Well, I’m experiencing a little more of the Pacific Northwest than I had planned. It’s about 10 am Pacific time and I’m sitting in SeaTac blogging this over the airport’s wireless network (after a summer of blogging over dialup, I love blogging with a fat pipe!). It’s a classic good news, bad news scenario. The good news is that SeaTac has wireless broadband everywhere now, with a one time connection charge of only $6.95. The bad news is that it’s economically feasible for me to pay that charge, since I’ll be here another three hours. Yep, more travel blues.
I had a pretty late night last night at the Owl ‘n Thistle. It’s a nice little club that my fellow interns and I had gone to the first Friday night we were all in town. With the company and deep conversations about our futures, it was 2 am before I got into bed.
Then the unthinkable: my alarm clock failed to go off. I rolled over, realizing it was light out (a problem since I had set the alarm for 5:15 am), and saw my clock. 7:24. My flight was supposed to leave at 8:10 am; I was at least a half hour drive from the airport; and I had a little last minute packing, garbage disposal, etc. to do. Not only that, but I had to drive downtown to drop off the keys to my apartment on my way out of town. I wasn’t going to make the flight.
I called Lisa to let her know I was coming in later than I had planned and that I’d have more details in a bit. Then I loaded up the car, dropped off my keys and got on the interstate. When I finally got to the United counter (after having to wait ten minutes to return my rental car), I told the guy behind the counter that I had missed my flight and needed his help. He replied, “Oh, the 8:10 through Chicago? That was cancelled. But you do need my help: we booked you on an 8:50 on TWA, but you’re not going to make that.”
Eventually, we got it sorted, and now I’m waiting for a 12:50 pm flight on American. But the news isn’t all bad. It’s a direct flight that will only get me in about three hours later than planned; the only seat they had was an exit row window (my favorite!!!); and I’ve got broadband. You know, this travel thing really isn’t so bad.
One last thing: a tip of the hat to Doc Searls, who pointed out that blogging over a fat pipe is hard to beat. Of course, he was naked at the time… [Note from the editor: Please see my clarification of this comment.]