over 12 hours in o'hare...yes, its as fun as it sounds

so after a great interview experience with the interview in iowa....i had the pleasure of spending WAY too much time in the chicago o'hare airport. i arrived at about 6:30 a.m. hoping to get on an earlier flight to ABQ. the new plan was to leave at 8:55 a.m. instead of 3:00 p.m. with the hope of getting home sooner so that i could have some hang out time with friends in NM for the weekend. (and i was looking forward to sleeping on the plane since i hadn't gotten much sleep the three nights prior.) little did i know that i wouldn't be leaving the airport until 11:00 p.m.-ish that night. here's the deal.

all the flights going to DWF were closed on saturday because of a nasty wind storm. BUT this didn't happen all at once. instead i waited until almost noon to find out that i wasn't going to be on the 8:55 a.m. flight (the joys of stand-by). i was told that i'd get priority for other flights since i was number 7 on the stand by list for that first flight. that was a flaming lie. instead i was always 17 or so on the list and it didn't even matter since flights were being cancelled left and right. i finally gave up on leaving early and went to the gate for my original 3:00 p.m. flight to later find out that it was also cancelled. trying to be strategic, i decided to try to get on the direct flight to ABQ that was leaving around 7 that night. so i got on the stand-by list and was pessimisticly told that it wasn't likely i was going to go anywhere. at this point, i'm exhausted and frustrated and not sure what else to do. so i got in a decent sized line for "customer assistance." it was impossible to talk to a real human once you're in the secure area of the airport. gate agents were too busy with their incoming/outgoing flights to help...though there were three friendly people who actually did help me. in the meantime though...i was in this line. to talk on a red phone to a human about rebooking the flight. others in line were also on their cell phones waiting to talk to humans as well. i was running out of battery life so i couldn't wait for 48 minutes to get to talk to someone. AND half the time it didn't work...it would go to a busy signal or just disconnect. fortunately, people in line started working together...so when they did finally get to talk to someone on the red phone, they wouldn't hang up. instead they would keep the call connected so the next person could talk to someone. this was the only realistic solution considering the impossibility of talking with someone directly. i got lucky because i made a friend in line (he must have felt sorry for me since i was all weepy and frustrated by then) and when he got in touch with someone on his cell he kept them on the line so i could rebook my flight. i ended up getting an actual seat on the direct ABQ flight that night. and hope was restored.

i got a very unhealthy dinner and a few beers while i waited a few hours for my flight to board. and board it finally did...but late. late enough that by the time we were all on there, the weather in chicago got bad. this was inevitable since i left DBQ early to avoid bad weather and weather moves eastward usually (or so i'm told.) so we waited on the plane for over an hour with the idea that eventually we would take off. i got a nap and then awoke to the news that we could get off the plane to get some food. everyone was still hopeful that we'd be taking off that night. instead, the flight got cancelled.

in my frustration, i hustled to the ticket line outside of the secure area so i could rebook something. it was about 1o at night at this point. i called my good friends jed and jen to let them know that i might be stuck in chicago for a while. the new plan was that i would try to catch an 11:00 train to their town so i could stay with them. the next train wasn't until 1 a.m. i stand in a long ass line for american airlines. i thought about leaving at one point and just getting to jen and jed's but i was worried about actually getting out of chicago. so i endured the freakin' line for over an hour. when i got to the ticket agent, they actually were really helpful and got me on a flight out of chicago on monday night. by the time that was achieved, i had missed the 11 p.m. train. so i jumped on the el to a metra station so i could get to jen and jed's. (oh..additional craziness...o'hare was setting up cots for people who couldn't get a hotel room and didn't have awesome friends in the area...but they were in the area past security...and you couldn't get there unless you had a new boarding pass for a new flight AND it was closing at 11:30 AND the ticket counter was closing at midnight. i have no idea what the people in line behind me ended up doing since they were totally screwed. it didn't help that at some points there would be 13 agents to help people and at other points only 6. total cluster f#ck!)

i managed to successfully navigate the el and waste about $8.00 (though i gave my el pass to some chicago boys hoping for good travel karma after that). when i got to the stop i needed, i made my way up to the metra connection part. i asked a normal looking guy if i was in the right place and when the train was coming. that opened pandora's box for crazy talk. all of a sudden this person (anthony) was telling me his life story which was rife with problems. apparently he was an evangelical catholic who hated jews and was in trouble with chicago mafia figures. the positive is that talking to him did two things...it passed the 48 minutes that i had to wait for the train and it took my mind off of how cold it was in that waiting area (no heat.) at the same time though, there was more than one moment when i thought to myself "this is a bad idea. he's crazy. i should get out of here." but i was really worried about missing the training and having to wait another hour to get to jed and jen's. fortunately some other guy showed up (with two six-packs of old style) and he seemed much more normal than the crazy guy.

finally the train came and i was so very relieved. jen picked me up at the station and i ended up getting to bed around 2 a.m. so that was a very freakin' long day. it was great to hang out with my friends...and fortunately my flight on monday night was only delayed by an hour. it was a long ass trip and i was very happy to get back home.

luckily my next trip is to austin. here's hoping it is very uneventful! here's hoping it is since the last two trips have been full of delays and craziness. makes me wonder about moving to the midwest a little bit...but no decisions are made so far. should here about the most recent interview soon.

later gators!