Well, the first leg of my odyssey is done, and I'm sitting in the Newark, N.J. airport, a three-hour layover before heading out on my nearly-14 hour flight to Beijing and the Summer Games.

Last couple of days have been very hectic, what with my granddaughter Olivia being born on Sunday morning and relatives from Massachusetts dropping in to see the newest family member -- and trying to pack.

Looks like the only thing I forgot was my sunglasses. Bet I can get some in Beijing, eh?

Spent the night in Newburyport, Mass., at the house of my brother-in-law Jeff Gross. Got up at 4:45 a.m. to head into Boston's Logan Airport for my 7:30 flight to Newark.

When we got to the airport, I noticed that there was a line of over 100 people checking in at Delta. Thankfully, I am flying Continental. When we arrived at the Continental check-in there were only three people ahead of me. Yeah!

Now, when I was packing, I was certain that I was stuffing too much stuff in my suitcase. (You know, I don't want to be known as the smelly American, so I threw in a couple of extra outfits.) Sure enough, it was over-weight. "If you don't take some stuff out and put it in your carry-on, it's going to cost you $50,'' I was told, actually rather nicely.

So out came some shoes, a book, a can of peanuts -- hey, you need some comfort food in a foreign land and Planter's Cocktail peanuts are among mine (along with those green candy spearmint leaves, yum) -- and a couple of shirts.

Bingo! My luggage is checked, I'm in the security line and all is well.

Very tired though. Hopefully I can catch some good zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz's on my way to Beijing.

I'll next check in from the other side of the world.

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