On my flight from IAH–>LAX today, I got upgraded at the last minute to 1A from 14F. As any fan of Seat Guru (www.seatguru.com) knows, on a 737-300, that’s not such a great upgrade. 14F doesn’t have a seat in front of it, 1A is against the front of the plane. Other than a slightly better lunch, staying in 14F is actually better than 1A. Plus, all my luggage was already overhead, and there wasn’t any room left in the front. So I gave the upgrade to the guy they put in 14F, assuming I was in 1A, and I stayed where I was. He’d never been in 1st class before, and sure enough, as the woman came by with the drink cart in coach, she asked if I was Peter Shankman. When I said yes, she gave me a handwritten note. I totally made someone’s day. Was really cool. :)

So it turns out the guy I’m sitting next to in coach owns about 18 TV stations in the south, and is going to recommend to a major network that they bring me in to talk. Thought that was the Karmic payback for giving my seat up – Turns out there was more.

Remember when I questioned the logic of giving a 35-year-old guy a Lincoln and calling it an “upgrade?” That perhaps I didn’t want a Lincoln, nor did I want to eat dinner at 4:30pm? Well, someone at Avis listened. I found this waiting for me when I got to the lot in LA:

Sweet.

Welcome to the 500+ HARO members who joined today after seeing the story on HARO in Galleycat.

OK. Gotta get some work done… Like, finish my PowerPoint for tomorrow’s conference. And by “finish,” I mean “start.”