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Homecoming, 8/6 (Aborted)
Aug. 7th, 2007 12:37 pmI was supposed to fly home to Lincoln Monday night; I am posting this from Karin's living room in NJ. I like Karin's living room, but I'm still a little unhappy about this.
All seemed well when Karin and I arrived at the Newark Airport. When I checked in I learned that my flight was going be a half-hour late, but that still would leave me with an hour to make my connecting flight in Chicago so that didn't trouble me. I checked my luggage, got my boarding pass and chatted a while with Karin. Around 4 pm I suggested that she leave, as I didn't want her braving the rush hour traffic in Newark for my sake, so we hugged goodbye and I started towards security. I convinced the guardians of democracy that I was not a threat with a minimum of effort and headed for the bathrooms. When I got out I checked the Departure screen by reflex and saw to my horror that my plane was now said to be running an hour late. This was not good.
I elected to say calm (like panicking was going to do me any good!) and waited until a ticket agent showed up at the gate to make an official announcement. Her words made it perfectly clear that I was not going to make my connecting flight into Lincoln. This made me very unhappy for a number of reasons, one of them being I haven't flown a lot and I was a little foggy on what my options were. I was pretty sure that the ticket agent knew more than I did, though, so I got in line and waited patiently until it was my turn.
As I had suspected my flight to Lincoln was the last one that night, and so that was out. More surprisingly was the fact that she couldn't find me any seats that night to Omaha, either. In fact, she couldn't find me a seat to either city before 5ish Tuesday night. This essentially left me with two options: Fly to Chicago and hang around O'Hare for 24 hours OR stay in New Jersey and try again with the same flights on a different day. Being stranded in an airport in a city were I didn't know anyone was not attractive so I asked her to reticket me for Tuesday. She was also able to get a recall order on my luggage, so I didn't have to worry about losing that.
I called Karin and Ami and explained the situation, and they were (as I expected) willing to put me up for another night. I felt too guilty about the situation to ask them to make a trip to retrieve me, so I said I would make arrangements to get back to their place. Ami was able to tell me where to find the ground transport was, so after I recovered my luggage I arranged to take an airport shuttle to Wall township. Karin and Ami picked me up at the shuttle terminal, we stopped for a bite to eat and then we went home and crashed. It has been claimed that home is where, when you go there, they have to take you in, and if this is true then I have a home in New Jersey. I am infinitely grateful.
This afternoon we will make another attempt to get me back home. Wish me luck, and all prayers gratefully accepted!
All seemed well when Karin and I arrived at the Newark Airport. When I checked in I learned that my flight was going be a half-hour late, but that still would leave me with an hour to make my connecting flight in Chicago so that didn't trouble me. I checked my luggage, got my boarding pass and chatted a while with Karin. Around 4 pm I suggested that she leave, as I didn't want her braving the rush hour traffic in Newark for my sake, so we hugged goodbye and I started towards security. I convinced the guardians of democracy that I was not a threat with a minimum of effort and headed for the bathrooms. When I got out I checked the Departure screen by reflex and saw to my horror that my plane was now said to be running an hour late. This was not good.
I elected to say calm (like panicking was going to do me any good!) and waited until a ticket agent showed up at the gate to make an official announcement. Her words made it perfectly clear that I was not going to make my connecting flight into Lincoln. This made me very unhappy for a number of reasons, one of them being I haven't flown a lot and I was a little foggy on what my options were. I was pretty sure that the ticket agent knew more than I did, though, so I got in line and waited patiently until it was my turn.
As I had suspected my flight to Lincoln was the last one that night, and so that was out. More surprisingly was the fact that she couldn't find me any seats that night to Omaha, either. In fact, she couldn't find me a seat to either city before 5ish Tuesday night. This essentially left me with two options: Fly to Chicago and hang around O'Hare for 24 hours OR stay in New Jersey and try again with the same flights on a different day. Being stranded in an airport in a city were I didn't know anyone was not attractive so I asked her to reticket me for Tuesday. She was also able to get a recall order on my luggage, so I didn't have to worry about losing that.
I called Karin and Ami and explained the situation, and they were (as I expected) willing to put me up for another night. I felt too guilty about the situation to ask them to make a trip to retrieve me, so I said I would make arrangements to get back to their place. Ami was able to tell me where to find the ground transport was, so after I recovered my luggage I arranged to take an airport shuttle to Wall township. Karin and Ami picked me up at the shuttle terminal, we stopped for a bite to eat and then we went home and crashed. It has been claimed that home is where, when you go there, they have to take you in, and if this is true then I have a home in New Jersey. I am infinitely grateful.
This afternoon we will make another attempt to get me back home. Wish me luck, and all prayers gratefully accepted!
