So Crazy, I Have to Write About It

So this weekend, I flew to Seattle, WA. The reasons why are not important. It's personal but most of you may know why anyways.

The adventure first started out in Madison, WI, on Friday. My sister, Linda, was going to pick me up at 2PM. I woke up around 9 and got ready. I finished packing up and hung out with Joshua before he had to go to work at 1PM. When he left, I left as well to do some last minute things. I went over to the MATC West campus to print up some homework to work on. I was super hungry so after the MATC stop, I headed over to Old Chicago which is basically right next door.

As I was eating lunch, I realized that I wasn't going to make it back to my apartment in time so I talked to Linda to push the time back to 2:30. I quickly downed a beer and headed home.

I'm all ready to go at 2:30. I even waited outside for Linda to pick me up. Then I get a text saying she'll be late. I head back into my apartment and waited. 2:45...3:00...3:15...then finally some time shortly after 3:30, she gets to my place.

After an hour and half delay, we get on the road to head to Milwaukee. But of course, we hit some traffic in Milwaukee so instead of getting in around 5, we didn't get to my parent's restaurant til after 5:30.

There, my dad's friend was waiting to drive me, Linda and my mom to the airport. Our flight departure...7:30. We left the restaurant at 5:45 and got to the airport around 6:15. Definitely cutting it close since my mom doesn't walk very fast.

We get to the airport and since we all had just carry-ons, headed over to the security checkpoint. Then we notice...our flight was delayed an hour to an 8:30 departure. So we waited and we waited. We ended up not boarding until 8:45 and ended up taking off at 9:25ish. Almost two hours after our original flight time. At least it was a non-stop flight!

Now fast forward to Sunday night. Since I already had my seat assignments, I decided not to check in online right away. But on Saturday, I had signed up for e-mail alerts for my flight since I was flying into Minneapolis and a storm was passing by. All day Sunday, I kept a close eye on my e-mail and the weather channel to see what was going on.

At 7:00PM, almost 6 hours before my flight departure, I get an e-mail saying my flight was cancelled. WHAT?!?!?!? So I go on my uncle's home computer to check it out. I check Delta website...cancelled. I check Seattle Airport website...cancelled. What the H?

I try to check in but it wouldn't let me. It said my flight had been cancelled and that I could find a different flight for no cost. So I try to find a flight to go to Madison ideally but could deal with Milwaukee, Chicago - O'Hare or Chicago - Midway. After debating which flight to go with, trying to miss as little class or work possible, I finally found one for Tuesday leaving in the morning and not getting into Milwaukee til 6 PM where I would take the Badger Bus back to Madison.

I start to pull up my teacher's e-mail addresses so then I could start e-mailing them that I wouldn't be in class because of flight cancellation. I decided to check out my e-mail one more time. My flight was now ON TIME. Seriously...WTF?

I try to switch my flight back but it wouldn't let me. I immediately call the airline to figure this out. Estimated time until I reach a representative...one hour or more. After 40 minutes or so waiting and trying to figure out what to do, my uncle suggested to go to the airport to deal with it. So Linda drove me to the airport. I get there around 9:15PM and I wait in line to talk to a rep.

As I'm waiting, I chat it up with the people in front of me. Apparently they had a similar problem with the same flight. One of them had automatically gotten rebooked but not the other. At least I was not the only one.

Finally, I'm next in line. All of a sudden, there were like 30 army people showing up to get their bags checked-in and they got to jump the line. The counter was now super busy. Luckily, the rep motioned me over.

I explain what happened. I received an alert saying the flight from Seattle to Minneapolis was cancelled. I tried to check-in online but it wouldn't let me. It only gave me the option to change flights at no extra charge. As I am doing this, my flight status is right on the monitor saying CANCELLED. I change my flight to a different day. Then after I change it, the original status goes back to ON TIME. All I want is to get back on my original flight since I would NEVER have changed my flight if it hadn't said CANCELLED.

Now, most of you know that I don't really yell unless I'm super angry. Well, I said all that above very calmly but confidently. But when the rep told me that she couldn't do anything since the original flight was full...I started to get angry.

I repeated everything again but in my angry voice.

So she went over to another rep and that rep told her that she had to get me back onto that flight since there were computer glitches that caused all these problems.

My rep then went back onto the computer to work her magic for about 15 minutes. Of silence. Neither one of us speaking to each other. Finally, she was able to get me back onto my original flight!

As I was waiting at the gate, I pulled out my fried rice that we had made back at the house that my cousin Alanna packed up for me. I noticed the lid was partially off. And now I have rice all over the bottom of my bag. Really?!?

I arrive in Minneapolis at 6:30AM. I was exhausted from having two and a half hours of sleep on and off. I head over to my next gate right away since my flight to Madison was at 7:30. I get there and an hour delay...pushed back to 8:30.

Whatever...I can deal with that. And my class isn't until 10:30 so I'll still make it there early.

We board the plane around 8:30 but we ended up sitting there at the gate for 30 minutes while they were de-icing and clearing the snow off the plane. They shut the door. Door wouldn't shut. Maintenance had already left so we had to wait 10 minutes for them to get back. Then another 10-15 minutes for them to de-ice the frozen door.

Door finally shuts. Yea! The pilot pulls away from the gate and powers up the engines. Bad news. One of the engines overheated so we'll have to switch planes. Now we have to wait for the gate to be positioned back in order to move the plane 20 feet back to the gate.

More bad news...no extra plane so we'll all have to get rebooked for later flights back to Madison.

I get re-booked for a 1:20 flight but put on stand-by for the 10:30 flight. So much for my first class.

I wait by the gate for my stand-by flight. It's now 10:00. Around 10:30 when the flight should be leaving, they announce a gate change. How wonderful. And of course it was at a completely different terminal.

They finally start boarding the plane around 11:15. And YES!!! I am able to get on!

But...we waited at the de-icing pad for about an hour.

Finally, the flight to Madison leaves at 12:30...I sigh out a big relief.

1:30...I was never so happy to be back in Madison. I should have been back 5 hours ago. I missed my first class and the first half of my second class. Joshua had come to pick me up when I thought I had to take the bus. Love that guy. He came to drive me to my second class but having been in stuffy planes and feeling nauseous, I told him to take me home.

I ended up dropping him off back to work so he didn't have to miss more than he had already from picking me up. I napped for 5 hours. Went to go pick up Joshua. Fell back asleep for 10 hours.

The reason why I flew back to Madison alone instead of flying back to Milwaukee with my sister and my mom? So I wouldn't miss my Monday classes. Mission not accomplished. AND my sister and mom had no problems with their flight back.

Never fly with me is the lesson of this story.

Ahhhhhh....good to be back in Madison!

Valentine's 5K Run

The first race of the year! I was completely unready for this race. My plan this year was to start running again on February 1st. But that same time, a blizzard decided to roll through town giving us over a foot of snow and cold weather! So much for that plan.

Instead, I went cold turkey on my first race. This was going to be interesting. Last time I ran was in the first week of November. Not to mention, earlier this week we had our work holiday party which consisted of playing dodgeball. I had slightly twisted my ankle and I was completely sore from head to toe for days. 

This is one of the races that Joshua will do with me and he too had not ran in a long time. What did we get ourselves into?

We took two cars down to the race area since Joshua had to go to work right afterwards. We got ourselves our bib numbers and relaxed before the race. We finally headed towards the starting area where we ended up waiting 10 minutes for it to start after the official start time. Even though it was 35 degrees out, it felt warm since the days before that, the temp was in the 10s. But it was still cold while standing around outside and waiting.

Finally the race started and off we went. Joshua was being very considerate and instead of leaving me in the dust, he ran with me. In the beginning, I thought this was going to be a piece of cake. Then I started wondering where the first mile marker was as I was breathing heavily. This is gonna be a long race. 

Then a mile and a half into it, I felt my ankle acting up. Great. I pushed through the pain and reached the second mile marker. One more mile to go. I finally got my breathing under control and concentrated on finishing the race in under 30 minutes. 

I finally see the finish line. Normally, this is where I get a burst of energy and sprint to the finish line. However, being out of shape and my ankle really killing me now, I just continued my pace to the finish.

At first, I was not happy with my time. But considering this was my first run in months and my messed up ankle, I decided my time was pretty good. I finished in 31 minutes and 3 seconds. Just less than 10 minutes/mile. Not the best but I'll live with it. I'll have to improve on the minute mileage over the next few months. 

I found a couple more races for April. Another 5K race called the Poker Run where the best poker hand wins the race, not the fastest time. And the American Cancer Society 10K run to raise money in honor of my aunt.

Looking forward to the real running season...as soon as this snow melts :)

My Birthday!!!

I woke up this morning thinking 'Crap, I should've taken off work' so instead I laid in bed longer than I should've when Joshua woke up. Thinking he'd turn over and say 'Happy Birthday!' but instead turned over and said 'What time do you work?'. As I got ready for work and Joshua slowly woke up...still nothing. He totally forgot! I could've said something right then and there but I decided not to and see how long it'd be until he remembered.

I was bartending at work that morning/afternoon and got super busy. It was pretty stressful. I was suppose to be done at 5 but got done closer to 6. All day long, I was waiting for a phone call or text from Joshua but nothing. At least I made a bunch of money!

My friend Meghan invited me to go downtown to see Piano Fondue, dueling pianos. But first, after I got done working, I had a birthday drink and shot. I went home and changed but before meeting Meghan, I headed over to the Marriott to see Joshua and tell him what he forgot.

I get there and he's excited to see me. Well then, maybe he remembered! Nothing. He asked me what I was doing there. I told him that he forgot something. He said he forgot the cheesecake pan because he was going to make a cheesecake for me that I had asked him to make several days ago. 

I then tell him that it was my birthday. His face fell hard and I had to keep from laughing. He said he was the worst husband ever. I gave him the benefit of the doubt since he had gotten a concussion weeks earlier and I'm not much of a celebrator of any holiday anyways (I did work on my birthday instead of taking off like most people do in my line of work). Nevertheless, he promised to make it up to me. 

I went back to Old Chicago to meet up with Meghan and her boyfriend Brian before heading downtown to meet up with our friend Melissa. Big mistake on my part. By this time, everyone at work knew it was my birthday and so did some of the regulars. I had a few more shots and drinks in a very short amount of time before we left OC.

When we got to the Brink Lounge to see Piano Fondue, I had to make a quick pit stop off the sidewalk. Ugh! But I felt much better and was ready to enjoy the dueling pianos. I had a lot of fun listening and singing along. Joshua had even left work early to join in on the fun. His first time ever at a dueling piano event. The night went by fast but I had a lot of fun!

Enjoying Piano Fondue...so is Melissa

Joshua's here!!

Brian and Meghan, Joshua and Me, Melissa and Rob

Da girls

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes, drinks, shots and night out! I had an awesome day!!!! (Even if Joshua did forget.)