Slow it down!

I believe it's finally time to get this fall season slowed down. November is knocking on the door, and it's kinda scary! I believe that as of right now I've wrapped up my soccer refereeing season. Of course, there are always the possible "Hey we need a fill in right away" calls but I'm happy that things are much slower now, and that I can focus on other things, such as getting packed and moving. Hard to believe that it's already time for that! Moving day is going to be November 11 to get things in and our of houses and into the new! It's quite exciting. First house, and it's going to be all mine. Well, it's going to be all Heather's and I get to live in it (to be technically correct if I understand the whole marriage thing.) I've been told that what's hers is hers and what's mine is hers. I don't think she's a reader of this, so hopefully I don't get in too hot of water on that. Either that, or she'll be the first to tell you whose in charge here!

Work is finally getting a bit more slow. After a busy season of travel and being on the road, that's looking quite good for the end of the year, which is good, after my last Delta fiasco!

I was in Montana last week, and was getting set to travel home on Friday afternoon. Thursday afternoon, I went to check in on my flights, and had a message waiting that a flight of mine had been cancelled. I quickly called in to get re-booked, and was told that I'd been re-booked for the next day, Saturday. I had soccer games on Saturday, so I said that I couldn't do that, and they offered me a new route, to go through Salt Lake City, then to Minneapolis, then Sioux Falls. I was happy with this, and accepted. I'm going to preface this with saying if you ever get offered the opportunity to fly into Salt Lake City, DON'T DO IT! Avoid it if at all possible. So, I ended up getting to Salt Lake City around 1pm, and had 50 minutes to catch my flight to Minneapolis, so I went to the gate, and they had posted that we were delayed 1 hour because of a backup in Minneapolis. So, we were now not scheduled to leave until 3pm. It was ok, because that still left me with over an hour to make my connection to Sioux Falls, so no biggie. So, the plane came in around 1:30pm, and just sat at the gate waiting for us to get on. We sat in the terminal, and all of the sudden, and 20 minutes to 3pm, they come on the intercom and tell us we have to hurry and board before 3pm, or we cannot leave. What on earth have we been doing for the last 30 minutes?? The plane has been here, couldn't you have us on it already?? So, we tried to quickly board around 150 people in under 20 minutes. We happened to get everyone on the plane and ready before 3pm, and we sat there, and sat there, and sat there, and pretty soon it was 3:30, and then 3:45 and they came back on the PA system and told us that the flight had been cancelled and was reschedule for 6am the next morning (the crew was out of hours apparently). So, we all got back off the plane, and I headed to a courtesy phone and got rebooked on the later Minneapolis flight which would still put me in in time to make my connection. So, I got that all changed, and went to the gate to find that the late Minneapolis flight was delayed 2.5 hours. So much for making my connection, but they said that I could go to the gate in Minneapolis, and try to see if I could stand by and get a seat onto that late flight, otherwise, I'd be stuck until the next day. So, we waited, and as boarding time got close, they announced another delay of 45 minutes. We ended up getting into Minneapolis around 11pm, and there were two agents waiting there who handed us pieces of paper with 800 numbers for getting a service to book us a hotel at our expense. Yes, they would not pay for this. That made a few people rather angry, and then, to top it off, the agents didn't stay to offer help, they just said, "Good Luck." and took off! We found only one other agent who told us she was off the clock and would not help us. So, we're stuck in Minneapolis, and I called the 800 number and they hung up on me. Needless to say, I was unimpressed and sent an email to Delta explaining this and asking them why I should ever consider flying their airline again? I made it home around 9am Saturday, well, home to Sioux Falls anyway, and missed my game, so, I wrapped up my season on Sunday. Delta is not real popular with me currently, so it's a good thing that I don't have to travel soon!