Finally back in Philly after YAPC. Had a great time. But Wednesday was not a great day to travel along the eastern seaboard. Matt and Heather were kind enough to drive Geoff and myself to the airport from the hotel. After a lot of traffic, we got there around 5 I think -- 3 hours before our flight left at 8. When we got to the ticket counter, the agent said our flight had been canceled due to weather, and there was another one boarding *now* that we were now booked on. So we rush over to customs, but the line was predictably long. After making it through and getting to the gate, we'd missed our flight by 10 minutes. So we were booked on *another* flight, which was supposed to have left earlier, but was now delayed until...8:00 -- right back where we started! On the way to the gate we saw Havana Mike and Jerry Gay, who we'd said our goodbyes to at the hotel. Mike was delayed too, so we went up and grabbed some dinner.
Back at the gate, our flight had been pushed back to at least 8:30. At 8:00 the gate agent announced that they were unsure when our plane would be released, so they were bringing back another flight to Philly that had been sitting on the runway for 3 hours, and kicking off all the connecting passengers who were going to miss their flights anyway. So we got yet another set of boarding passes and headed across the terminal to the other gate.
As the local Philly passengers got off the plane to stretch a bit, we saw Jim Wismer from Philly.pm. Turns out the flight sitting on the runway for 3 hours was the one we missed by 10 minutes. Ouch!
A few minutes before boarding the gate agents noticed an unattended piece of luggage a few feet from me. As we were boarding, they cleared the row of seats. In the jetway a security guard came up the stairs from the ground with a bomb sniffing dog! But that's the last I saw of it, as we were now stepping onto the plane. Shortly after we took off, finally heading back home.
When it was all said and done, we arrived in Philadelphia an hour behind schedule. That was *way* too much work for only getting in an hour late!
By the way, the URL in your profile is producing a "Not Found" page: http://www.smashing.org/jeff
Re:What an ordeal!
jhorwitz on 2005-07-09T13:28:26
Heh -- just the very thought of O'Hare sends chills down my spine.:) Thanks for the URL tip -- removed the
/jeffand it's all fixed.
