February 2, 2004 - Today was horrible. It actually started last night. I got on a plane in San Diego last night at 11 PM and flew through the night to Chicago. The flight got in a few minutes later than planned but it wasn't a problem for me since I would be hanging out at the airport until my 9 AM flight. When I got into Chicago I was tired but alert enough to notice that my flight was delayed already going to Cincinnati. Since it was 3:45 AM, there weren't many people at the airport. In fact, there was absolutely no one from United there. I found a phone that connected me to some United call center. I told them about the situation and asked if I could get moved to another airline so that I wouldn't be delayed going into Cincinnati. They said they couldn't guarantee I would get accepted onto any flights, but I could try a 6 or 7 AM on Delta, and mentioned a few other flights too. I walked to the Delta desk where the flight was going to take off. It took 20 minutes to walk all the way across the airport. When I got there, there was no one at that desk. Eventually someone showed up and told me I couldn't fly standby since my ticket wasn't signed by an agent for United. They said I could go get it signed and then come back, but by then it would have been too late to fly. I checked with American Airlines and they had a similar story. Then I walked back to my terminal to wait for my flight. It got delayed further, and then the flight eventually got cancelled. I called the travel center at work and told them about the situation, and Shannon was very helpful. She called United and got me backed up on the next United flight. She also said there was another Delta flight I could try to get on if I could get my ticket signed by United. I waited in line at the Customer Service desk for this since the line at my gate was already full of people trying to do the same thing. Customer Service didn't sign my ticket because they figured Delta wouldn't honor it, due to my very low ticket price. I walked to the gate where the next United flight was going to take off and that took another 20 minutes. I spent about an hour of my life walking through the Chicago Airport. When I got to the gate, it was going to be another hour and a half before my flight left. I waited, and then this flight got delayed. By now it was 11:30 AM in Chicago. I was supposed to be back at work by 1. There was no way of that happening, so I called my boss and told him the situation. Finally I got to Cincinnati around 2 PM. I got picked up by Josh Stromberg and driven to my company where my car was sitting in the parking lot. I drove straight home, showered, got dressed for work, and arrived at work at 3:05 PM. Not too bad! After work I drove home, then got back in my car and drove up to UC where I was supposed to teach some jazz. I didn't get to teach my sax group because they didn't all show up, but I did direct the big band for a few songs since Dr Frenz was late getting to practice. I managed to get them to sound better in a few minutes. After practice I went home, made some spaghetti for dinner, and then went to bed very tired from a long day of travelling.