Yeast 'active' in the vial?

Has anybody ever had their White Labs yeast 'ferment' in the vial? We had a Dry English Ale Yeast that came from Texas (AHB) and afterwards was stored in the fridge for about 3 days. It then sat at room temp for roughly 13 hours--the ale pail took longer than expected to come down to the 70s in the (new) chest freezer. I went to pitch before work and I noticed 'clumps' and bubbling going on the in the vial. I slowly opened the cap and it sorta hissed I guess releasing CO2. I just went ahead (after shaking very well) and pitched it. What do I make of it?

Yeah, no big deal.

I don't think there's anything to ferment in there, unless the storage media had staved it off in transit somehow. Probably just a matter of it releasing CO2 and expanding when you warmed it up. What to make of it: nothing.

Your bigger problem may be that you apparently didn't make a starter. What was your original gravity?

His target was 1.052 but he hit 1.062. The other thing is me--I did a Sierra Nevada Celebration clone (and hit the target 1.066) but again, no starter. They gave me two vials for that (I didn't opt for the 'yeast fuel'). I didn't know how to do a starter with liquid extract and/or if it's still too late. Its been almost 48 hours (for me) and no activity yet..

A vial/smackpack alone is not enough for anything over 1.040 IMHO. As for the "two vials", it depends on how old they were.

Starters are easy. Boil up 8oz of LME in 2L of water for 15 minutes, chill it down to ~75ºf, put it into a flask or some other container that you can cap with aluminum foil, and pitch the yeast. Wait until it's "done" (the krausen will fall just like with a normal ferment), then either pitch that whole thing into the beer or chill it down and discard the spent wort. There are tons of resources that go into more depth than this. A good place to see how much yeast you'll need is Mr. Malty's Pitching Rate Calculator.

Well I can't make a starter now b/c I don't have the extracts anymore, right? Or morebeer uses a light dried malt extract and a yeast nutrient mix in their starter kits. I suppose I could do that? But they're on backorder..I guess I can just with a little longer and contact AHB like they say to. Worse case scenario the wort can sit another week ot two?