Another Day at the Airport
It started off as a typical travel day. I mean I travel every week and based on the million’s of air miles I’ve logged, I really thought I’d seen everything. Boy, was I wrong! The day started with an afternoon in court (I’ll save that story for another blog) and then off to the airport skipping dinner in order to get there on time. I get to the parking garage and go to retrieve the iPod from the gym bag to transfer to the travel bag, damn no iPod.! I realized I had left it at the gym, like I’ll ever see that again.
The Oakland flight is “delayed by only 30 minutes” they say, oh, I’ve starred in that movie before; it smells like at least an hour to me. I get the boarding pass for Oakland and attempt to fly into SFO. Then move into the Premier Executive line and work on trying to at least make it to the hotel for dinner tonight. The only problem is that there are three agents serving Premier Executive and the 1K’s. Only two in line in the 1K line, and I’m at the front of the Premier Exec. line. They only handle one every few minutes and the 1K’s keep filling the red carpet line. You get the picture, at this pace I will never get to an agent, to my hotel or eat dinner!
20 minutes later after I ask if I will ever talk to an agent, so they bring someone else over to see if they can help. “I can put you on SFO, but you’ll only get in 15 minutes early” she said. At this point I’ve lost the energy and I settle for Oakland. Sure enough, it turns into an hour plus delay. No biggie, but we must have hit a headwind because it took FOREVER to get there. So much for catching the last few innings of the Rockies vs. Dodgers game.
Upon arrival, there’s a full on Jerry Springer show happening live a few rows behind me! Something having to do with the seats leaning all the way back combined with kids pushing the trays up and down. It got ugly real fast with the parents slinging back and forth. The only thing missing was the paternity test. Just get me out of here! I got into my car (Thanks National) and started my drive over the San Mateo Bridge, which had a calming effect over what had just happened.
A smile starts to come across my face as I checked into the hotel and had that glass of wine I was dreaming about hours ago and proceeded to log into the Hotels WIFI. I needed to send a couple work emails and check my personal stuff. My broadband vendor’s network was down due to a hacker attack, but the support dude was kind enough to point me to their mobile portal, so I got what I needed. The good news is I made it through the day, I have my glass of wine and the Marriott San Mateo is not a bad place to spend a night.