SEA -> IAD -> CDG -> SEA
12/10/2025 12:00 am | Share to: 
Last week, on my third week on the job, I headed back to the airport and flew to Houston for the first Riftbound Regional Qualifier. It was fantastic. There are definite learnings and opportunities to improve, but it exceeded expectations nearly across the board.
My role was primarily support, though I fell into a role helping drive and coordinate coverage for the show. I worked closely with our contracted social agency for the show, and we delivered some of the best social content I've seen come out of a TCG tournament.
But my work trip doesn't end there.
I'm now in Paris for another work event, the TFT Paris Open. We flew out of IAH at 4pm yesterday, and overall the flight was fine. I was warm the entire time, which I expected. I had brought a pair of basketball shorts to change into for the overnight flight in hopes of combatting the temperature - it did not work.
However, that wasn't even the worst part of the flight. The worst was just as we came in for our final approach, my nose began to bleed. I had one cocktail napkin and I did my best to staunch the flow as we landed at CDG. As soon as we touched down I hit the call crew button, knowing they weren't going to get up while we were taxiing.
As soon as we got to the gate everyone began standing up to disembark, but I waited until I could flag a flight attendant and she brought me a box of tissues. Thankfully while a few blood droplets did fall on my shirt, it could have been much worse and I was able to clean myself up and disembark the flight to meet up with some of my coworkers.
I've always been prone to nose bleeds, having had them randomly for much of my life. And I used to be much better about making sure I had extra tissues on me for just such an occasion, but I got overly confident. I haven't had an issue with a nose bleed in months, if not more than a year. And my hubris paid the price.
I have had my nostrils chemically cauterized, and I've had multiple ENTs take a look and they don't have any advice other than to just deal with them when they come up.
C'est la vie.
That said, my little incident, had a cosmic karma pay off as we went through customs here in France. As we approached the lanes, there was one marked Sky Priority, which was also on my ticket. I showed it to the guy directing people into lanes and he let me and one of my coworkers go down the lane, which was by far the shortest of them all. Once we got to the front we realized something had gone awry as we were in an EU-only passport lane.
The woman at the front was kind; rather than send us back out she had us step aside for a few minutes. Then we were directed to the end of the row of agents and were able to pass through for passport check and getting our stamp. Where as another of our group took an hour to get processed, it took us less than ten minutes.
So, I think that balances out the frustration of the nosebleed.
