OK, so rather than sitting on a 747-400 right now, I'm sitting in Logan's terminal E, where I'm still a good two hours from boarding. Apparently, somewhere between Amsterdam, D.C., and London, there was a problem. So our getting to the airport nice and early, while a worthy plan, came back to bite us on the collective ass.

One could have presaged this from the cab ride to the airport, where the cab went no more than 20 feet from my building's front door before getting a flat tire. A second cab arrived in short order, but if you're into omens, it was an auspicious start. Did I mention that Sarah broke a mirror yesterday,too?

The good news? I found my tie. It was on the shelf in our closet, put up with some other clothes.

In any case, here's what I can tell you about our adventure so far:

* Duty free stores are kind of scary, like all the vices rolled into one. Multi-carton packs of smokes, big bottles of booze, five kilo Toblerones. And just in case you drink/eat/puff yourself into incontinence, you have the half-gallon sizes of perfume to cover up.

* The E terminal at Logan is the international terminal, and it sucks. It's just old enough to look shabby, is kind of dour, and has little by way of distractions (outside of this lone public access terminal). I get this feeling that a sister airport terminal opened in Prague in 1983 and was hailed as a Historic Achievement in Socialist Aviation.

The E terminal is Logan's answer to Foxboro Stadium.

* I think I've found the last Hudson News in North America that carries Games magazine. The article this month is about some family known for their flogging of novelties, like chattering teeth and huge sunglasses. Wow.

* I think I'm over my concern regarding the big plane. Now I'm just concerned about our big plane.

* We did get a food voucher, which for the E terminal means you're getting Au Bon Pain, Sbarro, McDonalds, or Wok and Roll. And, because the 4 of us got one voucher for the group, we all had to eat at the same place. We decided on Wok and Roll, and I've had dry mouth ever since. OK going down, but apparently all the MSG that the other Chinese places aren't using wound up here.

* The CNN Airport Network is showing the Niners-Cardinals game, which promised to only add to the tedium but has kept reasonably close. I do wish I'd gotten a chance to see the entire Fins-Vikes game. Saw the opening drive and figured Miami was en route to a big day. Wonder if our London hosts have sattelite TV, and if they get ESPN...

* The security procedures went fine. For all the hullaballoo, it's not that much of a bother. Unless you wear Rockport shoes, which have a steel shank in the sole. You have to wonder how many people will go barefoot in airports before the Rockport people go with something else.

Not much more to say about the terminal or the trip so far, unless I can find some way to further describe what's been pretty damn dull so far. Maybe I'll try to take a nap or something.