My Travel Trip From Hell: The Trip Home

It started normal. It was a beautiful day in Denver - the men there are super attractive. So thank you, men of Denver, for the wonderful view.

The conference ended early, we strolled the 16th Street Mall. Got close to the state capitol. It has a gold top:


We called a shuttle service to take us to the airport. We got there a little early, check my luggage - assign our seats so that we're next to each other - with an aisle separating us. Both get aisle seats, score!

It's a crowded plane, a lot of uptight people going back to DC. Just like I could tell New Yorkers/Northern New Jersey-ers from the bags under their eyes... You could tell a DC-er by how uptight and annoying they look.

We board - on time. We even LEAVE on time. And let the torture begin:

In front of a me was a woman w/ a large bottom, a mother and her 2.5 year-old and an infant on her lap. The infant cried, often. But it was usually just a wimper, that could be forgiven by upping the volume on my DirecTV I got for free. (score.)

Then? I smelled poop. Her other daughter needed to change her diaper. So the mom, brilliantly leaves her infant with the scary unknown lady with the large bottom. What we heard next could be equivalent to this:



Yeah... that sounds about right. Lady with the large bottom would get in this poor infant's face with baby talk. She didn't want your baby talk, lady - she wanted her mom... who decided it would be ok to leave her scared child with an unknown crazy. Nice work mom. Flight attendant to the rescue - after reading her the instructions on how to properly dispose of a diaper at 35,000 feet, the flight attendant snatches the screeching infant and shows her where her mom is. This quiets it a little bit. That ordeal took about 7 minutes of my sanity.

Our flight is supposed to last 3 hours and 2 minutes. 2.5 hours into our trip home, we are flying over Ohio and Virginia. The captain gets on the loud speaker:

"Folks, this is your captain speaking. We just got word from Air Traffic Control that there are some pretty bad thunderstorms in the DC area right now, and we can't land. So, we're gonna circle around here for a bit and hopefully get us down on the ground about 30 minutes later than expected. Sorry for the delay; we'll keep you posted."

I look over at my friend and say this: "We don't have the fuel to circle around to long, hope we can land soon." Planes aren't like cars - you don't fill 'er up. You put just enough fuel to get you from point A to point B.. otherwise - it's not efficient, or something.

Sniff, sniff... great. The kid shit her pants again:



That was another 5-10 minutes of my sanity. So we're up in the air circling... Sweet, at least I can watch So You Think You Can Dance while I'm waiting to land. FYI, we were supposed to arrive in DC at 9:50. We're getting close to 9:45 and the captain gets on again:

"Heeeey folks, it's your captain again. We seem to be running out of fuel. So, we're close to the Akron/Canton Airport. They've given us clearance to land. We're gonna get some fuel, and then hopefully we'll get clearance from Air Traffic Control to land in DC. Hopefully we can get you guys into DC by 11:50"

Fuck. Really? I called this. It's time for a drink. I ask the flight attendant if they'll be coming around with the cart on our way back to DC. I get an affirmative, and tell her that I'll be looking forward to purchasing an insanely expensive beer from her. She found that amusing.

We land in Akron. We're down there for about 30 minutes. Refuel, get paperwork done, back up in the air. Pure efficiency on the behalf of Frontier Airlines. I can definitely say that this the way home was NOT their fault. Except for this suckage from the flight attendant:

"Ladies and gentleman, the captain has informed us that we will be able to immediately land in DC. As a result, our current flight will last only 42 minutes. With such a short flight, we will not be able to come around with the full beverage cart. We will be coming around with some bottled water instead."

Are you kidding me?! Sorry, sweetheart, but water is no substitution for my need of beer at this point. Thankfully, the kids are sleeping at this point. I'm now watching Team USA get pummelled by Costa Rica.

It's 12am, we land. We bolt off the plane, only to hurry up and wait for our baggage. That took quite some time. I guess we waited for a half an hour. 12:30... the Metro has stopped running. I missed the last Yellow line train by like, 4 minutes. That's fine. I'll just take a cab, yeah? This is what we walked out to:



That's 100+ people waiting for taxis. After waiting for 30 minutes and the line not moving, we realize a brilliant idea of calling a cab company. I called the Red Top Cab Company. They will have a cab for me in 10 minutes (it's 1am), and yes, they would be pleased to take my credit card. Sweet. I'm on my way home.

It's 1:15. About five Red Top cabs have now driven past me. One finally pulls up, "You need a cab?"

Side note: No. I don't need a cab. It's clearly a pastime of mine to hang out outside of airports at 1 in the morning. Asshole.

"Yes," I reply. "I called your company 20 minutes ago."

"Hmph," she says, "You and like 70 other people... Where you going?"

"Alexandria."

"Oh no... I won't go there. I'll take Arlington." Well, CLEARLY she'll go to Arlington, since it's a longer ride, ergo a larger fare. Of course. She then tells the woman that is going to Arlington that she refuses to take credit cards (you know, since there's a fee associated with credit card payments). This is completely false - because I specifically asked the Red Top Cab Company that same question when I called.

So, I called the Red Top Cab Company again to ask where my car was. While on the phone I told them the story of what just happened. If you are wondering - almost three weeks later, I still remember the number of that lady's cab: 83. Her cab was number 83. I reported her. I'm sure there were no repurcussions for her actions, but it still felt better to tattle.

Finally, another Red Top cab drives by and stops. It is now 1:45. I don't ask questions anymore:

"You're a Red Top cab. I called for one. You're taking me home."

"Where are you going?" He asks.

"Alexandria,"I tell him. In return I get a huge sigh.

"Can't you find anyone else to come with you?"

"I am not going to fucking round up a crew. I've been waiting here for 45 minutes since I called and you're driving me home." I was angry. I was yelling. The man standing next to me thought I was going to get violent. I cursed at the cabbie. I was supposed to be home 4 hours ago. In times of desperation, the Jersey comes out.

At this point, I'm rambling... complaining about the woman that refused to drive me home and everything else up to this point. He grabs my bag and reluctantly puts it in the back of the car.

"You're going to take my credit card, right?" I ask.

Another sigh, "Don't you have any cash?"

"No, I don't have any fucking cash. I will tip you just fine to make this worth your while. And just think, in the time it would take you for one fare to Arlington, you can drive me home and come back for another fare." I totally understand that this guy needs to make money. But I need to get home.

During the ride home, I apologize for my actions and explain to him the travel trip from hell. He was rather understanding, and we had a pleasant conversation on the trip to my apartment.

At 2:05am, my travel trip from hell ended. I sent my boss an email explaining that I would be taking sick leave that day. I also told him that I didn't feel like traveling for a little while - like a year. Read more...

Go Pens.

I normally don't write about sports here. But today is a different day. The Penguins will be going into Game 7 tonight of the Stanley Cup Finals. I got a penguin hat from a friend earlier in the SCF playoff series. Throughout the Playoffs, Mario has stayed in my cube or another Pittsburgh fan's cube, rooting for the Pens along with our posters (that apparently offend some DC fans, but whatever). But for game 6, I felt like we needed a little boost. We needed more motivation. Mario came with me where ever I went. I took pictures of him. Here is the picture diary of Mario, up until now:

He usually would hang out up here:


There's a Red Wings fan at work. Mario doesn't like that.


He does, however, love my desktop background:


And, he loves the Steelers:


We had a Pictionary tourney to take care of at lunch. He helped me solve "Gazebo."


He totally liked this room color:


We took Metro home that day. He we are, going home to get ready for game 6:


When we finally made it home, we got locked out of the house. We waited for a bit in the lobby:


That night, I bought some Rogue Dead Guy Ale. Never drank it during the playoffs. We won. We're drinking it for the rest of the week... I'm not buying it at our convenience store - $15 for a six pack! WTF? I'll get it at the grocery store. Only a few more days until I can't do that anymore.

Rather than leave Mario at home... I brought him back to work with me on Wednesday and Thursday. I missed pics on Wednesday... But got back into the swing of things on Thursday:


I apologize for being unsafe and not buckling him up. Things changed on the way home:


We woke up rather late this morning... had to catch up on our DVR playlist:


I introduced Mario to Al today. They appear to be getting along swimmingly.


That's all I've got for now. Mario will stay with me throughout the day. He calms the nerves.

So everyone, make it through the day. I promise... I will update you about my trip home from Denver. But today - I will only think about the Pens.

LET'S GO PENS!!!!

Do it.
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My Travel Trip from Hell - The Trip Out

Let me preface this by saying - I've made it home safe, and I am beyond thankful for that. Seeing the things that have occurred to other fliers, I am grateful for making it home in one piece. But now, my whining and complaints will commence. Because although I am home, the journey itself sucked ass.

I will cut this up into two pieces. Today, I'll focus on the trip out to Denver:

Our contract for flights from DCA to Denver International is through Frontier. They are a smaller, budget-type airline that is based out of Colorado. Their employees are friendly. They only have one gate in all of DCA.

I arrived an hour before my flight was scheduled to leave. I had checked in online, so checking my bag at the counter was relatively easy. I go to meet my friend/co-worker at the gate. It is 8:00am, we are scheduled to board at 9:00am. At 9am, the woman at the desk gets on the loudspeaker and tells us this:

"We are sorry to inform you, but we have to delay our flight for quite some time. It is technically not cancelled, but we do not expect you to leave for Denver until 2:30pm today. Please meet me back up at our ticket counter to issue your new tickets..."

As soon as she instructed us back up to the ticket counter, I hauled my ass up there. To beat the 150 other passengers. Thankfully, there were only 7 people ahead of us in line. I wish I had taken a shot of the madness that was the Frontier Airlines ticket counter area. The line zigged and zagged... and practically covered up the US Airways ticket counter. There were two women working the ticket counter.

We find out while we're up there, that there was a mechanical problem with the plane, and that they had to fly in a mechanic from Denver on their next flight in to fix the issue. That flight arrived at 12:40pm. As we're standing up with this woman, she issues us our new boarding passes. Then she leaves us to help the ticket counter person next to us. Another ticket counter person leaves to answer the phone. She comes back, and to try to make things better, she issues us $7 meal vouchers. We didn't need the meal vouchers. We wanted other people to get helped. An impatient passenger comes up and interrupts our transaction trying to tell the lady how to do her job... It flustered her a bit.

After the interruption, she decides to also give us $25 off our next flight on Frontier. Again, nice gesture, but you have 100+ passengers trying to catch connecting flights - or just trying to go to Denver. We're fine without the $25. Seriously.

In defense of Frontier - they did their best. They are a small airline, with limited resources in DC. I'm not sure they were prepared for a potential scheduling disaster like this.

So after about 15 minutes up at the ticket counter I am told to go pick up my bag at the baggage claim and bring it back up to the ticket counter to give to TSA so they can re-check my bag. Another horrible sight: A pile of luggage from our flight hanging out in an emtpy baggage claim area with no one there to prevent theft. My bag was still there.

We finally left the airport at around 9:45 to hang out at Pentagon Row for a couple of hours, and arrived back at the airport around 11:45.

Out of curiosity I went back upstairs to check out the people waiting for tickets from our morning flight. There were probably 200 people there. I recognized people that were waiting in line before we had left. Needless to say, people were angry.

I checked our flight online, it now said we were leaving at 3:30. Ok... another hour.

After getting through security, it's about 12:30. We walk up and down the gate area to get some exercise. Then I decided it's time for a beer. While sitting at the airport bar, we made friends with fellow stranded passengers, random other passengers, and the bartender. Thank goodness we made friends with the bartender - I was given remote privileges. We watched a cheerleading competition on ESPN2. Forgive me, it was Sunday.

I was ragged on for being a Pittsburgh fan, but defended myself well.

I checked our flight status again at 3pm. Now we weren't leaving until 4. And we almost did that. Our flight, which was supposed to leave at 9:00am did not leave until 4:30pm. The flight itself went really well. No complaints there.

Let's just say, this was the lesser stressful traveling experience from the trip.

So what happened on the way home? You ask. That, my friends, is for another day.
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Denver and Associated Thoughts on Said City.

I'm in Denver. Our experience can be something taken out of a depressing comedy - a comic tragedy, if you will. I'll fully update when I get home, but here are some observations thus far:

• The air is super thin. But we all knew that.


• They have a jamba juice, and I miss those.


• I have now come to understand why DC is determined to be the second ugliest city in the country. There are some super attractive people here in Denver. It's nice.


• There are a lot of homeless people in downtown Denver.


• For the Nuggets just losing the WCF, I've seen quite a few Kobe jerseys still walking around.


• 7.5 hour flight delays aren't really that much fun. Seeing the Pens lose after finally arriving in my hotel room added insult to injury.


• I like working out.

So that's it. The thin air combined with a workout has been quite taxing on the brain.

There's quite the dilemma tomorrow - we have our closing banquet tomorrow night. It's over at 9. That's when the hockey game ends. I need to watch this game. I'll figure it out... I have faith. Just like I have faith in the Pens.

LETS GO PENS!!!

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