I sit here in the airport using my new wireless cellular internet device (my roomies talked me into it after seeing the 12 or so partial blogs I have started *grin*, they want me to keep writing whenever possible) as I wait on my flight to board and my heart rate to slow down, I'm thankful that some lessons we have to relearn on a regular basis don't have to be as drastic and painful as they could be.
As I am in the habit of doing, I procrastinated when it came to packing for my trip. After puttering around, spending several hours organizing the DVDs I would take for entertainment, filling my MP3 player with music and audiobooks, approximately 11 o'clock last night I surged into a flurry of packing and clothes decisions and gathering toiletries. So far I've already realized I've forgotten to grab any of my sunglasses, which would have been useful for bright and sunny Texas. I expect to have more adventures from that later, but I won't beg any more trouble about that now.
One of my roomies drove me to the airport while we listened to one of the comedy channels on his Sirius satellite radio. When we got close to the airport he asked, "You're flying American right?"
Since that was the airline I had flown last time that work sent me to Texas, without missing a beat I replied with an eloquent, "Yep!"

and the flight is boarding so I will share the rest of this in about 2 hours or so *grin* since I can't use the cell access on the flight.. be back in a bit.


... and I'm back and sitting in my hotel room which I will go into later *grin*, but for now I will go back to the thread as I had to leave it.

Oh yeah, my room mate dropped me off at the North terminal, I gathered my bags, waved and he drove off. I walk into the terminal walk up to the self serve American Airlines check-in kiosk and slide my card while thinking to myself that I hope I have enough time since the line at the security gate is much longer than the last time that I took this trip at pretty much the same time on a previous sunday morning.
"Look up reservation by ... (gives several options)"
Hmmm... strange last time it came up with my itinerary immediately. Okay. *rummages around in laptop bag until I find my itinerary print out* Let's see let's choose search by flight number...
"Flight Information Not Found, Try Again?"
*shrug* strangeness. I look again at my printout trying to figure out if I mistyped the flight number.

I had in fact not mistyped my flight number... For my Delta Airlines flight. Okay, now its time for a bit of adrenaline.
Not only did I have the wrong airline, I'm in the wrong terminal!
My room mate had just dropped me off, he can't be too far away. *dig through stuffed pockets for cell phone* Ring. Ring. Ring. Voicemail. {Deleted by Sayburr}

Back out the doors to try and find a taxi to take me to South Terminal. After walking awhile and asking directions of a nice police officer sitting in a little booth out of the sun and heat I kept walking to where the taxi cabs were waiting for fares.
So I step up, put my bags in the trunk and tell the driver I need a ride to the South terminal.

Since I was being all stuck in my mind about my silly refusal to double check my itinerary when my roomie asked to confirm that I was flying American or not, I managed to completely miss the look that I was given by the cabbie as if I had grown a third head.

Ya know, every other major city airport that I've ever been to when there are multiple terminals, these refer to multiple buildings. (The L.A. airport quickly comes to mind). But evidently the Atlanta airport feels that they need to do a bit of sleight of hand to make themselves sound bigger (not that its really that small of an airport to begin with), and to make a long story short I had to get my bags out of the back of the taxi and keep walking around another corner of the building while the cabbies did their best to wait until I was out of earshot before laughing at me.

I make it through the gamut of blood pressure between check in and security and having to force my way onto a very full tram to get to the concourse that my flight was leaving from. I'm walking along looking for gate 13...

Did you know that there are no Gate 13's at the Atlanta Airport? I look at my boarding pass again... How did I get 13 out of 35? *shrug* which means I took a wrong turn after I got off the escalator from the Tram area. *trudge trudge*

Despite all of the twists and turns I still got to the gate 30 minutes before they started boarding.

Did you know that you can't get alcohol in the Atlanta airport before 12:30 on sundays? Not that I needed it to fly but I really would liked to have had a glass of nice Cabernet to help get my heart rate and adrenaline surge under control. Well no, I know how to do that without it, but I still would have appreciated it right then!

Oh and did you know that when you have to go board your plan you have to walk outside and hope and pray that you are following the correct line of people through the little maze of traffic cones to the correct plane? Especially when you were typing away on your blog with your cellular internet hook up and missed the beginning of the boarding calls and only heard the final boarding call *evilgrin*

So it wasn't til after they had closed the door of the plane did I get any actual confirmation that I was on the right plane (the actual plane I had ended up getting into was some strange twist in the universe on the other side of the building from where the gate numbers where posted on the inside)

the minor adventures of the actual flight are not really worth getting into, but a few things from post flight are worth mentioning.

Did you know that the Hertz guy actually asked me, "Well it looks like you weren't set up with the special rate for {insert name of my company here} would you like to change that even though it would be a higher rate?"

*blink blink... pause for three beats*

"No thank you, I will stay with the cheaper rate."

I also couldn't figure out why they had parked the Rental cars so that I couldn't put my very heavy bags in the trunk easily (back bumper to back bumper with the car in the spot behind it), but then again as I carefully searched I could not find any way to open the trunk. I could not find a keyhole, nor button or switch inside the car (and yes I checked the glove box also) that would open the trunk.

Then I eventually get to the Hotel. This is not the same hotel that I stayed at last time, its in a better part of town and is actually within walking distance of almost all of the places I ate or played at last time I was here. After checking in and getting my room key I finally enter the room, nice layout! Much roomier and comfortable than the place I stayed last time. Okay time to unpack and set everything up... Strange, I don't see a desk...
Where is the dataport that was advertised? *rummage through obligatory hotel paraphenalia*
Data connections are limited to 1200 Baud through the hotel phone lines!!!
What the {Saybur}?!?

*grumble grumble*
I guess its a very good thing that I made the decision to go ahead get the cellular modem thingy yesterday (which had its own adventures and I got to the store for that just before they closed) otherwise I would have had an internet free couple weeks and I didn't bring that many DVD movies (well I did but you know what I mean)


The lesson that I'm taking away from all this?

It doesn't matter how many twists and wrong turns you take you will always make it to where you are supposed to be when you are supposed to be there. Yeah I know it sounds triter than it really is. I'll come up with a better way to say it later, but right now I'm starting to jones for food and am going to shut down and see what fine dining I have in store for me this evening.

Until next time.