Bowl in 1997 and on the way back from San Francisco this summer. This was also the airport we flew into and out of for the quiz bowl HSNCT in 2000.

AUS - Austin, TX. Flew into here for TRASHionals in 2006.

BNE - Brisbane, Australia. We flew from Auckland to Brisbane to start the Australia leg of the aforementioned 2000 student ambassador trip.

BOS - Boston's Logan Airport. I was here for TRASHionals 2003 and I think that's it.

CCS - Caracas, Venezuela. In third grade, we went down to Caracas on a business trip of my dad's that he added some pleasure days to so it could be a family vacation. The first couple days we stayed in a large, swanky European-style hotel. Then when the business part stopped applying and the hotel wasn't comped, we had to switch to a lesser establishment in downtown Caracas where the water in the whole neighborhood stopped running after the first night. Sweet.

CLE - Cleveland. I think I've changed planes here a couple times. I'm pretty sure one was when my sister and I flew sans parents to Arizona to visit my grandparents, and we had a layover in Cleveland on the way back. I definitely stopped here on the convoluted trip back from the Super Bowl in 1997.

CLT - Charlotte, NC. We stopped here at least once on the way to England - US Air had a big hub in Charlotte (I suppose they probably still do) and so we had to fly down before we could fly back up and over.

CMH - Columbus, OH. Another layover-only destination, part of the trip back from quiz bowl ICT in 2003 in Los Angeles.

CPT - Cape Town, South Africa. Another People to People trip, this one in 1997. See Johannesburg.

DCA - Washington DC National. Some call it Reagan; I prefer not to. This is now my second "home" airport; I flew out of here as recently as Sunday.

DEN - Denver. Had at least two Phoenix-bound layovers here in the late 90s, including one where we ended up having to stay in a hotel overnight before catching our flight onward. I remember seeing the video for "...Baby One More Time" for the first time in the hotel room and thinking Britney Spears was super hot, so that should tell you just how long ago this was.

DFW - Dallas/Fort Worth. I think I passed through here just twice, to and from the Alamo Bowl in 2000. We connected to San Antonio from here.

EWR - Newark, NJ. Quite obviously, this was my home airport growing up. Virtually every trip I took over an almost 15-year period originated from this airport, with only two or three exceptions.

IAD - Washington DC Dulles. I believe it was in 2004 when I flew into this one instead of National on the way to see my parents, but it's been DCA ever since.

IAH - Houston. This was the first connection, pre-Cleveland, on the way back from Super Bowl XXXI in 1997.

JFK - JFK, of course, in New York. This was the origination point for I believe two international trips, to Caracas and London with People to People in 1996. I think the South Africa trip started in Newark, though I'm not 100%. My mom might remember.

JNB - Johannesburg, South Africa. We flew into here for the 1997 South Africa trip with People to People. After making our way across the country by bus, we flew out of Cape Town back to Johannesburg, and then out. I guess Cape Town's airport just wasn't big enough for that kind of international flight.

LAX - Los Angeles. Prominent as this airport is, I think I've only included it on three trips, and then one of those was a stopover. In 1992, the family took a trip to California which landed here (and we also flew out of here to go up the coast); in 2000, I had to stop here on the way to New Zealand and from Australia; and in 2003 we flew into and out of here for the ICT at UCLA.

LGW - London Gatwick. I believe it was our first trip to London, in November 1993, where we landed at this one instead of Heathrow. My recollection is that it was way in the middle of nowhere and required a substantial journey on British Rail to get into the city (as opposed to Heathrow, which is on the Underground).

LHR - London Heathrow. The airport for the other two England trips, in 1994 and 1996.

MDW - Chicago Midway. I'm pretty sure I've only used this airport twice, at least since coming out here in 2000. Once for the 2001 Carleton Undergrad Tournament (pre-renovation) and once to fly ATA to Boston for 2003 TRASHionals (post-renovation). I also drove down once with Drew to pick up Karen on her return from somewhere (presumably Islip), but that doesn't count.

MOB - Mobile, AL. Possibly the smallest airport on the list; my recollection is it only had a handful of gates. Also, we flew a commuter jet in from Atlanta and a prop plane out to Houston. This is what happens when you get last-second tickets to the Super Bowl in New Orleans and the flights into that airport are jammed up.

MSP - Minneapolis/St. Paul. We flew into and out of here for the Carleton tournament in 2001. Looking back it seems like a real waste of funds, but that's what A-status and having Dan Hirt as your treasurer get you.

MSY - New Orleans. Despite the Mobile fiasco, I did end up getting to the New Orleans airport when Alma and I flew down there in 2006.

OAK - Oakland, CA. Back-to-back convention-related stops. Alma and I used this as our destination on the way to San Francisco back in August since flights were cheaper than to SFO.

ORD - Chicago O'Hare. Well, naturally. Even before I lived out here I had already been through O'Hare many a time between 1986 and 1994, when we made frequent visits to my dad's family (although a good portion of those trips were for a while made by train). Of course now it's my home airport and my departure point in just about every case.

PHL - Philadelphia. We used this as our departure point on the way to Phoenix once, during the period where we had the townhouse in Blue Bell, PA.

PHX - Phoenix. Probably flew into and out of here roughly a dozen times between 1994 and 2000, visiting my grandparents. Since graduating high school, I haven't been down there, however. I've been talking with my parents and grandparents about a possible trip out in early 2008.

RAI - Praia, Cape Verde. This has to be the oddest one on the list, and in fact I challenge anyone to top it in the comments. We had a brief layover in Cape Verde on the way back from South Africa in 1997; there's a picture of me in front of a sign in the airport somewhere, although honestly the pictures from that trip capture me in my most awkward moments of late-stage puberty, so it's not like I'm going to show them to you. At any rate, we're talking about a country that had been independent for just 22 years when I stopped there, that has a population of less than half a million, and has a total land area in the whole archipelago of 1,556 square miles, smaller than Delaware. Praia is located on the island of São Tiago, which at 383 square miles is about 40% the size of Cook County. So, yeah. Pretty interesting one, I think. Sadly, all I got to see was the inside of the airport.

SAT - San Antonio. Probably the second-smallest airport on the list besides Mobile, although Albany can't have been that big (I just don't remember) and I recall the Praia airport being pretty small (but I'm thinking now it must have been larger to accommodate the transatlantic flights stopping to fuel there). We flew into here (through DFW) for the Alamo Bowl in 2000.

SFO - San Francisco. We flew back to New Jersey from here at the end of our California trip in 1992.

SJC - San Jose, CA. We flew from LAX up to here for the second, northern leg of the 1992 California trip. It was at an amusement park in Santa Cruz that I went on what I think was my only roller coaster ever; it was a water coaster that really did no rolling to speak of, it just went up, drove around, and then plunged down into some water. On the way down my hand slipped on the wet railing and I went face first into the padded front, bending the frame of my pre-spring-hinges glasses out of shape. We had to find an optician in San Francisco to give me a temporary fix, which was just a little black rubber band around the top of the stem. Stories are fun! Anyway, maybe that's one of the reasons I don't go on roller coasters.

SLC - Salt Lake City. We flew through here on the way to Oakland in August. Salt Lake City is exactly as boring from the sky as you'd think, though the lake is pretty neat.

SYD - Sydney, Australia. We end the list with one of the more exotic entries. I actually only passed through this airport once, as the entry point into Australia was Brisbane. After making our way down the coasts of Queensland and New South Wales, we spent a couple days in Sydney before flying back to LAX at the conclusion of the 2000 trip.

So that's my list. I count 36 airports, 27 domestic and 9 international. A fairly respectable list, I think, given that I'm only 25. All are welcome to post their lists in the comments (except of course Tyler - well, he's welcome to, it just seems redundant). I'd be interested to see how readers of this blog (all four of you) are represented on this front.