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| My last post was about getting in to Ottawa for Linux Symposium. My luggage didn't get in with me, but including the t-shirts I got from the conference, I had enough clothes to get me through till Friday. The bad news was that I'd stupidly packed my toothbrush and razor in my checked in luggage. That was easily solved with a visit to the local drug store, and of course, the perfume and deo samples at the Sears store next door took care of the deo cans that were traipsing around Paris. The conference was very well attended, and all the talks that I attended were very good. The events every evening were entertaining as well. There was a whiskey BoF at the Diefenbunker - an old war bunker built during the cold war to withstand nuclear attack. I skipped the whiskey, but went for the tour twice - once in English and once in French. It was fun. The after conference party was also very entertaining, for more reasons than the alcohol. More on this later though. For now, we get back to my luggage. I had my first talk on Friday afternoon at 2pm. At 8:30am, I'd checked with the hotel and they said that my bag hadn't been delivered yet, so I mailed Westjet telling them how unhappy I was with this. At about 11:30, I called up Westjet to ask where my bag was, and they said that it had been delivered to the hotel. I said that I'd checked at 8:30, and the lady said that they delivered it at 10, so I got back to the hotel, which was across the road from the conference centre. My bag was there, and with it, my shaving cream and deo. I quickly got back to my room, shaved and sprayed, and ran back to do my talk, which went off quite well. (slides). In the meantime, the folks at Westjet replied to my email apologising for the inconvenience, and offered me a CAD200 flight credit valid for a year. I had my second talk on Saturday on Yahoo! Pipes (slides), roamed around Ottawa on Sunday, and left early on Monday morning. I flew from Ottawa to Chicago, and had a connecting flight from there to San Francisco... except that the fog in SFO made all take-offs and landings impossible. Our captain had the choice of flying to SFO and circling, or just waiting in Chicago until he knew it was clear. He figured that a lot of people stuck in an enclosed space waiting in the air is probably more frustrating than a lot of people stuck in a relatively open space with restaurants and several restrooms, and firmly attached to the ground. It also costs a lot less money, so he delayed the flight. The STD was 0905, which they shifted to 1030. At about 1000, United started calling for volunteers to transfer to a different plane - a 777 (the previous flight was an Airbus A319), which left at 1052 instead. In return, they offered a free ticket valid for a year. I took the offer, since 20 minutes didn't really mean anything, and the bigger plane was definitely going to be more comfortable. I even ended up getting a window seat, when I had a middle seat in the previous plane. My only worry was that I'd lose my bag again. We got into SFO about 10 minutes after the earlier flight. Baggage from both planes came out together on the same carousel, and there, rolling down the carousel was my bag. I got home completely exhausted, but with all luggage, and two free tickets, one for the US and one for Canada. How's that for luck eh? | ||||||||
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