March Madness Journey

The NCAA is celebrating 75 years of March Madness this season.....I am enjoying my first day of madness.

Here is the beginning of my journey that started off just what the title says....madness! My wife, son and future daughter-in-law headed out of Virginia Beach last Sunday driving all the way to Texas. They planned on taking a few days getting there and stoping by my mothers to say hello. A couple of days they made it there and then the last day driving on from Oklahoma to Lubbock. Pretty uneventful and they had the ability to switch drivers along the way.

This whole trip was planned to go back and watch the kids graduate from their AIM Program. It is a missions ministry called Adventures in Missions that took my son to Bolivia and my DIL to South Africa. Pretty amazing kids. Anyway we planned on getting there and meeting her parents at the same time. I couldn't take off that much time from work so they drove and I was going to meet them the following Friday by flying out. I know....call me a bum. Couldn't help it. Too much work to do. And the work week was crazy all along the way. Every night working until at least 10PM. But that is another story.

So lets start the story from Friday morning. Early morning. My flight was scheduled out at 6:55 so it was going be about 4:30 wake up time. Well I got a call for some 800 number at 2AM and I almost didn't answer it. But I did.....flight delayed until 8:30. Okay that may not be too bad. I texted my daughter and told her to sleep in another hour as it had been delayed. While I was awake I ended up reading an email from a client that had responded about a new design we had done. Long email, a hour later, think I can go back to sleep.....couldn't really.

Finally up plenty of time. ll is good. Daughter slept in and I had to call her. Still plenty of time. I get the airport at 6:30 and they gave me great seats in the exit aisle. Fantastic! And my connecting flight from Dallas to Lubbock was only an hour later. No big deal. So instead of arriving at noon, it would be 1:00. No worries. After all this was going to be a vacation as well. I was even joking them the ticket attendant about someone waking me up at two in the morning. You will have to keep reading the post updates about this travel experience and see if it continues to be madness. So far though all is good. Then the attendant says, "Here you go, hopefully that flight will make it." Huh? A sign of troubles right there.

So I head up to the security, again no problems. This is a breeze, I have don't this before many times. I have it down to a science. I head over to the Starbucks for a cup of coffee and a muffin and just relax. Type a little story, make a few posts. All is good.

Then a get another call from that 800 number....hum? No body on the other end as this are automated. I hung up. A few minutes later the call comes in again. I answer, waiting for the other end. The flight has been delayed again......this time until 12:30! Really? And the kicker is now my connecting flight has been pushed even further back. I won't get in until almost 6PM! This is crazy. Already there is a ridiculous long line at the gate so something had obviously happened. Broke part, waiting on it to arrive. So that means.....it may not get there and it may not even be ready until after the 12:30 window passes.

I make a call rather than waiting in the ridiculous line and I am glad I did. After an eternity on hold they switched me to another airlines that was leaving at 9:41 to Atlanta, and then onto Dallas.......still won't arrive in Lubbock until late. But I am moving. Yes, now I got stuck in the middle seat....yeah :(

Ok, pause in the action. I am writing this on the plane. Go take a potty break, get some popcorn and get ready for .....the rest of the story.

Ok we are back and we return to our hero battling the struggles of air travel.....okay I can call myself a hero if I want.

Anyway, we landed Atlanta without incident and I headed on over to the gate counter just to make sure everything was okay. After all things happen. The lady at the Delta counter asked me why isn't they give you a better seat? I don't know, I just feel lucky that I am making it there......6 hours after I was supposed to be. She apologized.....hey it wasn't her fault, things happen. It wasn't even her airlines. She handed me a ticket back.....it had been upgraded! Awesome! So great, I thanked her when I went back up to board the plane. So I don't know what this lady's name was but she was at gate B09 in Atlanta for flight 2010. If word ever makes it back to her...tell her a big thank you!

So now I started adding up the arrival times because I didn't have them before. I was going to be sitting in Dallas for two more hours before my flight that AA had booked for me. Okay.....but there were two other flights before that. What?! Now I was upset....why didn't they first try to get me better seats on the Delta...what's the deal? And second why didn't they book me an earlier flight out of Dallas? Not cool! And let's do one more. Three, they knew at 6:30 that my once delayed flight wasn't going to make it at 8:30.....why not switch me then?

Okay, we will see if my wife can make the changes for the earlier flight when I land. I flight now, happy, have a monster leather seat and all the leg room and no body next to me.......why didn't AA take care of me?

We will be back right after these brief messages from our sponsors.

Ok, we want to thank our sponsors for today's episode of madness, they are Excedrin, Tums and Lone Star Beer.....just not all at the same time!

Got off of the extremely peaceful flight from Atlanta to Dallas hoping to get a text from my wife once I turned my cell phone back on about an earlier flight on into Lubbock. No such luck though. She said there didn't appear to be any vacancies. So I headed to the actual gate to ask. Maybe someone wouldn't show up and I could be on standby. Long train ride to the next terminal, DFW airport is huge. This meant waiting around for two and a half hours or just fifty minutes if I could get on this earlier flight.

I went up to the gate, the actual gate changed on the monitor twice from when I left by other flight to the new gate, that was making me a little worried. I told my story, he gave me a ticket......as easy as that! Awesome. I felt like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and just received the last golden ticket! So excited......then the fire alarm went off! No way! This would be my luck, however after about five minutes it stopped. False alarm.

The flight was a little puddle jumper, okay maybe just a little bigger, but it was tight. Who cares, I got on! Didn't get a chance to write this final episode until this morning. I sat next to a lady who was just getting back from Guatemala with some teens on a mission trip. She took up all my time in conversation......I was in The midwest....friendly people....that was great.

Got off the flight, saw my lovely wife dressed in red waiting for me. I could wait to kiss her and hug her and.........


THE REST OF THIS STORY HAS BEEN CENSORED BY THE FCC AND COULD NOT BE POSTED. YOU WILL HAVE TO USE YOUR IMAGINATION TO FINISH THE STORY.

et this i believe
Another day in the adventures of Eugene Thompson.....but that is my life!
Enjoy my friends