Brutal

That is the only way to categorize the last 24 hours. Brutal. As mentioned in my previous post, this week can usually be described as anything but brutal. Yet as I write this post, no other superlatives can describe the difficulty of the past day.

It all started innocently enough. In fact, it started better than that. Wednesday night (March Madness Eve) I got out of my work clothes and into my chill-out sweatpants mode and found $40 in the pocket of my Black Fila sweats. Who finds $40 in their pocket? I’ve heard of a single $1, or even a $20 spot, but two $20’s!? I took this as a good omen for the rest of the month and a long UCLA run. Unfortunately, things quickly turned for the worse.

Along with hoops hysteria, I had plans to head to NYC to visit and to celebrate Natalia’s 25th birthday (maybe its 27…not sure. I just know that she’s still super young, and looks much younger than her actual age…whatever that # may be) this weekend. I rushed home from work to catch the 2nd half of the UCLA game before heading to the airport to catch the red-eye to JFK. By the time I got home, CBS stopped showing the UCLA game since they were crushing Weber St by halftime and I wound up seeing zero live action of the Bruin victory. Bummer. After finishing up some last minute packing and knowing that the security lines are nearly non-existent during red-eye time, I was able to watch Duke get beat (I loathe those pricks), and arrive at the airport just about 40 minutes before take-off.

I stroll up to an empty security line and the old chap manning the entry asked for boarding pass and ID. I showed him the required documents and the old fella announces, “your flight is canceled.” The guy was jovial enough and I thought he might be pulling my chain, but when he reiterated that AA Flight 18 was indeed cancelled, I knew I had a long night ahead of me. Apparently, a late season, yet powerful snow storm was hitting the Eastern seaboard causing cancellations to all flights to the NY area. After waiting about 45 minutes to try to get myself on the next flight the next morning, I learned that I would be taking a connector thru Chicago leaving SFO at 6am and finally landing at LaGuardia at 5pm Friday night. Crappy, but still doable to make dinner reservations and still have a night of good times with Natty and the NYC crew.

Fortunately, one of my closest buddies lives really close to the airport and I was able to take a cab there and lay my head to rest on his couch for a 3 hour nap before returning to the airport to start the trek. I woke up at 4am to call American Airlines to check if all legs of the flight were on time. When I received word that all things were a go, I called a cab and was back at the airport at 5am in time to catch the initial leg of the delayed trip. I was all set to board this flight when I realized that I should double-check whether the Chicago-NY portion of the trip was still o.k. This was now 8am EST and Natalia was kind enough to wake up on her big day and check the flight status. I’m sure all you fine readers can guess what happens next. Indeed this leg was also canceled and I needed to figure out another re-routing.

After about 25 minutes of the AA desk clerk clacking away on her keyboard, I was now booked on a 1pm flight to LA with a connector to Newark, NJ that gets me into the land of Bon Jovi at 11:30pm EST. I'm missing happy hour and dinner now, but will still be salvaging a night out in the city that never sleeps.

I returned via cab (3 airport cab rides in 12 hours!!) back to my buddy’s pad to crash until I could catch a ride from him BACK to the airport on his way to work at noon. This was about 6:30 am. Did I mention he has two kids? They were up and about at around 8am and I was neck deep in Dora the Explorer computer games, Disney memory games and playing rescue mission with Captain America, Cyclops, Lizard Man, and Spider-Man for the next four hours. This part was actually a highlight at this point. I love hanging with the 3-year-old, unfortunately this means that I was working on about 3 hours of sleep over the past 24 hours.

My flight time again came around and I checked the American Air website to ensure that the flight to Jersey was still on. Of course it was. That is until I got back to the airport. My boy Ross re-checked the website after I could not get help from a single airport employee anywhere and now it was canceled. (STEE-RIKKKKEE THREE!!!!)

The weekend was now shot. What came next typifies the phrase, "adding insult to injury." I knew heading east this weekend was impossible, so I sought to re-book for the following weekend. After a bit of haggling, I was told that I couldn't do this, and I needed to pay the fare difference or another $250. Absolute BS. Now I have no booked flights to NY at this time and all I could do was get credited for this brutal experience.

So here I am writing this post from my living room floor, missing Natalia’s birthday, and feeling exhausted.

I am still trying to make lemonade after this incredible batch of lemons that I have been dealt, and have made plans for Saturday to somehow salvage the weekend. More details to come on these plans later….