SuperSatellite

Post-eduWeb 2008 (Day Hell)

// July 23rd, 2008 // Tech, Travel, Web

Well, if there’s one thing we can all rally around, it’s that we’re (hopefully) surviving a travel day from hell getting home from Philadelphia.  At least we got off the ground though.  The only problem is, I’m writing this on my $7.95/day wifi pass at the Atlanta airport where I am stuck until 8:00AM.  At least we got time to eat something after 8 hours.

The story goes like this: we got to the Philly airport in good time, about 2:45 for a 5-something flight.  The check-in guy gives us the first bad news.  We’ll miss our connection because the flight we’re scheduled for is being delayed.  BUT, there was a flight boarding to leave at 3:30 that would get us here in plenty of time.  We rejoiced.  The travel gods had smiled. But it was a cruel, evil smile indeed.  We hurried to clear security and get to the gate, and made it just in time, even though John got the business for having some Trump Ice stowed in his bag (see Brad, I told you that stuff was trouble!).

We boarded.  We sat.  We rolled. We stopped.  All of the sudden we were 15th in line to take off.  That’s not a hyperbole, like “we were the millionth plane in line to take off.”  We were literally 15th.  And now that we were waiting, storms south of the airport had blown in, and we all had to wait.  And wait.  And wait.  Turns out the travel gods built up our hope only to enjoy smashing them to bits, laughing as we sat on the uncomfortable as hell plane on the tarmac for about three hours. At least they let us up to pee.  But something about pooping on a plane terrifies me.  Like sitting on the bottom of a pool drain… (pink sock!)

We finally cleared the ground sometime around 6:30 I believe, and our one hour forty minute flight had to be lengthened to go around travel god booby traps.  The end result?  Yeah, we still missed our connection.  By ten minutes.

So, we got sent to the customer service area, which has to be one of the most god awful thankless jobs in an airport, and I called and cancelled the hotel in KC, and we’re stuck here till 8:00AM.  The bitter irony is, we’ll still actually get home about the same time, because we’ll land about the time we had planned to leave the hotel anyway.  The travel gods are actually evil bitch goddesses.  Mean creatures with giant magnifying glasses, and we’re the ants.

But like I said, at least we got somewhere.  I hear some of you didn’t even get out of Philly.  Look at it this way, where would you rather have run out of fuel, the tarmac or the air?  Yeah, I know, it still sucks.  At least I calmed down now that we’re sitting in comfortable chairs, I have internet, and a warmish bottle of Coke that tastes rigorously secured.  I also skimmed one of John’s Motrin 800 for my back.

So, my next suggestion is that I think we need an “I survived post eduWeb travel” support group.  And we need to do some kind of sacrifice next year.  I’m thinking e-mail.  It’ll be dead soon anyway, right?

Last note, uploaded the last of my pictures from eduWeb.