Friday, February 19, 2010

Welcome to the Planet Hoo-ston

I'm in Houston, TX for business this week and the next. I was actually supposed to arrive here on Monday, but a major snowstorm hit Cincinnati that day and the plane I was on had a deicing malfunction. By the time they were in a mode to get it fixed, the flight had been cancelled. So I and my co-worker were switched to an American flight to Chicago where we were to pick up another flight to Houston.

After sitting around the airport for nearly 11 hours (including a boarding and a disembarking of the first plane) I was finally aboard the flight to Chicago. That was then in-turn delayed nearly an hour and a half because the deicing machine ran out of fluid and had to get refilled. So a flight that was supposed to leave Cincinnati at 5:30, didn't leave until a little after 7. We gained an hour into Chicago but still landed nearly a half an hour after our connecting flight had left.

American gave us a partial voucher for a nice hotel in Chicago. Unfortunately, the person working the ticket counter didn't tell us that our bags would be held at the gate and sent on ahead on the first flight to Houston. So we waited an additional hour and a half at the luggage carousel before we got the story straight from the lost bag folks. So after all that, we crashed at the hotel.

Things got a little better the next day. The wrong gate was printed on our tickets but we corrected ourselves long before our flight left. On boarding, something was wrong with my ticket and they issued me a new seat number, only to find out that someone was already sitting there. Fortunately, the seat next to him was empty and I was told to sit there. The flight was only slightly delayed and we finally landed in Houston around 1 pm Tuesday afternoon. We were supposed to arrive around 8 am Monday morning.

Houston itself isn't bad. It's funny to see the people bundling up in tight coats when it only gets to 50 degrees. After the snow storm, this feels balmy to me. I have gotten a comment or two when I went out to the shop to look at some equipment wearing no coat and just a short sleeve knit shirt. But, I would probably be dying in July and August while they didn't feel it.

Can't say I would want to live here, but it's not the worst place I've visited earlier. Here's the overhead shot of where I am:

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