After returning the car rental we take off to check in our respective flights, go out and had some nice pizza for dinner, he didnt’ feel too well about how he did, but it’s my third time and I knew I had it, we chat about each other a while and I got to go back to the airport, it’s getting late for my flight. I arrive to the airport, running like crazy, spent too much time on the dinner outside the airport, walk by security, almost forget my wallet, I get past it and run to my gate, thank heaven the plane was late, I sit and wipe my sweat off to wait for the charter jet that was going to get us to LAX, it seems like it’s their last shift so they are trying to get it over with, everyone gets in, plane leaves we all get at LA within the hour and I go to my next gate, this time there’s a lot of people waiting to go to Chicago, but wait, it’s 10.15pm already, my flight leaves at 11.30pm and we could have got the results already, hmm, I look around for wireless networks, no free hotspots, end up paying for a tmobile pass for the day, connect to my email, there’s the email results are in. I nervously login to the page, paste my candidate information and wait for it to display, and there it is:

Certified (CCIE#23611)
Next CCIE Recertification Due by 2/23/2011

I get on messenger and tell my only friend from home that is awake, it’s 4 hrs ahead of the time so we have a joke about it while I call home to wake up my wife, she picks up half sleep, and I tell her that I passed and give her my number, we talk for 2-3 minutes about it, it’s already getting late for me to be ready as they start calling for boarding the flight, hah, what do I care, I am CCIE finally, I can run down to Florida and swim to the Caribbean on my own, but I stop that nonsense and tell everyone I could within 5 minutes more on messenger, I get a couple of congrats from my old boss, friends from timezones that were still up and so on. Got on the plane down to O’Hare that lasted 4 hrs, it was unconfortable to say the least, I got a window and my legs never fit well when the front passenger reclines himself, it’s night, everyone does it so I end up suffering knees pain for the duration of the flight, but what do I care? I’m CCIE already, I can endure it, hahah. We got to Chicago and boy, I see snow for the first time in my life within a couple of meters from were I was standing, that airport is huge, and very nice, of the ones I’ve been at I believe it’s the coolest had foodcourt, restaurants, very nice decor, but boy, even with heating inside the building I felt the cold, and ended up catching a cold before the flight was gone at 8.30am next morning.

I arrive to SJU after 4.5 of excruciating pain, yes, I got the window again and although this time I had leg space, cause I was in the emergency row, I was in the middle of the two windows, which means there’s a bump in the wall that for a big guy like myself represents a problem, I could not move my right arm and my torso was leaned towards the left for the whole flight, on top of the cold that I already had caught this really hit me hard, I get at SJU finally at 3pm local time, my friend picks me up and I arrive home after 14 hrs of travelling back from SJC. Time for rest and getting rid of the cold before celebrating!!!