“The Bumpy Trip to Chicago”

So far, it's been a bumpy trip. In fact, the flight was the only part that wasn't bumpy!

Checking in to the airport in Providence went smoothly, though I have to say the pseudo-security is just ridiculous. It is as if they've designed the system to personally violate every single traveler in some way. For us, it was two things. First, their X-Ray machine saw Corinne's laptop in the middle of our suitcase, so they decided to pull everything out for inspection. The other bag had an opaque roll of aluminum foil, which they completely ignored. Second, there was the ridiculous amount of personal scanning and inspection before going to the gate. No longer can you just send your laptop bag through: you have to empty it's contents into a tray, and send the back through separately. And don't forget to take off your shoes, because they'll send you back through. Nevermind that Corinne was wearing floppy sandals... you never know what kind of deadly explosives they could contain.

They never gave us baggage-claim tickets for the two bags we checked (one of which was still open and being "carefully" repacked when we were dismissed).

The flight to Chicago departed 1:20 late due to thunderstorms in the Chicago area. They claimed that this had backed up the whole country.

After finally making our way to Baggage Claim at O'Hare, we waited an hour for our bags to come through. They never did. The bags were lost, and we were given a Property Irregularity Receipt that included a heartfelt, computer-generated apology.

This was not good for Corinne. Traveling is fine as long as things go smoothly. Not having our clothes, toiletries, books, or her laptop... that does not count as smooth. That's what we call bumpy. "She don't like the bumpy."

When she reserved our room at the Wyndham, months ago, she requested a King Size bed. She also requested that it be near the elevator and near the lobby-end of the hotel. Why not, right? The more convenient, the better! Well, we got exactly what we asked for... except the elevator is broken, and we're on the fourth floor. So that means taking the stairs (which is fine if you are empty-handed and not tired) or walking all the way to the other end of the hotel for that elevator and then walking back. Not a big deal (at all), except it was one more bump in the trip.

We didn't rent a car for this trip. But! With none of our stuff, I had to walk to all the stores and buy food, drinks, and toiletries. Going out wasn't so bad, but coming back with a case of soda, bottles of water, and a couple bags of odds-and-ends was "interesting."

This morning, finally, the trip started to smooth out. I met Greg for breakfast in the hotel restaurant (literally! we'd never met before!) and when I returned there was a message that our bags had been delivered. Now, hopefully, things can settle down.

The geek-parade here at the hotel is pretty much non-stop, and less than half of the attendees are here. Tomorrow's going to be nuts. :-)

(It was great to finally meet Greg, but it was a little like having breakfast with an old friend. We may never have met in person, before, but we've spoken by IM or email almost every day since he first worked for Macrobyte in late '99.)

(One last thing: hello to Casper! Don't know his last name, but we met him at breakfast. Nice guy.