A sad tale

If you've had a bad couple of days, consider my friend Shawn's start to his vacation.

He was flying from New York via Chicago to visit me last night. He planned to spend a few days here in Salt Lake before continuing on to the Bay Area. His plans have gone terribly awry.

His first flight was delayed yesterday afternoon. Worried that his connecting flight in Chicago would leave without him, Shawn was pleased to learn that it also had been delayed. But then it was delayed again. And then once more. Finally, he and his impatient compadres boarded the bird only to sit for a while and finally be told that they weren't going anywhere. Mechanical failure. An indefinite delay with the hope of finding a new aircraft quickly dissipated to a canceled flight. So, he spent the night in Chicago, where Shawn threatened to set the Windy City on fire.

I spoke to him this morning; it didn't sound like he even got a spark. If anything, I imagine he was up entirely too late watching soft-core on hotel room cable.

The new plan: United Airlines couldn't get him on a flight from Chicago to SLC today directly. So they put him on a plane this afternoon bound for Denver, which was, of course, late. He missed his connecting flight to Salt Lake by mere minutes.

Currently, it's 3:55 MST. The new plan has him on a plane departing Denver in about a half hour, getting here in about two -- about 21 hours later than his scheduled arrival time in Salt Lake.

I've had a shitty couple of days at work. Lot's to do in general and I've had more responsibilities added to my plate. Last night, I was tattooed multiple times by rapid, strange-hopping softballs. I've got some other distress rolling through, too. All told, a rough start to the week, but definitely nothing like Shawnie has dealt with.