Checking In

A catch-all, catch-up post

There are 1,132 posts filed in Checking In (this is page 106 of 114).

Back From Boston

I’m back from my day trip to Boston. I landed there Monday morning around 10:05, well ahead of schedule. I had two hours to meet my customer, so I was thinking I was in good shape.

I was wrong. I got on the Mass Turnpike heading west when I decided to stop and check my directions. Dumb move! Turnpikes don’t easily let you back on, so I decided to see how far Route 16 took me.

As I’m driving along, I pass groups of schoolkids on the sidewalks. There were balloons tied to fences. People were sitting out on their porch steps. Planes trailing banners competed for space with F-15 Eagles flying overhead.

“Hmm,” I thought. “Must be something going on.”

That something, I soon discovered, was the Boston Marathon!

Now that I was off the beaten path of I-90 I was doomed. Roadblocks were everywhere. New England can be confusing enough to navigate without having to backtrack several miles to get around a race course. I found my way to Route 9, which took me up to 495. From there, I missed my turn and had to backtrack to 495, which thwarted me again since the exits I wanted to use to turn around were blocked by police for the race.

I wound up at the customer’s site a half hour late. Fortunately we had a good laugh about it.

I did my thing there and got back to the airport early with an eye on getting an early flight back. I was the fifth standby for four empty seats. D’oh! Oh well, at least my Boingo account got me on the Internet.

I did manage to get home in time to tell the kids goodnight, which was the highlight of my day. As much as I hate leaving the family I have a number of trips lined up for the near future.

Whatever happened to life slowing down?

Boston

I’m heading to Boston for the day after a fun and full Easter weekend. More details when I get a chance.

Help Premature Babies With The March of Dimes!

Kelly and I are once again raising money for the March of Dimes to fund research for saving premature babies. Those who know me know our daughter Hallie was born eleven weeks premature. She may not be with us today if it wasn’t for the miraculous advances in medicine that the March of Dimes helps fund.

We are truly grateful to the March of Dimes and to all those who have donated to help further this lifesaving research. Should you wish to sponsor us for this year’s WalkAmerica (on April 22nd), you can donate online here. You can also join us for the walk if you’d like. It’s all for a good cause: raising money to help premature babies get a healthy start.

Thanks once again for your generosity!

Perfect Weekend For All But One Of Us

It was an almost perfect weekend. Weather was gorgeous, it was great being with the family, and the yard got mowed for the first time this season and looks great. Hallie and Kelly are healthy and in good spirits. One of Kelly’s longtime friends was in town and spent time visiting. I got a lot of quality Daddy time with the kids. I even spent time with my own parents, which was great.

The only thing missing was Travis’s health. The poor kid has run a fever of around 103 degrees for the past few days. He zones out in the daytime and wails at night. Occasionally he’ll perk up (right when the ibuprofen takes effect) and be his old self, but usually he’s just quiet. His appetite has taken a hit, too. That belly he’s been working so hard to build is going to slip away. 🙂

The doctor has given him a day or two to get back to normal. If that doesn’t happen, we’ll bring him back in for more testing. Man, it’s tough to watch the kids get sick.

Home Alone

I’m awake and happy to be home, though the family isn’t back yet from Virginia. I’ve been spending the time unpacking and cleaning up the house a bit.

I went to bed around 3 after making a 2:30 AM run to Harris Teeter. The night manager eyed me suspiciously, and I can’t say I blame him. I don’t suppose they get many customers that early in the morning. It wasn’t difficult waking up at 9 this morning, either. Guess if I have to get used to a time difference its a good thing that daylight savings is happening this weekend.

It won’t be long before the family comes rolling in and we’ll all be together again. Woot!

Home On Saturday

Looks like my plans to be home on Friday have been sunk. My plane was delayed again, pushing the boarding time to ten past midnight.

At this point I’m too blaise to care. On the other hand, I’m closing in on thirty-one hours of travel. Its taken so long to get from LA to Raleigh, I could have actually made it back to Sydney by now!

Wheee!

Not Almost There. Add Two Hours.

Who would’ve thought that when I’d made it to Los Angeles my trip wasn’t even halfway done? My scheduled departure at 9:50 didn’t occur due to the incoming plane being delayed by bad weather in Indianapolis. My trip to Raleigh won’t begin until 11:45. I won’t get home until Saturday morning.

As of this hour I’ve been traveling for 28 hours straight. It’s been Friday for 34 hours now. Boy do I wish that Delta’s nonstop service between Raleigh and Los Angeles began this week instead of in June.

Fortunately for me, Charlotte has free Wifi in the food court area. And a wonderful pianist named Emily Roland who has been keeping us food court campers happy.

[Update:] I just got word that my plane will be at the gate a little past eleven. That means I could conceiveably be on the ground in Raleigh before my long Friday ends.
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Almost There

I’ll try to recreate the post that Boingo ate. Here goes.

I’m in Los Angeles now after a longer than usual trip from Sydney. As a result I’ll get home three hours later than I expected.

Clinton dropped me off at the Sydney airport this morning a good two and a half hours early for my flight. I walked into a crowded airport, with people lined up in queues as far as the eye could see.

I found my way to the correct queue and asked what was going on. A family from Perth on their way to Disneyworld told me the airport had suffered a power outage. Though the power was on at the check-in counters, the baggage system wasn’t working and the check-in process had come to a standstill.

We chatted for a while until I looked up and saw the displays above the counters flicker to life. My applause was premature, however, as the baggage system was still dead. At least I got a chance to see the displays boot into some Red Hat-flavor of Linux.

The queues got longer, reporters interviewed weary travellers, and airline staff passed out free water and cookies. The mood remained upbeat, mostly. Still the time dragged on.

It took me two and a half hours to actually reach the check-in counter. In other words, the first 100 meters of my trip took two and a half hours. I still had fifteen million meters more to go!

The original departure time had come and gone by the time I reached the gate. People weren’t boarding yet because the majority of passengers hadn’t yet checked in. That tacked on another 20 minutes before boarding began.

The flight was an hour late before I reached my seat. As the power outage had caused a pileup of departing planes, we had to wait to get a tow to the taxiway. Then another wait for the flight data to download into the plane’s computers.

We left Australian soil over two hours late.

Fortuntately, the pilots hauled ass across the Pacific. We made Los Angeles in a little over twelve hours, travelling at ground speeds of 650 miles per hour! Gotta love having the jet stream for a tailwind.

Still, it wasn’t enough to make my connecting flight, which left Los Angeles before I had even cleared Customs. I had another 30 minute wait to get booked on another airline, a 20 minute walk to the US Airways terminal, and 5 minutes for “special screening” once I got there.

Now my US Airways flight to Charlotte is boarding. From Charlotte I fly to Raleigh, getting in around 11:30 if I’m lucky.

That’s twenty-two hours of travel, thirty hours without significant sleep.

At least I’ll be home soon, and shortly after with my family. Woo!