Tallying that up:

• June 9-10: Julie, Tim, Benton, Carson, and Alana drive from Columbus to Dallas for the Love reunion (1,040 miles)
• June 13: Julie, Tim, Benton, Carson, and Alana drive from Dallas to Lake Whitney, TX (100 miles)
• June 15: Julie, Tim, Benton, and Alana drive from Lake Whitney to Columbus (1,150 miles — 19 hours!)
• June 16: Carson drives (rides) from Lake Whitney  to Austin (150 miles)
• June 21: Tim flies from Columbus to New York City for a conference
• June 23: Tim flies from New York City to Columbus
• June 25: Julie and Alana fly from Columbus to Austin
• July 1: Tim and Benton drive from Columbus to Richmond (500 miles), where they meet up with Julie, Carson, and Alana, who flew there from Austin; all five then drive on to Newport News, Virginia for the Lydle reunion (80 miles)
• July 4: Julie, Tim, Benton, Carson, and Alana drive from Newport News back to Columbus (580 miles)

Adding that up, the total number of people-miles driven/ridden by the Wilsons over the course of the month: 14,750!

Number of miles logged on the new minivan for these trips alone: 3,600

Number of hours Tim and Benton each spent in the car: 60.

It’s time to just stay home for a bit.

The second leg of my return from this most recent trip was from Seattle to Chicago. As we took off, I had a great view of Mount Rainier, so I snapped a picture:

Pretty neat, and I took it as a good sign. What the picture doesn’t show is that I had been sitting in the Seattle airport for almost four hours. Flying in from Victoria, I missed hopping on an earlier flight to Chicago by all of five minutes. And then the flight I was slated to be on (this one) took off two hours late.

I kept my fingers crossed that my Chicago-Columbus flight had also been sufficiently delayed that I would still make my connection. Or, if not that one, then at least the Chicago-Columbus flight that was scheduled to depart two hours later.

Then the pilot announced that we’d been put into a holding pattern over Madison, Wisconsin due to congestion in O’Hare’s airspace. That, at least, meant I got to see a pretty nice sunset when we did get around to making our final descent (point-and-shoot camera through an airplane window with me not sure as to whether I was using an “electronic device” in violation of FAA guidelines — didn’t exactly leave me time to try to adjust the exposure settings):

As it turned out, I was 20 minutes late for both flights — American Airlines realized enough of their passengers were going to miss one or the other of the Chicago-Columbus flights that they could just combine them into one flight, throw their hands up in the air, and let a planeload’s worth of customers get the “it’s weather-related, so you’re screwed, but there are some cots down in the K terminal if you want to use them” message from a red courtesy phone. My next guaranteed seat wasn’t going to go out until 3:30 PM the following day. I tried to hop a flight to Cincinnati, but I was behind four guys who were all ticketed to go to Cincinnati who still didn’t get on, so that didn’t work out. After talking to Julie, I decided it was better to take my fate into my own hands, rent a car, and just drive. I arrived home at 6:45 AM.

On fairly short notice a couple of weeks ago, I decided to make a one-night trip to San Francisco this week to attend a user group/product feedback meeting with one of my company’s key technology partners. Yes, I realized that San Francisco was on the west coast. And, yes, I realized that I’d moved east from Austin late last summer. But, it was a meeting I really wanted to attend, and, after doing some poking around, I decided that, while the travel would be a little crazy, I could pull it off for a good price and make it a one-nighter.

Things started out great. I managed to time the flight out so that I could still attend a committee meeting on Tuesday afternoon at the United Way of Central Ohio (which was a great meeting — it actually spawned some thoughts I recorded on my other blog during the trip). I left from that meeting and headed straight to the airport, flying out of Columbus on time at 5:00 PM (EST) and connecting through Houston to San Francisco, arriving 45 minutes later than scheduled at 12:15 AM (PST). By the time I got to the hotel and got settled in, it was a bit bast 2:00 AM (PST) — that’s after 5:00 AM EST…but largely what I had expected! I got a few hours sleep, got up, got ready, and walked over to the 9:00 AM meeting. I was a bit tired, but, so far, so good.

The title of this post comes from a comment made during the meeting. One of the people running things noted that this was the first of a couple of these sessions they were going to conduct — that they were going to “do another one of these in Boston.” Um. Yeah. Boston is much more accessible than San Francisco from Columbus. Oh, well.

The meeting wrapped up around 12:30, which gave me plenty of time to grab a cab to the airport and actually sit down for lunch! Little did I know that, aside from a mini-bag of mini-pretzels, this would be the last food I would see until the next day. I even had time to grab some chocolates for the kids and Julie.

The scheduled 2:25 PM flight was pretty much on time, or so I thought. I wasn’t conscious of boarding particularly late, sitting at the gate for a particularly long time, or waiting on the tarmac to take off for very long. But, as we descended into Denver, the flight attendant announced that we would be arriving at 6:15 PM (now MST). That was a little troubling, as my connecting flight was at 6:35. I got off the plane as quickly as I could at gate B25 and ran-walked all the way to gate B52. The door was closed. There wasn’t a gate agent in sight. A fellow sitting by the door waiting for another flight said they had just closed the door. There was my flight to Columbus just outside the window. Still with the jetway attached. I grabbed the nearest gate agent — a couple of gates over — and she very sympathetically informed me that she couldn’t help, as that flight was a United affiliate flight. But, she told me that the customer service desk was just passed gate B56. Stay with me: That’s B25 to B52 to B56. Customer Service checked with the plane, but it was too late to reopen the doors.

So, my next option was to fly out of Denver on Thursday morning, arriving in Columbus at 2:45 PM. I’ve learned a thing or two from Julie over the years, so I pressed a bit — check other airlines, get me closer, etc. Nothing on other airlines, but she said that I might be able to make it to Chicago. That was on a 4:54 PM flight that had been delayed. And was boarding right then. At (wait for it) gate B27! I ran-walked all the way back to where I’d started (B25 –> B52 –> B56 –> B27, if you’re following along at home) and managed to board just before they closed the door.

So, that left me getting at least halfway from Denver to Columbus, and with a reserved seat on a flight leaving Chicago at 7:50 AM on Thursday morning. But, I crossed my fingers and hoped that a Columbus flight might have been delayed leaving Chicago that I could still make. As we were on our final descent into Chicago, the pilot suddenly sped up and pulled up. Hmmm. Nothing super-dramatic…but not generally a good sign. Shortly thereafter, the pilot came on the intercom and announced (I’m not making this up), “Well, folks, just as we were on our final descent, a Turkish pilot pulled onto our runway, so we had to pull up and circle around to land on a different runway.” By my estimate, that cost us at least 10-15 minutes. Damn those Turks! (Why on earth we needed the nationality…and how our pilot even got the nationality…is a mystery.)

When we landed, I had a voicemail from Julie that the last flight out of Chicago to Columbus was at 9:15 (CST now). We’d just landed, and it was 10:30, so I figured I had an outside shot at that flight having been delayed enough for me to make it. We taxied. And taxied. And taxied. I finally got off the plane in terminal C at 10:50 PM and checked the monitor. The Columbus flight was listed with a 10:56 PM departure…from terminal B. I was off to the races again. And, again, I arrived at a gate with a closed door. But the gate agent was still there, and she acted promptly, grabbing the phone to see if they could re-open the door. Alas! The pilot had already removed the brake from the plane, and it was undergoing de-icing. Again?!!! To the gate agent’s credit, she showed genuine empathy, which I appreciated.

I then got to stand in the customer service line for an hour to get a discount coupon (not a voucher, mind you) for a local hotel. I called the number on the coupon and was given three options — all “within 10 minutes of the airport.” They ranged in price from $30 to $69. I’m a cheap bastard by nature. And I wasn’t going to be there long. $30 it was.

I then had a 10-minute walk to the shuttle pick-up point, and a 45-minute wait for the “shuttle that comes every half hour.” And then had a 15-minute ride to the hotel (that was supposedly 10 minutes away).

I rolled into the hotel well after 1:00 AM. I was still sufficiently alert to note the big sign that said, “Schedule your shuttle at check-in time.” The shuttles ran every hour on the hour. I had a 7:50 AM flight and already had my boarding pass. The 6:00 shuttle seemed like the way to go. “I’m sorry sir, that shuttle is already full. Would you like the 5:00 AM or the 7:00 AM?” 7:00 just seemed too risky, so 5:00 AM it was. I logged a couple of hours of sleep, and am now sitting at my gate in O’Hare a full hour before boarding even begins.

Julie’s Mom is coming into town today, which is going to allow Julie and me a getaway this weekend to a destination as yet unknown. Even if we found a great airfare, I don’t know that I’d be up for flying!

• My parents were in town (we kept them busy)
• I headed to Austin for a week
• Our digital camera has gone missing

The last point is the real kicker. It’s got two or three sets of pictures that prompted Julie to exclaim, “I’m definitely going to blog THAT!” (she tends to use “I” in a very broad sense). At this point, we’re pretty sure we know where the camera disappeared, and we’re pretty sure that we’ll never see it again, so we need to get rolling with a replacement.

In very recent news, Alana woke up yesterday morning with a dry diaper. She removed it and then headed to her room to get dressed. We probably should have sent her to go potty first! We aren’t all that fond of the carpet upstairs, any way…

Alana also spent last night in her big girl bed. With Benton. The bed is Julie’s childhood bed — a four-poster that is rather high. We only have one railing/guard for it, so Benton was the railing on the other side. We’ll see if her nights in that bed stick, which will allow us to get rid of her crib!

With luck, Julie will find the time to tell a couple of other recent stories here soon.

Google trip time estimate: 19h 42m
Actual trip time: 19h 27m

That’s a variance of 1.3% by my reckoning, which ain’t bad!

Unfortunately, Molly didn’t take off either time that I let the dogs out of the truck for a potty/water break, so she is now a resident of Dublin, Ohio, along with the rest of the Wilsons. She did manage to scatter dog hair and drool throughout the interior of my truck, which further endeared her to me. Elwyn might have contributed to that as well, but I didn’t have his wet snout on my elbow periodically throughout the day, and whatever drool he spread was on the dog bed he was lying on in the back seat…as opposed to the center console!

Julie’s hoping to keep the dogs restricted to part of the first floor and the basement, due to the white carpet the previous owners put in to help sell the house. Molly has never been one to adjust where she goes and what she sits on to fit the whims of her owners, so I’m not holding my breath there. Elwyn will likely be self-restricted to the first floor. He headed down to the basement last night…and then couldn’t make it back up the stairs. His back legs are really getting pretty weak, but at least don’t seem to cause him any pain.

I’m at a local coffee house running through the 8 different things I need an internet connection for. How on EARTH did we survive back before the mid-1990s??? Julie suggested I fire up the laptop at home to see if any of our neighbors had unsecured wireless networks. I commented that, if they did, then it would be a shame, as I simply would not be able to respect them! When I started up my laptop…there were NO wireless networks in range! What sort of backwoods, unwired place have we moved to!

Tomorrow, we’re slated to get Roadrunner hooked up, as well as our home phone. I’ll be in better shape to use craigslist to track down furniture for my office!