Diary #469

Some of you may already know that my planned Florida trip sort of collapsed last week.  After days of adjusting my schedule to Eastern Time, I got up at 5:30 AM Thursday and went to the airport about 2 hours later…only to be told that there had already been four flights cancelled, and the flight I was scheduled on was so hopelessly overbooked I immediately sat down and picked a backup route.  When it looked like I’d be booted from that one as well I went to the website and tried to find another route, but there was simply no way; nearly every flight out of Seattle or into any of the major airports in Florida was hopelessly overbooked, often by as many as 8 or 9 seats.  And the few exceptions out of Seattle or into Florida didn’t match up.  So, I texted with Alex Andrews of SWOP Behind Bars and we decided the most sensible course of action was for me to stay put and appear by video; though the video link didn’t work out staying put turned out to be a good idea, because the flight they automatically rolled me over to (which would’ve been a redeye departing at 10 PM) was cancelled a few hours later.  I don’t know what was going on, but it affected multiple airlines and multiple airports; summer travel is always bad, but this was absurd.  I’m hoping nobody wants to go to Washington DC in August, so I don’t have this trouble when it comes time for Woodhull…but all the same, I think I’ll go a couple of days early to be sure.