Today I am still recovering from yesterday's 15 hour trip home. And I'm trying to decide if

A) the travel gods hate me

OR

B) the airport gods love me

I haven't quite decided yet. Let's see... I had an original flight canceled. I didn't get on the next flight as a stand-by. I did get on the late flight... but these little details leave out all the fun and drama.

I must say, after watching the American Airlines personnel most of the day yesterday, 80% of the gate agents at Logan seem to be some of the most disorganized people I have ever seen. A few of them are very good, but I wonder how the rest of them ever retain their jobs. Now I do understand that yesterday was an exceptionally bad day at Logan - they had been mostly shut down for the weekend and LOTS of people were trying to get out... but it was mind boggling to watch some of these people work.

For those who aren't the least bit interested in travel horror stories - I'll put the rest in the extended section. more...

Posted by: Teresa in Ho-Hum at 11:44 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Coming to you live from Logan airport in Boston, MA... I have been traveling this weekend (thus the non-existent blogging). I was supposed to leave yesterday - but I'm sure if you've been anywhere near the Weather Channel, you know that the Northeast got hit by a bit of snow... thus Logan was closed yesterday and my flight was changed to today. That's weather for you. I got to the airport way early - just knowing it was going to be a challenge today - since travel over the weekend was a total wash for the midwest and the northeast.

So, what was the big storm like? The snow started at about 4pm on Saturday - continued all night and stopped around noon on Sunday for our area. (although it kept snowing on Cape Cod for quite a while longer). I was out west of the city and outside of snow and wind - things weren't really too bad. Roads and parking lots out that way were pretty much doable by 4pm Sunday.

I got to the check in area at the airport this morning and knew life was going to get interesting when I saw that all of the fast check in machines were closed. Had to stand in line. It always amazes me how many people get so bent when their flight is canceled - it seems they can't come to terms with the fact that their plans must change. They talk at the gate agents forever and ever and ever... they haul out cell phones and call people asking THEM what should be done... yeesh.

When it got to me - my original flight was canceled (there's a newsflash - I knew that would happen!). So I'm on standby for the next flight... if I can't get on that I have a boarding pass for the later flight. I'll probably end up on the later flight . How do I know this? It's simple. My car is in extended parking at O'Hare, buried under a number of inches of snow. It stands to reason that I will be out in the remote lot - LATE - trying to get my car out...

Ho-Hum

Posted by: Teresa in Ho-Hum at 06:52 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Have I ever mentioned that winter is not exactly my most favorite season? About the only thing I find winter does very well is kill the big bugs. It's the primary reason why I put up with the rest of it...

On Tuesday night we had about 2 inches of snow... let me restate that - on Tuesday night about 2 inches of snow blew into town. By "blew" I mean it was accompanied by a steady 30 mph wind with gusts - therefore the snow was not falling, it was coming in sideways. Actually driving wasn't too awful, when I could see the road. The only thing I worried about was mistaking the edge of the road for the middle. Otherwise it was pretty much okay.

Opened my garage door at home to find snow had been blown in under the door about 12 inches... oh well, no use shoveling it out now, more will blow under so I left it.

Next morning I opened the garage door. My intention was to get the newspapers in and then shovel out the drifts. It was pretty "warm" (relatively speaking since the last few days had been around 10 degrees), so proper care was not being taken... I walk out onto the driveway and WHAM! Oops that was black ice out there not blacktop... *sigh* As usual when I fall on ice like that - I landed flat on my back, somewhat on my right side. Unfortunately, I didn't flatten my right arm, and ended up with a bruised right elbow. Outside of some sore back and neck muscles (from keeping my head off the ground) - the bruised elbow is the only real casualty.

Why am I annoyed? After all those years of martial arts, I still can't fall right... Oh yeah, and I hate winter!

Posted by: Teresa in Ho-Hum at 11:33 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Only a week or so ago, my so-so cell phone got a bit of a transformation. I found out that you can add the latest cell tower list merely by dialing in for it (color me annoyed for never having heard about this even though I've owned a cell phone for at least 7 years!). At the same time I had a software upgrade. We should be happy and well connected... right?

Things start out well - connection sounds better most of the time, less static, I am happy. Then comes the end of this week. Not only is static back, but every time I try to talk to people during the day - I just lose the connection!

I was sitting in my living room, not moving, trying to talk to Tammi yesterday. She has 5 bars, I have 4. The connection died 3 times in 15 minutes. I sit looking, just looking at the damned thing and see the signal go flipping back and forth between 4 bars and No Service. This has me worried mightily.

Later that night - late - I'm on the phone talking again... no problems.

Today - I get a wrong number call (didn't know it when I picked up cause I can't read the teeny screen to see who's calling while I'm driving). I pick up and the static is back. The person calling is dropping in and out like crazy. It took me about 2 minutes to get enough of a connection to determine it's a wrong number - a lady trying to call one of her friends.

So, I decide to stop at the Verizon store. Oh well, I should've known... Guy at the store says they're working on the cell towers this weekend. They're upgrading for the new wireless internet connection cards... should make my cell signal better - just not today. They'll be working on it all week he says. I say - you mean the signal will be bad all week? He says - No only yesterday and today. I think... yeah right we'll see. So I am preparing for a bad week with the cell phone... I won't believe it's good til I see it.

Posted by: Teresa in Ho-Hum at 03:35 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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You would think people would be used to winter in Chicago... you would be wrong on every count.

We didn't get TONS, we got about 7 inches give or take an inch. It didn't fall within a 2 hour time span... more like it started about 9pm Tuesday and finished up this morning. So, why do people turn into such complete morons the minute they see a white flake?

Grocery stores are inundated with people who seem to believe that they will not be able to buy food for at least 2 months. (although the average cleanup time for any snow storm - ESPECIALLY out in the burbs - is about 5 hours tops)

People think they need to drive V E R Y S L O W. I'm not talking prudently slow, I'm talking the kind of creeping slowness that causes accidents because some idiot is scared to death to go over 10MPH on a nice wide (as in 4 lanes) straight road and take up both lanes going in their direction... just to be sure that they stay "SAFE" because there's SNOW ON THE ROAD AND THEY MIGHT DIE!!! This drives otherwise sane people to take chances trying to pass them, just so they can actually get to where they are going - as opposed to spending the night out on the road behind these dingbats.

Then there are people like my young neighbor. He drives a car with rear wheel drive and no snow tires. He didn't wait for the snow plow to come by this morning and found himself stuck in about 5 inches of the stuff with his wheels spinning madly. (Ah this brings back memories of being young and driving those old behemoth cars and getting stuck.) Well, one of his friends shows up and tries to push him out. And I decide they need a bit of expert advice, since it seems neither of them ever thought of actually shoveling away some of the snow. So, I brought my shovel over and suggested it be used to dig out the wheels... this was duly accomplished. The snow plow went by on the other side of the street and we were able to push him into the cleared lane.

As for me... I'm just worried about the humongous snowdrift perched perilously over the front entryway to the house. I just know that it will either fall in one big massive avalanche on some unsuspecting person standing by my front door... or it will start to melt and do that lovely back flow thing under the shingles - thus causing a cascading waterfall in my garage... well maybe not water fall, but a nice steady drip...

How long until summer?

Posted by: Teresa in Ho-Hum at 05:46 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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