Best Suitcase Ever

Unfortunately, it's just a Samsonite concept at the minute...

Travel Blues

It had obviously been way too long since I had a travel nightmare - the summer seemed to go by relatively stress free as far as travel delays. I had kinda put this down to the switch from United to Frontier, but to continue the run wasn't going to happen for forever.

And so, it came to pass, on a sunny Georgia day.....

The travel day looked like it was going to be good - the team had spent a very full week of travel already - fly in Monday, drive a couple of hours each way on Tuesday to visit a client office, work Wednesday in Atlanta and then drive 4 hours down to Savannah, work Thursday and drive 4 hours back, getting back into Atlanta around 10.30 or so (and 700 miles later). Friday we managed to leave the office on time, got the car and us checked in fine. Mark got his earlier flight confirmed and headed out smiling. Even United was on time - what could possibly go wronf with mine and Dennise's Frontier flight?

This is when things started to go wrong. 15 minutes before we were meant to board, an announcement was made that the plane had been struck by lightning on the way in, and an engineer would be out to check it out - probably a 1 hour delay, nothing to get worried about. Of course, the plane was eventually declared unfit to fly until something had been sorted out, and at around 9pm that night, the flight was canceled. In between, a huge storm shut down the airport for an hour, both of the other Frontier flights back to Denver were declared full, and I ran out of cigarettes.....

One of the benefits (?) of traveling so much is learning to gauge the mood of the staff behind the counter to get an idea of how much trouble we're going to be in. Around 7 (with neither of the other flights left yet due to the weather), the staff went into calm but panicked mode, so I hung around the check in desk to work out what was going on. There was a whisper that the original flight was going to be canceled, and they were calling the people up with connections that they were trying to get on each plane. This wasn't working too well, as it appeared the names they were calling were already on the plane. I called Dennise over, and we went and stood over by the plane that they were still trying to fill. It turned out to be a good call, as we somehow managed with a wink and a nod to get allowed on the plane with instructions to "find a seat and sit down". We both even got aisle seats!

So, of course, the luggage didn't make it, but we did get to leave from DIA around 10.30pm last night (instead of our project 4.30pm) - but we were one of the lucky ones - one lady phoned her friend who was one our original flight and she was still at Atlanta airport, and waiting to get on a Delta red eye out of there. And the luggage is here now and in one piece, so no complaints I guess.

Of course, if I had been really lucky, I would have been with the wife on her work trip in Vegas. Check out her suite below - one of the perks of a hotel running out of regular rooms before you check in I guess.

The Rise of the Helmet

It seems like only yesterday when the big Vegas trip was planned for my stag/bachelor/bucks party, but it turns out it was well over 2 years ago now. Plenty of great memories, lots of friends, a blow up sheep, and the Captain America helmet, which I was somehow persuaded to wear all the way up the strip (and then even in a few bars and clubs if memory serves me right, although the whole night got a little vague towards the end).

Well, it's all going to be happening again this weekend - not mine of course - you only get one of those (or two I guess if you can squeeze in an extra one back in your home country ;-), but the incredible Mr Tonkin's. The usual suspects, plus a couple of early arrivers from Oz are heading there tomorrow, which is unfortunately a little too soon for me to be able to order this fantastic Pac-Man Helmet and have it arrive in time. I guess it's the thought that counts, right? And I'm sure Ash has something equally fitting sorted out, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Lighters allowed again

Finally, lighters are going to be allowed on planes again. Despite there being no logical reason for banning these in the first place (you could take 4 books of matches still), it took a good couple of years for this to finally get revoked.

This is going to save me untold levels of stress, and should hopefully reduce the number of half books of matches I end up having laying around the house in preparation for my trips.