Tuesday, August 14, 2007

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly


The Good: Wedding weekend in Wilmington, NC was a blast. Congrats again to Andy and Elizabeth. The entire trip was very memorable. Many thanks to the Spalt family and their neighbors who offered up their of beach house that we stayed in. Special shout out to Sam and Akemi for leaving the master bedroom for Jenny and I. We truly appreciated that simple gesture. The reception rocked on many levels...Andy and Elizabeth had an up and coming indie band--Schooner--play for most of the reception and they played an up tempo set that perfectly fitted the atmosphere of the reception. Of course what reception would be complete without ending on the highest note possible---jamming to Springsteen's Born to Run. It was a great weekend...Jenny and I had a fantastic time hanging out with old friends and making new ones.

The Bad: Jenny and I will never (maybe an exaggeration) fly US Airways again. We were supposed to leave Indy at 8:55 on Thursday morning--arrive in Charlotte and then take a short flight to Wilmington and be in Wilmington at 12:38. Well...we didn't arrive in Wilmington until 8:30 that night. (Three of our friends drove from Indiana and beat us there). Not cool. The reason for our original delay was mechanical problems with the the plane. Interestingly enough...the person working the US Airways counter at our terminal actually told us that the reason for the delay was that the mechanics were "out looking for a part." WTF...was my reaction. Around 10:00 this same lady said that there would not be an mechanical update until noon and that she suggested that we should reroute...which we did...and didn't leave Indy until 3:45 (Yes, I spent most of my time reading ESPN's fantasy magazine). Lo and behold we found out at about 2:00 that afternoon that there was an update at noon and that the plane was not only fixed but departed to Charlotte. (And yes there was no announcement--WTF again).

We then arrived in Charoltee...and guess what...our plan for Wilmington was delayed for approximately 60 minutes. (Although I'll concede that the Charlotte airport is pretty nice). Like I said earlier we did finally arrive...(thanks to Chris and Caroline for picking us up and for being on standby for us all day).

I was kind of dreading our return trip but things started out all right (special thanks to Narwold for taking us to the Wilmington airport) Our return trip was supposed to be Wilmington to Cincy and then to Indy. So at the very least we would be in Cincy, which ended up being a blessing as our connecting flight from Cincy to Indy was not only delayed but that Delta (who we flew home with) was not even sure if the plane coming would be large enough to accommodate everybody booked on the flight. Jenny and I decided that was enough and my sister, Valerie, came and picked us up. Thankfully we got our luggage (we finally met somebody in the airlines business that knew what was going on--some young gentlemen named Anthony who works at Delta--thank you again). Of note...I also learned that it takes five Delta employees to fix a printer.

Consequently Jenny and I spent Monday evening going to Indy to get my car out of long term parking. (Which is why there is no movie review this week--I didn't make back in time to watch Stardust--oh well--nothing wrong with taking a break).

The Ugly: I'm not going to get into this...but let's just say that my system was pretty distraught from all of the food and beverages that I consumed over the weekend.



Ultimately we did make it home safe and that's all that matters. Delta compensated us with some nice vouchers--so that's cool. Thankfully the travel headaches didn't effect the great time we had in Wilmington.

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