What I found was pretty standard: flight schedules, a place to view my reservations, a terminal map for a few of AA’s hub airports and online check in. You can even monitor your place on the standby list. What I didn’t expect were mobile boarding passes.

Maybe this is no big deal, but I’m not all that tech savvy (shocking I know) so I thought this was pretty cool stuff. The ability to check in online and print boarding passes from home has been around for awhile, but the AA app allowed me to create a mobile boarding pass on my handy-dandy iPhone which I just showed to the TSA folks and the gate agent. The app actually creates a scannable boarding pass right on my screen. Nothing to print, nothing to keep up with (other than my phone) no paper, no fuss.

Maybe every flier at the airport is already doing this and I’m just late to the party, but I’m glad I finally arrived.

We set out not to conquer the world, but to explore it. All of it. The whole entire world.

Our honeymoon was our first trip to Europe. After more than a decade of travel together, we look back on that journey, shake our heads and laugh. What were we thinking? The stunts we pulled would make Clark W. Griswold look like Rick Steves.

London was the first stop on our first journey. It was cold and rainy (not that unusual for London, you know) and I was freezing because I was wearing shorts. Probably the only guy in the whole entire United Kingdom wearing shorts that day. I’m sure most people were asking themselves, “What the bloody hell is that twit thinking?”

We managed to get from the airport to Victoria Station without any trouble, but couldn’t figure out how to get to our hotel from the busy train station.

After standing around in the rain we decided to hail a cab, nervous that we didn’t have enough cash on us to get where we needed to go.

How did we solve that problem? We just hopped in the black cab and asked the cabby, “We only have 40 pounds, is that enough?” Luckily, he just grinned, drove us to our hotel and didn’t take us for every pence.

Thus began a great 11 years of life, love and adventure.

I’ve seen countless wonders in 38 countries on four continents over those 11 years, and I did it all with the most wonderful gal in the whole entire world.

It’s no secret that the airline industry is hurting, but I particularly enjoyed Roberts’ quip that airlines are “practically charging you for the pressurized air.”

As of Saturday, I can now call myself an “award-winning” freelance writer. You read it correctly. Someone actually gave me an award - and not just one, but three. They came from a legitimate journalism organization too.

The folks here at TravelBlur.com (that’s really just me) brought home two first place and one second place writing awards from the Oklahoma Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Seriously, we won.

My lovely wife and I took home a first place award in the Leisure Writing category for Newspaper Division B (circulation 7,000 to 25,000) for a collaborative effort headlined The Splendor and Rich Heritage of Copenhagen  which appeared in Edmond Life and Leisure.

In the Newspaper Division C (circulation less than 7,000) Leisure Writing category, this writer captured first place with a story titled Giant Buddha Rules Kamakura  and second for a Halloween piece called Prague’s Creepy Gothic Church of All Saints. Both stories published in The Journal Record.

While honors and awards are a welcome validation, the true joy of writing comes not from the accolades, but from a quality turn of phrase. I like writing, I like crafting a narrative and, honestly, I like winning awards too.

I always wondered what it must be like to look down that long ramp, and I had the chance to find out when I visited the Holmenkollen Ski Jump above Oslo, Norway.

My lovely wife and I fly light – it’s carry-on only for us – so bumping to an earlier flight is a strategy we’ve employed quite successfully on several occasions. But now, if it’s going to cost us $50 each, we’ll probably just wait on our scheduled flight.

Although I don’t generally spend much time hanging out in a hotel room when I travel to a distant land, I have spent my fair share of time watching the repeating loop of information on CNN International, typically the only English-language station on the dial. In a decade of trips to four continents, I’ve watched South Park in Hungarian, Dawson’s Creek in French and Air Force One in German. I’ve seen countless soccer matches and scratched my head watching cricket.

While I think it’s a fun part of the whole cultural experience to take in some local television, even cool Japanese TV can get a bit old. Wouldn’t it be nice to just hook that iPhone or iPod right to the in-room TV and watch something you downloaded from home? Here’s hoping all hotel rooms worldwide adopt this technology.

Read about the MediaHub HD here.

Although I think these annual resolutions are a bit absurd, I feel the need to join people the world over by participating in this time-honored tradition. In that spirit, I offer these travel declarations for my little slice of 2010:

It has always struck me as odd that over the last decade my lovely wife and I have visited three times more countries than US states. Therefore, I resolve to pass on my passport for the next 12 months and spend my time and money exploring my own country.

Along those same lines, I resolve to discover my hometown and my native state as a tourist instead of a jaded local. The land I belong to is grand, and I resolve to see it through new eyes.

There, my obligatory resolution blog post is complete. Look for me around town. I’ll be the guy with the camera and backpack. Does Rick Steves have a book on Oklahoma?

 Disclaimer: New Year’s resolutions are null and void in the event travel opportunities unknown at this time become available.

I’ve been blessed over the last decade to visit some amazing places, see some incredible sights and meet some wonderful people. There have been a few disappointments and expensive tourist traps, but overall, I really wouldn’t change a thing.

That said, I wish for just one do-over.

At this time last year, I was snorkeling in the deep blue Carribean waters off the coast of Belize. I’m not a strong swimmer, as my swims-like-a-fish brother helpfully reminded me, so I was a bit nervous as we splashed off the side of the boat into the warm, clear water.

Once I realized I wasn’t going to die a horrible drowning death, I quickly became enamored with the colorful fish, gliding stingrays and spirally conch shells that populated my new underwater world. I was so captivated, in fact, that I never noticed when my wedding ring slipped off my finger and drifted secretly to the ocean floor.

“So what.” you might say. “It was just a gold band. Go buy another.”

If it were only that simple.

The ring I wore for almost a decade was more than a metallic marker of my marital status. That plain gold band was my link to a loved one lost.

When my father died in 1998, my mom took the rings they had exchanged 20 years earlier, melted them together and gave me the gold. The wedding band my beautiful bride placed on my finger almost ten years before was forged from history, a round reminder of the love my parents shared and a promise of what was to come in my life.

Distraught, I searched the sandy bottom, hoping against hope to see a shiny reflection against the soft sea soil. I retraced my path as best I could, but my treasure was lost. I cursed and I cried.

When we celebrated our 10^th anniversary a few months later I was sans band, and my finger is still bare today.

You see, just any old ring simply won’t do.

Below, in no particular order, are a few of my favorite quips and tidbits from our journeys.

“I cheat you less” – from a street vendor in Tijuana, Mexico.

“Sausagefest” – an Australian man describing the nude beach near Dubrovnik, Croatia.

“Looka, looka shop” – from a Beijing street vendor.

“It’s a small world” – from Freda, a Bruges, Belgium, B&B owner describing a foggy day.

“Oklahoma! Where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain” – sung by a shop owner in an unknown little Austrian town after she asked us where we live.

I’m “not comfortable” here – from a Catholic cab driver in Belfast, Northern Ireland, while driving through the Protestant Shankill Road neighborhood

We are experiencing “turbulence due to typhoon” – from a flight announcement during a Japan Airlines flight from Shanghai to Tokyo.

“I’ll show you the way” – from a scam artist near Beijing, China’s, Forbidden City.

“Oklahoma is one of only three US states with a panhandle” – from a guard at Munich, Germany’s, Nyphenburg Palace.

“One is enough” – from a lady leaving the De Garre bar in Bruges, Belgium.

You are “brave” for traveling independently – from a group Americans on a tour in Budapest, Hungary.

“I am Han and this is my partner Solo” – from a Vienna, Austria, street performer.

“We’re going to get to the castles early, you know, around 10:30 am” – from two American guys in Fussen, Germany.

“It doesn’t matter, you’re in Belgium” – said to me by a Belgian lady after I accidentally went into the women’s bathroom in Bruges, Belgium.

“It’s good to laugh in the morning” – from Bacharach, Germany, B&B owner Fatima after scolding us for coming down to breakfast late.

“When are we going to land off?” – from little kid while our airplane was on approach to London, England’s, Gatwick Airport.

“In the time of the Yugoslavia” – part of a history lesson from our Croatian driver Petar.

“You’ve got your 10 Kuna now jump” – from a young English boy to a Mostar, Bosnia, bridge diver.

“Jordan” – the Estonian translation of the American name Charlie from a hostess at Vanaema Juures restaurant in Tallinn, Estonia.

“Oh say can you see” – from group of Americans singing the Star Spangled Banner in a Stockholm ice bar.

“Play the boot” – a request from a fiddle player to the crowd in a Dublin, Ireland, pub.

“Are ya Irish” from an Irish guy at a seaside patio in Nerja, Spain.