I haven't yet shared with too many people that I recently went on a Frequent Flyer / Airplane Geek's dream trip to the USA and Europe to tour airports, airplanes, the Airbus Factory and Airline Operations centers with 200+ of my closest friends (that I had never met before). This Trip was called the Star Mega Do, in reference to the fact that we were being hosted by four members of the Star Alliance on this trip.

I will be sharing more of my experiences over the days and weeks to come, but I wanted to share with everyone, one aspect of the trip that was kind of neat.

In addition to a crew from CNN, a Documentary Film Maker, and a Writer from Condé Nast Traveler Magazine, one of the people along on this trip, was Scott McCartney from the Wall Street Journal. He was a thoroughly enjoyable guy to spend some time with over the four days of this trip, and he wrote a great article entitled "A Travel Junkie Field Trip" which summed up what this trip was all about.

And hey, he even quoted me in the article...

Darren Mak, a self-employed Web-site designer, loves flying so much he looks for far-flung itineraries instead of direct flights to plump up mileage balances.

He left Winnipeg, Canada, to join the Mega DO in Chicago, but instead of a $400 one-way ticket nonstop, he found a $400 ticket from Winnipeg to Chicago, then Dallas, then Los Angeles and back to Chicago. On the way home, he flew from Frankfurt to San Francisco, then on to Sydney, Australia, where he hoped to use an eight-hour layover to Christmas-shop. Then home to Winnipeg through Los Angeles.

"I just told my wife I was taking the long way home," he said.

Scott also had a video camera along, and put together a great little clip of what we saw and did over the entire trip. There is also a podcast (embedded in the article) where Scott goes into further depth, about what the Star Mega Do was all about!

And yes, I did actually visit Sydney for a short time, as incredible as that may seem.

Hurry up and read the original article though, as the Wall Street Journal only allows access to content for free for seven days!

And by the way... do you know how hard it is to find a copy of the Wall Street Journal in Winnipeg? Very!

I finally found a couple of copies in of all places, the news stand at the airport! Fitting.

• Darren Mak's blog