Travel

The Trip To Nowhere

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I am writing a summary of my trip to nowhere from the 16th. It is a slightly edited version of the letter I wrote to Detla complaining about the horrible trip. On Thursday September 16, 2004 I was on flight 404 from LGA to Atlanta. I was to transfer there and go onto Las Vegas Nevada for a mini vacation to visit my friends Sean & Kelly.

The flight left over an hour and 20 minutes late. We then slowly moved down to Atlanta. We were told by our flight crew we would circle Atlanta due to the weather. We did this for at least an hour, probably more. We were told several times we were on “final approach”. We never landed in Atlanta. A few minutes after we were told one more time of our final approach into Atlanta we were told due to fuel issues we would be diverting to Knoxville TN.



Arriving in Knoxville we proceeded to sit on the jetway for over 4 hours while Delta tried to get a fuel truck to refuel our plane. We were not allowed off the plane, nor was any food provided. During this time the flight crew did their best with the situation, but we were given no information other than we should have news in 20 minutes, or this or that should take 20-40 minutes.

We finally left Knoxville around 7:30PM en route to Atlanta. Once there the weather was still bad, or so they said. We made at least two abortive landing attempts in Atlanta and then the pilot decided it was not safe to land. We were rerouted to Jacksonville Florida. We landed around 9:30 – 10PM. The times are becoming blurry at this time since we were on the plane for at least 7 hours. In Jacksonville we were told the flight would be meet by ticket agents to help us with our travel issues. When we got off the plane there was no one at the gate to help. Several of the people on the plane finally found a baggage agent and she had no idea that there was a flight diverted. We were given mixed information for the next hour and half to two hours. Only one PA announcement was made, and that was an hour after we landed. How do you expect people to know what is going on if your airline doesn’t do what they say they will do, and no one is around to provide any consistent information.



I was finally able to get my luggage after 2 hours of not knowing what was going on. Are you going to blame the 2 hour delay on getting luggage off the plane on bad weather?



When asked the flight attendants they said that delta would probably help us our with overnight accommodations since we were diverted twice that day. On the ground we were told that delta does not accommodate people due to weather. That’s great. Under normal circumstances I can understand that. Why then were we diverted twice and other flights made it into and out of Atlanta with no problems, or some delays when we were diverted twice. If I was warned of potential problems I would never have gotten on the plane in NYC.



With no help from Delta I found a hotel and had to pay for a room for the night. The next morning I arrived at the airport and was told I was rebooked on afternoon flights to my final destination of Las Vegas. Up until that time no one told me anything. By the time Delta would get me to Vegas I would have already wasted half the time I had with my friends. That was the whole purpose of my trip. Instead of wasting even more time in the air for very little time in Vegas I asked to just get me back to NYC.



I understand to a point that weather can cause problems. When I am trapped on a plane for 7 hours with no options, diverted to 2 different airports and had to spend the night in a city that was not my destination with no help from Delta, I am past understanding about weather.



I used to travel for a living. I have had lots of delays and problems due to weather, mechanical or personal issues. This is by far the worst experience I have ever been through. This is from a person who has flown through countless blizzards, storms, etc. At what point does an airline stop hiding behind the excuse that they don’t have to do anything for you due to weather? I am just glad to be home.

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Quick Travel Blog Update

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I just got back to NYC. All my plans changed. Got stranded. Visited 3 states, none of them the destination I was planning on. I am going to shower and then drink heavily with friends. I will give a full rundown of the mass stupidity that I experienced in the past 28 hours sometime this weekend. For the 3 people reading this, please live with the suspense until then…

The Travel Blog

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As I write this (no idea when it will be posted) I am around 35,000 feet. I am on the first leg of my Vegas vacation. It is short, but I hope to rest, and party a bit. So far no rest was possible. I sometimes forget why I stopped traveling for a living. Going away on a short vacation always reminds me. this trip is no different. Due to the hurricane my connections in Atlanta caused me huge delays. my flight left about 1:30 minutes late. I will miss my original connecting flight. Thankfully I got a page from Delta about the delay and called before I went to the airport. I was able to call and get confirmed on a later flight out of Atlanta to Vegas. problem 1 fixed. Problem 2 was that since I made a change on my plans I had to goto the ticket counter instead of the self service check in. it took allot longer but I was still early for my trip.

I had time to kill so I tried out the Delta Crown Room. In all my travels I never used airport clubs, and as I said I am well traveled. When I was at IBM my boss was going to take us to one on a few occasions, but we never ended up there. With my Amex card I get free admission to a few of the clubs, so today I decided to try it out. All I can say is, NICE. comfy chairs and a bar awaited me. T-Mobile hotspot access also was nice. I had to pay for that, but it was worth the $9.99 for the full day of usage. I only had time to download my mail before they called my flight, but I had stuff do to on the plane. I also plan on using the day pass in Atlanta during my layover.

Since I planned ahead I even got my aisle seats. The rescheduled flight is a good seat also. The customer service people were cool. After you have been flying allot you get to want things done in a specific way. I will freely admit I am a travel snob. I for example am grateful that the 2 dogs in little cages 2 rows in front of me are quiet now. they weren’t when I started this flight. Now I said planning ahead is good. Lets see if my plans hold water for the entire trip. They say best laid plans fall apart at step 1. Hopefully my next flight will not be delayed that much, and I can catch a decent dinner at the hotel tonight. My plans for a late afternoon swim or spa session is dead now that I wont be getting in until 8PM ish. I hope to do either or both of those things tomorrow while I wait for Sean to finish work.

Now that I have told you about my woes today, I can go backwards and tell you how this trip started. Before the flight I went to breakfast with my dad. He was still having issues eating after gum surgery, but we went to his usual breakfast place. My mom was busy doing something and passed on food.

I stayed over at my parents last night since the first night of the Jewish new year was at their house. Carrie, Mike, Morgan, Donny, Herb, Na, Loren, Andrew, Tina/barry and their kids Lindsey and Cory were over. It was crowded since my parents don’t have their new dining room set yet. Their old one is sitting comfortably in my apartment.

We got to play with Morgan, so the night was perfect. She even was giving out hugs and kisses without being asked. I love my niece. she is becoming talkative. it is very cute.

TRAVEL UPDATE: Sorry in this blog I jump around allot, but I am still stuck on the plane. We are over Georgia somewhere. We are in a holding pattern into Atlanta at this time. We have been circling for maybe 20 minutes or more and they say we will be doing it for another 30 before we can begin our final approach into Atlanta. This flight is way longer than normal since the flight crew also said before we started circling that we were moving slower than normal to avoid circling allot. Eventually I will get there.

Stressed Out, Going Away

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I have been really stressed out recently at work. Some friends recently pointed that out to me. I have been feeling run down, but didn’t know that it was showing. Turns out it is. I need a vacation. I think/hope that will make things a bit better. On that note I will be off to Vegas next week for a few days. I am going to hang out with my friend Sean, and his wife Kelly.

Hopefully 1 night at a nice hotel getting the 5 star treatment, and then 3 days of hanging with friends that I don’t get to see too often will calm me down a bit. This trip is made possible by the Delta SkyMiles points I earned at Datastream. Delta ripped me off on the amount of points needed for a ticket since it was a short notice trip. That is the new thing airlines do. But at this point I didn’t care. I still have tons (and I mean tons) of points to use on travel.

Last Day Before The Forth

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Today is my last day in the office before the 4th weekend. I am in kingston tomorrow and friday for some network work. I have to get allot done today since jayson is still not back. He should have left New Orleans today for his trip back.

Once I return, full time packing for me!

Back From My Trip

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I have been away. I am back now. The trip to Kingston went well. Dan and I left Tuesday afternoon. He rented a soccer mom white mini van. We piled in all the gear we needed to take with us and we drove up to the office. We got there around 7:45PM Tuesday. Dumped our cargo and went to dinner at the hotel. We stay at the Holiday Inn. People around there say it is the nicest Ho/Motel. It is ok, but not the greatest.

We ate dinner, and had a few drinks. There is nothing else to do up there. We got up early Wednesday so we could be at the office by 8AM to meet the electricians.

As far as I could tell things went over without major issue. We left at 3PM Wednesday. I was going to stay over till thursday so I could finish overseeing the cable work, but it was well under way and Kai had it under control.

It was funny Dan and I have done 3 physical moves for our company and several construction projects together. This time we were standing around going what do we do now? There wasn’t much for us to do, and we got nervous because of that. Of course in reality it meant that things were running smoothly, but it is a weird feeling if you are not used to it:)

While we were away, the AC in NYC went out again. Or shall I say the temporary AC’s went out on the hottest day of the year so far. Also problems abound on the project to fix the permanent units. It was supposed to be done by Friday, and the completion date will likely slip.

It was so hot Wednesday that Jayson and Gretchen came over and we all went into the pool after I got home from the trip. We ended up at the out back for dinner at like 10PM. I love that place, but I didn’t want to go, since I was trying to save money. Unfortunately the deli by me was closing and we couldn’t get anything there. Oh well. I wish my only problem was HAVING to goto the outback because everything else was closed. I can live with that.

Packing

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I am on my way home to pack for a trip to Kingston. Dan and I are going for a minimum of one night. I may end up there a second night. I don’t want to be there for 2 days so I will do everything in my power to leave Wednesday night with Dan. We leave tomorrow afternoon right after work.

We are shuttling up some computer equipment also, so we will need time to fill up the van with stuff.

I need to make sure I have clothes and my laptop charger and misc stuff packed tonight. I originally wanted to go see the new Harry Potter movie with Jayson and Gretchen, but I can’t stay in the city for the movie and be able to pack tonight.

For that reason I and many others, I cannot wait till I can move into the city.

Road Trip, But Not A Fun One

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I went to Kingston Wednesday. I came back from Kingston Wednesday. That sum’s up my day Wednesday.

Not sure when I will do that again. The train was delayed both ways due to track work. That is the second time in a row that happened. I think this may be a summer project or something. I don’t want to deal with that again.

Kai is on vacation in St. Thomas, so I went up to meet with some electricians about some new construction work we are planning. I also wanted to give Brian a hand. I don’t want the guy to be too overworked while Kai is away. I ended up not doing too much work with him. Stuff in NYC occupied allot of my time. From problems with our new fulfillment FTP system that was going live, to VLAN issues with users. I did get some work done on a new computer build (we got a new model desktop in) but I am no where near completion.

I got or thought I was getting a migraine in the afternoon right when I was getting on the train to go home. I took 2 butabitol’s on the train and felt better. I also slept or at least rested comfortably for 30-40 minutes on the train because of them (or so I think).

Quick Bits

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Kingston was interesting. I got stuff done, so that was good. I even slept a bit on the train going home. I never do that so you know I was tired. I think I got an hour or more sleep.

I left a key for the real estate person to show my apartment. Maybe I will get luck and they will rent it right away? I doubt it but you never know. I think they may show it today.

I figured out how I can have 1 ftp user account and have 2 sub directories in the users home folder. Each of those sub directories actually redirects the user to different virtual paths. That way I can have two directory trees, one for inbound, and one for outbound. To the user everything looks normal. Next up on the new FTP setup schedule is getting an SSL certificate for the FTP server.

After 2 months of waiting we finally got a hold of a the server we will be sending to our production environment. This will replace an aging server that needs more disk space. I had to lend it out to the dev staff for a while so they could do something with it. After 2 months I got it back and I can move it to our data center. I hope to move that today if possible.

Also today I have to make sure we have a computer and a phone for a new user that starts monday, setup SQL mail for a database machine, and probably 5 other things that I haven’t thought of.

Kingston Again

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Tomorrow I have to goto Kingston again. This trip is to see the plans for our expansion of our call center. If you consider phase 1 opening the call center. Phase 2 will be to fill out the call center with the max amount of seats in the current physical space. Phase 3 is what we are going to discuss. That will be to build another section of the call center that will double the total area when completed.

I will also meet with Kai and Brian about any open issues we have going on. I know Kai and I need to talk about adding licenses to our phone system. We are maxing the system out at peak times recently.

Dan and I are taking the train up together. Glenn will meet us there by car later in the day. We should be getting a ride from him back to the city in the afternoon.