Planes, (Trains) and Automobiles

On Thursday and Friday of last week I was in Chicago for a two day training class. Everything was going fine, Thursday was the first day of Spring and even though Chicago is colder than New Jersey, I did not expect weather troubles. Then on Thursday I find out that there is a winter storm watch for all day Friday. Great. Sure enough, Friday morning greeted me with a few inches of snow on the ground, however, I figured that being Chicago, they would be used to this sort of thing and I would get home, perhaps with a delay.

Well, checking my flight status brought me the thrilling news that my flight was cancelled. I called SAP travel to see what they could do for me and was told the news that every Continental flight was cancelled out of Chicago but that I was booked on a flight leaving on SUNDAY NIGHT, connecting through Cleveland and getting me back to LaGuardia airport at 11:00pm. I would then need to take an approximately 45 minute cab ride to Newark to get my car. Clearly I wanted a better option and after much searching, a flight on American Airlines was found that was leaving in a few hours. I raced to the airport and got to the American desk, only to find that that flight had been cancelled as well. I was told to try Continental!

Not expecting any good news I went to the empty Continental desk and asked about my options. I was helpfully told that every flight was cancelled and I was booked on Sunday night. I asked again if there were any further options for me and was told that IF I wanted to drive to Indianapolis, I could get a direct flight from there tonight. 180 miles was the distance quoted, although with the now quite heavy snow, it could take a while. So, I booked a rental car, got the bus BACK to the Hertz lot and began my trek. Of course, I had no idea about the location of the airport but got some basic directions for Indianapolis and headed out.

Fortunately a consulting buddy of mine lives in Indy and after a call, was able to reassure me that I would see signs to the airport from the main interstate. The drive took about 4 hours. It was kind of crazy...40 miles south of the airport, the snow turned to rain and 40 miles south of this, it was sunny. Apparently it was just a stupid narrow band of snow stuffing everything up. After this, everything went quite smoothly, except for reaching a fast food restaurant in NJ hungry and two minutes after the close...

Saturday was spent sleeping. Mindy had taken the kids to visit her family in Virginia so I had the rare luxury of taking an afternoon nap on the couch. At 4:30, a group of friends left to go to Atlantic City for some gambling.

I stuck to poker again and only lost a little money. I really had no decent cards all night but it was a lot of fun. The guy I was sitting next to was quite amusing and we both got a kick about laughing at another player who was falling asleep at the table, CLEARLY under the influence of herion or another narcotic type of drug. Whatever it was, it certainly was not an upper. He was also playing like a drugged out idiot, however he was being lucky enough to be dangerous. A few players got busted out through bad fortune (or by trying to bluff a calling station) but eventually, some players managed to catch him out. The line of the night came from the guy next to me. A complete knucklehead sat down, acting like he owned the place and strangely proud of his $60 in front of him. He was rude to the dealers and trying to be a big shot. The really funny part was that he only looked about 17 years old as well. Finally the guy next to me had had enough, so he asked: "Dude, how old are you anyway?". He answered "28". "You're 28?" came the mock reply, sending this guy into a tirade about how old he was, do you want to bet, do you want to see my license etc... Cutting him short, the guy next to me said "Whatever McLovin". Now, anyone who has seen "Superbad" will get the reference and it is really tough to do this justice but it was quite simply, the perfect put down. This caused another rant and he left the table soon after. Not long after this we also called it a night and drove back home.

Sunday was again spent sleeping and relaxing and preparing for another week in the trenches at Colgate. Preparing for work really just involves sitting on the couch reading/watching TV and I can say that I was certainly quite well prepared.