Day: October 29, 2006

My day started very early and ended very, very late. My cab picked me up at 8am and that's where the travel hassles started. We had to go pick up a colleague 40 minutes away, but he didn't have either of us down as going to Heathrow, so that got sorted out and we were on our way.

The real fun started at Heathrow, where our direct flight to LAX had been cancelled because of mechanical failure of the plane so we were rerouted via Chicago with a 3 hour lay-over. That flight was 2 hours late taking off and was 30 minutes late arriving. I got selected for an enhanced security screen, which meant going through all my carry-on luggage and getting my boots and laptop wiped down and screened.

The flight itself was generally ok. I was able to watch 2 movies (Cars and X-Men 3) and a documentary about crossword puzzles. I'd made myself some grilled turkey breast wraps for lunch and dinner and I had a ton of junk food, so I had enough grub for all the flights (and as a side note, I found out there's a deli and grocery shop close to our hotel, so I should be ok for the flight back, yay!)

At Chicago, we had to pick up all our luggage from O'Hare arrivals and lug it across to the domestic departure terminal where we checked everything back in and went through yet another security check. I have to say, airport security is a big fucking joke. They're just going through the motions to make the sheep feel safer and in the process, waste everybody's time. When I arrived at O'Hare, there were signs everywhere that the department of homeland security would fingerprint and photograph everybody who comes from Europe. Apparently, that doesn't include me (probably because I have a canuck passport) cause they just grunted me through the checkpoint.

That flight was also one and a half hour late getting off the ground. I paid for a seat upgrade to premium economy cause at that point, my back was starting to kill me and those extra 4 inches make the world of difference. It was only 20 quid, so I didn't feel bad doing it..

A sign of the times: the seat I was in had been previously used by somebody that was so fat as to require a seatbelt extension. I'm not a small person by any measure, but with most airline seatbelts, I have about a foot or so belt that is still available to use. That person required a whole extra bit of belt…

When we landed at LAX, we picked up our bags (again). The poster tube I was carrying got broken (they didn't screw the cap back on when they opened it to inspect it so it got lost) and my coworker's bag got inspected by homeland security (they left a note saying they'd done it as a random spot check).

Getting to Long Beach was… interesting. I strongly believe our cab driver was hopped up on coke, weaving through 4 lanes of traffic in the freeway like a fucking maniac while trying to light his cigarette and playing bongo drums on his steering wheel to the beat of the (actually quite good but too loud) cubano jazz that was playing on the radio. When he got to Long Beach, he didn't know where the hotel was so he was driving around like he was using the force.

At one point, he asked another cabby for directions. The dialogue went something like this (and I am NOT exaggerating):

cab1: Hey, son of a gun! Where's the courtyard marriot?
cab2: fuck you!
cab1: fuck you too! courtyard marriot?
cab2: fuck you!
cab1: fuck you too! haha! courtyard marriot?
cab2: fuck you!

And it went like that until the light changed, where the other cab just peeled off and our cab driver starting complaining that nobody liked him in Long Beach.

By pure stupid luck, we found the hotel and checked in. Of course, something went wrong. The room was supposed to be pre-paid with the EBI credit card. Of course, no mention of that is on file. We'll figure that out in the next few days.

By that point, it was 11pm local time, 7am UK time. I'd been on the move for 23 hours and I was braindead. I gave Katy a quick skype call and went to bed.