A Quick Day Trip Gone TERRIBLY WRONG

As I mentioned briefly in the post below, the Diabco Life Sciences team was headed to NYC for an investor presentation on Wednesday. We left Indianapolis at 10 something in the morning, arrived in NYC with a few hours to kill and had our investor presentation at 5:30p. Then, we were scheduled to leave NYC at 8:30p and be back in Indy in time for a decent night's sleep.

BUT OOOOOOOOOOHH NO, the plan was not just tweaked and turned a little bit....it has been obliterated! The plane leaving NYC was delayed and delayed at least a half dozen times before they finally cancelled it. Passing thunder showers were cited as the reason. So as we, and a thousand other passengers with cancelled flights, including David Wojdyla, scrambled to re-book alternative flights we got stuck in NYC for the night. No big deal, crap happens. We'll catch a flight to DC and then to Indy on Thursday.

Then, on Thursday, 3 cancelled flights and 4 alternative "plans" later, we finally get on a plane to Washington DC. We land in DC around 3:15p with plenty of time to catch our connecting flight to Indy at 4:30p. We are confirmed WITH seat assignments, because the normal "confirm" really has no value because you can be confirmed without a seat and still get bumped off the plane. Yea, we learned that one the hard way. So we are on schedule to catch our flight to Indy and it gets cancelled.

The weather is good, the skies are clear and the planes are a little overcrowded but things are going fine. This time, they cite "air traffic" as the reason for cancelling our flight. And, they have no other flights leaving from Washing National Reagan airport to Indianapolis until 5pm or later on Friday!

To recap, we are now talking about spending two additional nights in random cities and still no closer to getting home. We have no clothes, luggage, toothbrushes, contact solution OR clean underwear!

THENNN, we take a $100 taxi from National to Dulles airport area, book a hotel at the Quality Inn and Suites and will be spending the night in the DC area. Tomorrow morning, we take a cab at 3:50am to Dulles Airport to catch a 5am flight to Charlotte. Why Charlotte? WHO THE HELL KNOWS?!?! Then, we have yet another connecting flight from Charlotte to Indy sometime around 9am.

If things go as "planned" this 17th time of "planning", I will arrive back into Indy wearing the same suit for the THIRD day and then still have to drive three and a half hours back to Chicago.

Wow, so much for an in and out trip. Oh, and PS. DO NOT FLY US AIRWAYS! EVER! Their customer service really SUCKS!

Last minute dash to ORD

Friday was a nightmare. Waking at 6am to travel halfway to the city for a job interview, rushing back, packing, eating and finishing errands before bolting to pick up Adri from work and get to the airport on time. Luckily, we didn't have any mishaps at the airport and we arrived on time in Charlotte about 6:45pm.

So, by now, the day is starting to look up. We catch a cab to meet our friends at the local Hooters and of course, the cabbie gets lost and takes us to the wrong place. My patience for non-english speaking cab drivers is very low. After explaining to the gentleman that we are from Chicago and have NO idea where the bar is and that's why we hired him...we were able to reach our friends on the phone and have them guide us in. What's the point of driving a cab if you don't know your way around the city? Arg!

Then, as I was saying, things started looking up. We met our friends that we haven't seen in months and all is grand. We slam a few wings and commence drinking. Lucky for me, my friends are so understanding of my newly developed low tolerance, they resort to force-feeding me shots. Between the exhaustion and the drinks I was completely wiped out. Sometime just after midnight at the second bar, I could no longer function. I promptly took a seat in the corner, rested my head against the wall and pouted until we left.