The day didn't start too bad except some headache from too much cheap Vodka from the night before that ended at 3:30 am :) Got up at 6:30 am to catch the 8:20 am flight. UA 216 , SEA-IAD May27th 2002 8:20 am Gate N2 , 757-200 N594UA Seat 3A with 500 mile upgrade coupons. It's amazing how many 757s are parked at the gates of N terminal. I guess despite the cutbacks on the local traffic after 9-11 United has still great amount of traffic out of Seattle. There were three United Shuttle 733s parked at various gates, including the gate that was used by former Shuttle operation. We did an on time boarding for a full flight with an on time pushback from the gate. After a quick taxi to runway 16L, tower assigned us 16R in the last minute and we climbed out 9000 feet before a left turn over Auburn airport. (Gotta love flying over the airspace where I instruct). We joined V2 (the name of the airway from Seattle VOR to Ellensburg VOR) before we were cleared to 15,000 feet. Right after being transferred to Seattle Center's frequency we were cleared to FL370. (37,000 feet). In trail we had AS4 (Alaska Airlines SEA-IAD flight) and we were followed by US102 and DL98 which I took in Jan on my way to Turkey. (DL98 operated PDX-SEA-JFK and the same aircraft comes back the same way to PDX to finish the day. Coast to coast in a 767-300). A nice breakfast that consisted of Fruit Plate with kiwi, strawberries, blueberries, and orange slices; blueberry muffin; chocolate chip cookie; orange juice, water, raisin cereal was served about 25 minutes into the flight. After passing over MSP things started to get interesting. I heard Chicago Center warn the aircraft a Convective Sigmet in effect for WV, VA,MD and PA. Before Chicago Center Minneapolis Center assigned a reroute for us (direct BAE - J34 - BUCKO intersection and JASEN3 arrival). With Chicago Center we were cleared direct Grand Rapids. Just after CLE we started to get a ligth/occasionaly moderate chop and we climbed to FL390. Another option was to descend to FL290 but it got smooth at that altitude. As we switched to CLE center from Indy Center the freq. started to get really a big zoo. The controller was saying that due to the thunderstorms in the DC area they were putting the all Washington area traffic into one single line. As the planes turned to the hills of WV we started to descend and get vectors for traffic separation. Eventually we landed on Runway 12 at IAD, and took the Q4 taxiway and left on Z we taxied to gate C17. Major good looking aircraft were the Virgin 747-400 and the BMI A330. Every time I see that BMI A330 I feel like that's one of the best looking aircraft in the world. UA 554 , IAD-BDL May27th 2002 5:10 pm Gate D15 , A320 no-reg Seat 3A with 500 mile upgrade coupons. The aircraft was late coming from LAS. According to the gate agent the aircraft has landed in IND due to the thunderstorms and then took off later on the way to IAD. Of course that was her story and I don't know how reliable that was. :) The aircraft made it to the gate around 4:50 and the departure time was pushed back to 5:30 pm. We boarded the aircraft around 5:45 pm but by that time all the thunderstorm activity that we saw on the way to IAD were around the area. Thanks to the captain Ch.9 was on and I ended up listening to the Metering Frequency for about 4 hrs or so with naps in between. Everybody was trying to get out of the airport with no help at all. The fun part was listening to some funny exchanges between some aircraft and the metering Control guy. UA919: Metering, our fix is GVE and we know that we are grounded. We just want to know how long it's gonna be. Metering : You are number 2 but expect at least 45 mins of delay. UA919: We just want to find out if we have enough time to go to Starbucks. Metering : Absolutely! UA919 : Do you want anything? Metering : Get me the tallest coffee in the world ! Of course we had to give way to the flights that were crossing the Atlantic as the crew was about to run out of duty time was it was brought up by Lufthansa 419 crew. We finally pushed back at 9:15 pm and took off runway 30 at 9:35pm with a right turn to heading 330. There was a lot of rain in the clouds as we climbed to FL250 , our final altitude. We arrived at BDL about 10:40 ish and I directly headed to the hotel to catch some sleep. Overall: - Gotta love the Ch.9 at UAL. They will get my business until the day they will charge twice as much compared to other airlines. - F/As and pilots really earn their money. Especially underpaid F/As. They did a great job supplying us with lots of water, juice and drinks. - Being in SEA area for last 1,5 years , I forgot what a thunderstorm is. I cannot wait what kind of delays I will get next Friday on the way back to SEA.