My triumphant return to Bloomington-Normal

After three holiday weeks in New York, I returned to Bloomington Sunday night. And naturally - just because I was looking forward to getting back - and I had forgotten just how annoying this particular commute can be - there was a mildly annoying adventure in store.

Traveling on Sunday nights is almost always problematic - as is flying all the way to Bloomington (taking a connecting flight from Chicago, as opposed to just driving the 133 miles from Chicago) - as is also checking bags. That's why I avoid doing these things. But naturally - this week, I scored the hat-trick.

My flight from New York was delayed over an hour... and it landed naturally in a different terminal from my connection. I hustled across the airport and really should have made the connection, but unfortunately they decided to "close the plane" 10 minutes early...so I missed it. Naturally it was (almost!) 9:25pm and this was the last flight out. The gate attendant wouldn't help me - she just directed me to customer service (repeatedly... I almost asked if she could say anything else or if her needle was skipping). The United customer service was annoying too... they're like "you are rebooked on the first flight tomorrow morning". I had no desire to stay overnight - and I told her I was going to drive it. United naturally won't reimburse for a hotel or a rental car - and getting the one leg of flying to be refunded requires calling an 800 number that I've had to call before, but is literally *never* answered by a human being - and I'm convinced it's impossible to get a refund from them...but that's all they can do from the airport side...

Of course I did have this one checked one bag to contend with. Tee-hee. (I hate checking bags!) My bag missed the connection too...but the lady said to go downstairs to the United baggage claim and I could pick it up. Turns out that it's back in the first terminal where I landed - so I had to schlepped all the way back there... and waited on line for 20 minutes... only to be told by the grumpy dude behind the counter that they don't release bags at night - so I actually CANNOT pick up my bag. He informed me that it would be on the first flight to Bloomington the next day I could claim it at that airport... Waste of time. I don't know why the customer service person told me to go there when I could have left the airport 20 minutes sooner...but whatever...

Blah blah - this hole thing wasted oodles of time....I also had to stop at the Hertz place in Bloomington early the next morning to "return" the car - and check it out again (the same car!) - just so I wouldn't get one-way rental charges on the car everywhere I went all week...

One nice thing from Sunday night is that I met this really nice couple who also missed the same flight for the same reason... They are psych professors here at the university (ISU) - and they were coming back from visiting their families for xmas & new years... and we were commiserating at the gate and ended up renting a car together for the long drive. So - for the first time, I got to do this long drive WITH company (didn't turn on the radio once the whole way!). And they're really cool - we had lots of fun chit-chatting the whole way here. We all met up again (unplanned) at the Bloomington airport when claiming our bags Monday night. I believe these are my first non-work-connected friends in town...and cooler than that...I now know two Normal psychology professors! (yes - the puns are intended)

UFO Sitings at O'hare

I was probably there that week, but I didn't see it.

A wrong turn at Albequeue

Fortunately, in my many wanderings around the country and the world, both for work and for fun, this has not yet happened to me.

The Ice Man Cometh

It's a winter wonderland today in Central Illinois. It's not so much that it snowed for 24 hours, it more like "iced".

Desperate to prove that I'm either dumb, crazy, or as we New Yorkers say "fearless" (and also because I left my laptop at work and could not work from the apartment), I ventured out to work. The office is of course closed. It's a huge complex - and entirely deserted except for me and a few brave and cold security and groundskeepers. (I wish I could post a picture of it, but I have this feeling that if I posted an image of this place - under any weather conditions - heck if I say the name of the company on this blog - they'll first shoot me and then fire me.) Truth be told, it looks a lot like I'm in the movie Fargo right now...there's no one around, and you can't tell the Earth from the sky.

There's a picture here of my neighbor Shawna cleaning her car (mine is on the right). She and I worked out there for the better part of 1 hour making them cars road-worthy... There was literally a 2 inch coating of solid ice over everything, and we immediately discovered that our ice-scrapers and snow brushes were entirely useless...it was like using plastic against a brick wall. This storm meant serious business.

So we were actually out there cleaning the cars with HAMMERS. Sadly, my mine took quite the beating - and didn't make it. Over the course of my wanderings in these last 5 years, I have spent entire winters commuting every week to some notoriously cold places - and I've experienced some serious winter weather. There was Sioux Falls and Minneapolis (yes that one's hard to forget: 36 straight days below zero...I remember the morning radio DJ announcing excitedly "Folks we're having a heat wave! It's 16 degrees warmer today than it was yesterday! But it is still below zero."), Toronto, Boston, and Chicago - and in all these places, I have never EVER needed to resort to "man-tools" in order to clean off a car before (and I've never broken anything either). Those big cold cities are nothin'! Bloomington has now won an extra special place in this road warrior's heart.