I had the opportunity to spend a few days in Charleston, South Carolina, for a conference this past week. It was my first time in Charleston and I found it to be a very enjoyable place to visit. Friendly, easy to get around on foot, good sea food, and most importantly, exceptional Irish music.

The lead singer, who was about 65 years old, was from Dublin Ireland and knew every old Irish song you could think of. He was accompanied by his son, who was about 25 years old and one of the finest fiddle players I’ve had the pleasure of listening to. I was told by the bartender that the lead singer is undergoing chemo for stage-four lung cancer but still manages to perform for four hours three nights a week.

Despite chemo for stage-four lung cancer he also managed to smoke a few cigarettes between sets, accompanied by his son as well. So it goes.

I celebrated Halloween dressed as a traveler this year. There’s never much by way of direct flights to Rapid City from anywhere so a taxi, three flights, and twelve hours after leaving my hotel in Charleston I made it back home. I’m not complaining, I enjoy traveling, and a full 12-hour shift of people watching and unavoidable eavesdropping is always entertaining.

If you spend any time in an airport it is only a matter of time before you will hear some poor soul telling an exhaustingly detailed story about their lengthy layovers, flight changes, and missed connections.

These stories all have two things in common. First, the one telling the tale seems to sincerely believe that their “plight of flight” is unique and tops all other airline travel stories of woe. Secondly, the poor soul that the story has been aimed at, may be knowingly nodding with a look of sympathy forcefully stretched across their face, but could sincerely care less and is patiently waiting for the story to stop so they can go sop up their misery with a Cinnabon.

Another thing you will be sure to hear are numerous cell phone conversations where it seems that the person on the other end is apparently a hard of hearing mime, because the person in your world has not paused their commentary for an excessively loud and annoyingly impressive length of time. You can almost hear the person on the other end of the line rolling their eyes and doing the “blab blab blab” thing with their free hand.

It was interesting traveling on Halloween. When else would you get to witness a pirate and a six foot four blue crayon try and put an irritated traveler at eases? United Airlines employees, Ken the Pirate and James the Crayon, did a fine job addressing the needs of the cranky traveler. Hard to be cranky talking to a pirate and a crayon.

During my five hours of moseying about the airport in our nation’s capital, I saw a very tall man that looked very familiar. He was browsing through the menu outside of an airport restaurant when the host asked him, “You ever play basketball?” I watched as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a 19-time NBA All-Star and NBA Hall of Famer glanced from the menu to the host and back again. He just sort of shook his head slightly, sat down the menu, and walked off.

When he turned to walk off we briefly made eye contact. I smiled and nodded but he seemed to have an “I hope nobody recognizes me…I just want to eat” look in his eyes. So, I let the big man be, and went back to watching Ken the Pirate and James the Crayon address customer complaints.

Happy travels.