Fuck you, snow
Jan. 24th, 2016 04:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
next_to_normalHope everyone on the east coast survived snowzilla, or whatever we're calling it. Reports are that my area got somewhere between 17 and 24 inches (there is some hilarious ~scandal about the measuring techniques used at Reagan National Airport not being ~officially sanctioned by the National Weather Service, and therefore their 17.8" total is suspect and probably too low).
SPEAKING OF THE AIRPORT, I shouldn't even BE here right now. I should be in sunny, snow-free Florida. I was supposed to fly out this morning to go to a conference in Orlando, but... LOL. My flight was obviously canceled, and I will now have to (a) leave 36 hours later than planned, (b) fly out of Dulles, not Reagan (ugh), and (c) make a connection in freakin' DALLAS because I couldn't get a direct flight from DC to Orlando.
The most frustrating part is that the conference doesn't actually start until tomorrow afternoon, but I had been planning to go early so that I could get some quality time in at the pool beforehand. If I had JUST been going for the conference, I'd have booked a direct flight on Monday and I probably would've been unaffected. Instead... madness.
I am also sort of semi-pissed at my travel agent - since it's a work trip, I had to use work's travel agency to book my flight, and when I called them on Thursday about whether to take advantage of the airline's "change your flight with no penalty" policy in advance of the storm, they advised me to stick with the flight I had, even though the chance of anything taking off at 10am on Sunday after a two-day blizzard was pretty unlikely. And so I did, and of course my flight was canceled 24 hours later, at which point all the direct flights that could get me there before the conference started were completely full, which is how I ended up flying out of the airport that's an hour's drive from my house instead of the one that's practically walking distance, and why I am now flying to MOTHERFUCKING DALLAS and getting to Orlando at midnight and still missing the beginning of the conference.
But the travel agent said that if I changed to a later flight, and then THAT flight was also canceled, I'd basically be shit out of luck. Which she was actually totally right about - the two flights I'd been considering (a 6pm on Sunday or an 8am on Monday) were both later canceled. Which is why I am only semi-pissed instead of in an incandescent rage like I was on Friday, lol. Because trying to reschedule NOW after my second flight was canceled would mean I probably couldn't get a seat on anything until at least Tuesday, missing yet another day of the conference.
BUUUUUT, again, if I had just abandoned my hopes of POOL TIME, there are later flights on Monday that were open when I talked to the travel agent, and are not likely to get canceled. Soooo, I COULD have been on a direct flight from Reagan, arrived before midnight, and NOT had to unexpectedly detour through Dallas, if I had just decided to make the change on Thursday. So, semi-pissed at the travel agent for advising me against doing that, and also semi-pissed at myself for letting the lure of POOL TIME sway my judgment. NO POOL TIME FOR YOU.
I guess the upside is that I saved $250 by not spending tonight in a hotel?
On another note, I totally #wontheblizzard, because it was so windy, there is actually no snow on my car? I guess I got the low end of the drift. Since I live in an apartment building, there really is no "digging out" necessary - they shovel all the walkways and plow the parking lot, so all there ever is to do is clear snow off my car, and that's... negligible. I wouldn't park at Dulles anyway, so my plan was to take a shuttle to the airport and hope it all melts by the time I get back, but I probably COULD drive my car if I wanted to. (I do not want to.)
There has been a sort of entertaining "will I run out of food?" thing happening, as well. Unlike everyone else who went nutso stocking up at the grocery store, I didn't want a lot of food in the house because I knew I was leaving. But because of the canceled flight, I ended up being home - and needing to eat - for an extra day and a half longer than expected. WHOOPS. Turned out I was fine, but if the storm had been worse, and I hadn't been able to make the trip at all, I'd probably be a little concerned about the coming week, lol. On Thursday, one of my coworkers was like, "Just order five days' worth of Chinese food tonight and keep it in your freezer, just in case," and at one point on Friday night, I did wonder if it was too late to order a pizza, lol.
7:54 PM UPDATE: MY CONFERENCE JUST GOT CANCELED. HOW SOON AFTER A BLIZZARD CAN ONE REASONABLY ORDER DELIVERY?
(j/k I am fine, I will not starve, but I will be super-sad not to be in Florida)
SPEAKING OF THE AIRPORT, I shouldn't even BE here right now. I should be in sunny, snow-free Florida. I was supposed to fly out this morning to go to a conference in Orlando, but... LOL. My flight was obviously canceled, and I will now have to (a) leave 36 hours later than planned, (b) fly out of Dulles, not Reagan (ugh), and (c) make a connection in freakin' DALLAS because I couldn't get a direct flight from DC to Orlando.
The most frustrating part is that the conference doesn't actually start until tomorrow afternoon, but I had been planning to go early so that I could get some quality time in at the pool beforehand. If I had JUST been going for the conference, I'd have booked a direct flight on Monday and I probably would've been unaffected. Instead... madness.
I am also sort of semi-pissed at my travel agent - since it's a work trip, I had to use work's travel agency to book my flight, and when I called them on Thursday about whether to take advantage of the airline's "change your flight with no penalty" policy in advance of the storm, they advised me to stick with the flight I had, even though the chance of anything taking off at 10am on Sunday after a two-day blizzard was pretty unlikely. And so I did, and of course my flight was canceled 24 hours later, at which point all the direct flights that could get me there before the conference started were completely full, which is how I ended up flying out of the airport that's an hour's drive from my house instead of the one that's practically walking distance, and why I am now flying to MOTHERFUCKING DALLAS and getting to Orlando at midnight and still missing the beginning of the conference.
But the travel agent said that if I changed to a later flight, and then THAT flight was also canceled, I'd basically be shit out of luck. Which she was actually totally right about - the two flights I'd been considering (a 6pm on Sunday or an 8am on Monday) were both later canceled. Which is why I am only semi-pissed instead of in an incandescent rage like I was on Friday, lol. Because trying to reschedule NOW after my second flight was canceled would mean I probably couldn't get a seat on anything until at least Tuesday, missing yet another day of the conference.
BUUUUUT, again, if I had just abandoned my hopes of POOL TIME, there are later flights on Monday that were open when I talked to the travel agent, and are not likely to get canceled. Soooo, I COULD have been on a direct flight from Reagan, arrived before midnight, and NOT had to unexpectedly detour through Dallas, if I had just decided to make the change on Thursday. So, semi-pissed at the travel agent for advising me against doing that, and also semi-pissed at myself for letting the lure of POOL TIME sway my judgment. NO POOL TIME FOR YOU.
I guess the upside is that I saved $250 by not spending tonight in a hotel?
On another note, I totally #wontheblizzard, because it was so windy, there is actually no snow on my car? I guess I got the low end of the drift. Since I live in an apartment building, there really is no "digging out" necessary - they shovel all the walkways and plow the parking lot, so all there ever is to do is clear snow off my car, and that's... negligible. I wouldn't park at Dulles anyway, so my plan was to take a shuttle to the airport and hope it all melts by the time I get back, but I probably COULD drive my car if I wanted to. (I do not want to.)
There has been a sort of entertaining "will I run out of food?" thing happening, as well. Unlike everyone else who went nutso stocking up at the grocery store, I didn't want a lot of food in the house because I knew I was leaving. But because of the canceled flight, I ended up being home - and needing to eat - for an extra day and a half longer than expected. WHOOPS. Turned out I was fine, but if the storm had been worse, and I hadn't been able to make the trip at all, I'd probably be a little concerned about the coming week, lol. On Thursday, one of my coworkers was like, "Just order five days' worth of Chinese food tonight and keep it in your freezer, just in case," and at one point on Friday night, I did wonder if it was too late to order a pizza, lol.
7:54 PM UPDATE: MY CONFERENCE JUST GOT CANCELED. HOW SOON AFTER A BLIZZARD CAN ONE REASONABLY ORDER DELIVERY?
(j/k I am fine, I will not starve, but I will be super-sad not to be in Florida)
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Date: Jan. 25th, 2016 01:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jan. 25th, 2016 01:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jan. 28th, 2016 04:13 am (UTC)I'm looking at a conference in Mrytle Beach, in August. Hopefully there shouldn't be any major weather concerns then.