...I'm going to try and remember and post as things pop into my head about the week in Calgary, mostly I was too busy enjoying myself, or nervous about MC'ing so its all a blur, but I will blog about what I can....
So the conference ended and I headed up to my room to pack up, and check out. My flight from Dallas was scheduled for 4:30 pm. I felt like I needed some lunch and I knew there was an airport shuttle at 1:00 pm, so I headed over early.
The self check out desk at the Dallas-Fortworth was a little confusing, they actually had 2 self checkouts, one with luggage, one without... Why... Pearson has one set of self checkout lines, and an express baggage check for those who used it, it works well. So I had to buffoon around in to many lines to get everything checked, and then on through security.
Security required me to take off my shoes, I guess shoe bombs are on the rise, oh well I got through no harm no fowl, I would rather be inconvenienced and safe. So then I figured out where my gate was, and then went and grabbed a leisurely lunch. Around 2:30 pm I mosied on over to my gate, and heard whispers of delays. By 4:00 it was finally poster, our plane would be delayed 1 hour.
Then it was 1.5, 2, and finally 3. The reason for the delay, tornadoes over Denver, and just my luck, I didn't have a direct flight to Calgary, I had a stop over in Denver. At this point I was also worried about catching my transfer in Calgary. So after many hours at the gate, my Gameboy dies, and my laptop dies. I figured I had enough juice to get me to Calgary, but I didn't account for a 3 hour delay. So just my luck I had also packed my books in my luggage... Never do that again.
We finally left Dallas at about 7:10, so just shy of a full 3 hours, and the ride to Denver was unexciting at best. The landing was a little scary, see I am the kind of guy who listens to the pilots with my courtesy head set, and so I am hearing them as they make there final approach, and all I see out the window is clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, GROUND!!!!!! We broke final cloud cover about 10-15 meters up feet up and 100 meters out from the run way. I'm glad they knew what they were doing because that was just freaky.
So we land at the wrong end of Denver and I have to hoof it clear across the terminal to the gate for my Calgary departure, fortunately it hadn't left yet, by the time I get there, I am greeted with my friend... The delay. See Denver was pretty much shut down for about 5 hours, and that creates a big back log, so the place was crammed, and my plane hadn't even landed, never mind groomed, or fueled. Fortunately I found a plug, and jacked in.
Juiced up my laptop and gameboy, and had an engaging conversation with a nice American lady headed to Calgary for... A wedding. Actually we didn't talk about wedding's at all, we talked about Canada and its CrAzY > 2 party political system. Fortunately she was intelligent and just uninformed, so I didn't just tell her about it we discussed, so it passed the time.
We finally left Denver at 10:10, I think I slept most of the flight, I lucked out and actually had the only row with an empty seat, so it wasn't to squishy, I could have used less screaming baby, but what you going to do about that.
Landed in Calgary about quarter to one (which if I have my time zones right was actually quarter to two,) got picked up by my lovie, and my parents, and then dropped off at the house I was staying in, ironically didn't get to meet the owner of the house since she had gone to bed, and I didn't even get to meet them the next day, because totally drained as I was I slept in.
So that was my travel experience, and what an experience, I will elucidate more of the fun stuff in the near future but for now, I sleep.
jetlagged geoff
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