Ensight - Jeremy Wright

Last night’s flight: Cancelled
This morning’s 7am flight: Delayed until 10am (missing my connecting flight in Philly)
Current departure state: Limbo (they have no idea when we’ll leave)

Thankfully, Frontier has a great free lounge here in Rochester Airport, so I’m pretty comfortable. But, I’m already 24 hours delayed, and if I don’t arrive in Bangor by 3:30pm, I’ll be another 24 hours delayed.

Ever just want to be home and screw all this travelling stuff?

*sigh*

Maybe I just need to stop travelling alone. I need a sidekick. That’d make everything easier. Sitting in airports alone for 6 hours at a time ruins your mood.

On a good note, we’ve moved about 50 sites to our new datacenter, with much thanks to Aaron and Sean (not sure if Sean wants a link), so many of our server issues at b5media are clearing up. We’re still hoping to be off our current DC by the 14th, so we can avoid the next billing cycle, but either way the team is just working miracles right now! I’m incredibly proud to be working with them.

Travel Updates

8:30AM Update: Flight to Philly delayed to 10:30am

9:00AM Update: Flight to Philly delayed to 12:00pm. I can still make it to Bangor in time for my bus, as long as I can actually catch the 1:30 flight out of Philly. Otherwise, I’m stranded for a night in Bangor with no way to get home until 8pm Monday.

9:20AM Update: Okay, I can make the 1:30 flight to Bangor from Philly, but it’ll be a runner across the airport. If the flight out of Philly is delayed by more than 30 minutes, I won’t make it home today. If the flight out of here is delayed more than 10 minutes, I won’t make it home today. JFK / Newark / Detroit are all experiencing major delays and overbookings, so I can’t take another airline either (unless I upgrade to first class on NWA for 1K, which I simply can’t do). My only other option at this point, to get home today, would be to rent a car, drive to Toronto (3 hour drive) and take the 5pm to Saint John, which would have me in at 11pm, and home for just after midnight. That’s not only expensive (about 1300$), it also means abandoning the flight that might get me home today at 8pm if every bit of timing works out. Ugh. For now, I’m staying here. Who knows what the rest of today could bring. If every cloud has a silver lining, maybe I can cash in on this snowstorm

9:26AM Update: DAMNIT! In the time it took to write this post, the flight from Philly to Bangor got pushed back to 3:10pm. I’m not making it home today via that route. AGH!!! Long trips are bad enough, without adding 2-3 days of flight delays into the mix Anyone have a private jet they want to loan me?

9:45AM: God, I wish airlines had RSS feeds so I could stop refreshing these webpages… My flight to Bangor’s been reset back to 1:00pm. I’m not making that flight. Th next one leaves at 5pm and gets in at like 6:30 or something. I’m gonna go talk to them (since I’m taking a different flight now).

9:50AM: Okay, I was just checking the schedules, and my flight out of Rochester has now been cancelled. Now I’m REALLY going to talk to them, as I think there is only one more flight today that’ll even get me to Philly, nevermind Bangor! GARRRRHHHH…. (this is a frustration vent, not a sudden dose of piratedness)

10:20AM: All flights to Philly are now cancelled. No way to get to Bangor tonight. Flights from Philly to Bangor will only get in at 6pm tomorrow, so I’d miss tomorrow’s bus, putting me home at 8pm Tuesday. Just spent 20 minutes with a very nice gate agent trying to find some other way to get me to be able to see my kids before Wednesday. This oh so sucks. Thinking of flying into Toronto, staying with friends, and then braving the Canadian system to Saint John. The problem is that there’s no bus from Saint John home, so I’d absolutely have to get a ride, or rent a car, or pay a cab. All of which suck Heading back to the gate to see how things are shaping up.

10:27AM: Okay, I’m now flying to Toronto at 7:40 tonight, arriving at 8:30. Need to find someone to stay with but, considering how many people I know, that shouldn’t be a problem… As long as I can find their phone numbers. Tomorrow I’m flying direct from Toronto to Saint John at 7:55, arriving at 10:50. As long as the storm doesn’t move, and as long as I can find a lift sometime tomorrow, I should be home by tomorrow afternoon or evening. *sigh* It sucks, but it’s better than not seeing my boys until Wednesday, and Shannon until Tuesday.

10:45AM: So my flight doesn’t leave the airport for another 8 hours. I’m thinking of just staying here, though. Not sure what else to do right now. If anyone’s in Rochester and wants to hang out, call me. If you’re in Toronto and want to offer me a place to crash, call me. Cell: 506 921 0119.

3:14PM: Okay, so I’ve got somewhere to sleep tonight. And I have a ride home from Saint John tomorrow. I just realized there is only one real barrier now (besides the normal joy of modern air travel): Canadian Customs. Normally I wouldn’t consider this a big deal. I have never, in my life, had anything but a pleasant experience with Canadian Customs. Except that I don’t have my passport with me. I mean, I have gobs of Canadian ID, a Canadian accent and everything… But, they’d be well within their rights to be a little curious as to how a Canadian spends like 5 days in the US without a Passport. Fingers crossed it’s not a biggie. I really just want to get to my family tomorrow. I’ve now been at this airport for a total of 15 hours (including yesterday and today), with 4.5 more to go. I will be so happy to get on the plane, and then even happier to grab a cup of coffee at Tim Horton’s and taste “home” again. I generally enjoy travelling, but these travel issues have just pushed me over the edge of “happy go lucky Canadian traveller” into “very close to grumpy, just wants to get home, Canadian moody faced guy”.