A leisurely morning at BTV

To start, my phone's alarm didn't go off at 3:20am. I woke at 3:50 and went into a panic. Ran out to unlock the door for Al, who was picking us up, fresh out of the shower wearing only shorts, barefoot and still wet. (Not recommended.) Total time from waking up to showered, packed, and out the door: 12 minutes.

Delta's check-in counter had a huge line that was barely moving. Two unhappy people were working the counter, one of them a trainee. Learned later that two people didn't come in. Net result of the endless wait: we missed our flight and got rebooked. As a result, we'll be arriving in San Diego at about 7pm local time, about three hours after the first session of Siobhan's conference starts.

This also means we have a six-hour wait here at the Burlington airport. The good part: it's a comfortable airport with free Wi-Fi, and they gave us meal vouchers for all day long. But I'm now regretting my decision to pack the power supplies for my laptop and Eee in the checked suitcase. I never expected to have hours of time to kill mid-transit in a place with Wi-Fi.

There was a woman behind us in line who was such a ball of rage it makes one wonder how she survives. She was frothing about how it was all their fault, and conspiracy-theorizing about how they did it on purpose to avoid paying fees for overselling flights. I suppose there's nothing wrong with that, but there is a lot wrong with taking it out on the poor people behind the counter. They are also having a terrible day. Your terrible day doesn't justify making theirs worse.