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Business Trip: An Overview
The business trip started out well. Wednesday went pretty much as I had expected. Crammed in some work that morning, made it out to the airport with just enough time. Planes were functional and on time. Rental car was a good ride. The drive from the airport to the town in Illinois was pleasant. The hotel was fine.
Then it was time to log on with my laptop. The hotel said they had wi-fi, so I plugged the card into the laptop that my f-i-l loaned me. No signal. I do all the troubleshooting I can and nothing. The guy at the front desk was clueless and told me to call the 800# for the wi-fi company's tech support. [insert story of dealing with tech support in India here] So I couldn't get it to work at all and gave up on keeping track of my email until Friday night.
Thursday, we met from 9am until 7:30pm with an hour off for lunch. No potty breaks...people just had to step out for a minute if they had to go.
Friday, possibly thanks to Reagan, was a traveling hell. I've heard many airline horror stories, but I hadn't experienced anything like this and could only be resigned to go along for the ride w/o complaints. The folks in Indy told us that our 2:30pm connecting flight from Memphis to H'ville was full and we'd have to find another way back. Rather than going to Memphis and catching a later flight, the lady behind the counter sent us to Detroit to catch a flight that would leave 30 minutes after our arrival. If we missed that one at 3:10pm, then we could take the 7:25pm flight. So we hop on the plane, it taxi's to the end of the runway, then parks on a large piece of concrete. We are soon notified that air traffic control can't get us into the air (for some reason) for more than 30 minutes. If you haven't guessed, we get to Detroit about 20 minutes after that flight to H'ville has left. After a conversation with someone up there, they put us on a plane to Memphis to catch the 7pm flight to H'ville.
Thus, the question is...Which is better: Flying from Indy to Detroit to Memphis to H'ville with a max of 90 minutes of a layover during the trip OR going from Indy to Memphis to sit around for 6+ hours till the flight to H'ville? For those of you that haven't been to Memphis's airport...there's nothing you could possibly do to keep yourself sane in that place for that long. It was good to see what Detroit's new terminal looked like (much better than that old airport that JD and I had to kill a few hours at on our way to and from our honeymoon in The Netherlands five years ago).
Although...taking 12 hours to get from Illinois to H'ville, AL really sucks.
Then it was time to log on with my laptop. The hotel said they had wi-fi, so I plugged the card into the laptop that my f-i-l loaned me. No signal. I do all the troubleshooting I can and nothing. The guy at the front desk was clueless and told me to call the 800# for the wi-fi company's tech support. [insert story of dealing with tech support in India here] So I couldn't get it to work at all and gave up on keeping track of my email until Friday night.
Thursday, we met from 9am until 7:30pm with an hour off for lunch. No potty breaks...people just had to step out for a minute if they had to go.
Friday, possibly thanks to Reagan, was a traveling hell. I've heard many airline horror stories, but I hadn't experienced anything like this and could only be resigned to go along for the ride w/o complaints. The folks in Indy told us that our 2:30pm connecting flight from Memphis to H'ville was full and we'd have to find another way back. Rather than going to Memphis and catching a later flight, the lady behind the counter sent us to Detroit to catch a flight that would leave 30 minutes after our arrival. If we missed that one at 3:10pm, then we could take the 7:25pm flight. So we hop on the plane, it taxi's to the end of the runway, then parks on a large piece of concrete. We are soon notified that air traffic control can't get us into the air (for some reason) for more than 30 minutes. If you haven't guessed, we get to Detroit about 20 minutes after that flight to H'ville has left. After a conversation with someone up there, they put us on a plane to Memphis to catch the 7pm flight to H'ville.
Thus, the question is...Which is better: Flying from Indy to Detroit to Memphis to H'ville with a max of 90 minutes of a layover during the trip OR going from Indy to Memphis to sit around for 6+ hours till the flight to H'ville? For those of you that haven't been to Memphis's airport...there's nothing you could possibly do to keep yourself sane in that place for that long. It was good to see what Detroit's new terminal looked like (much better than that old airport that JD and I had to kill a few hours at on our way to and from our honeymoon in The Netherlands five years ago).
Although...taking 12 hours to get from Illinois to H'ville, AL really sucks.