And Southwest Airlines can bite me

I got to the airport in Portland flawlessly and made it to Los Angeles with the only hitch being asked to safeguard two unattended flying solo minors. One, the girl was so young I was shocked it was legal. She couldn't have been more than five and still had that little girl speak thing going on making her hard to understand (even for the boy) and she never shut up but she was sweet. He was about 7-8 and a pompous little elitist talking about his parents' dual homes in CA and OR and how he was an actor. He was very well spoken and cute so he just might have been.

LAX was ugly and pricey-rapey (Starbuck's started at 6$ and went up to 12$ a cup). I got lunch at California Pizza Kitchen and after that it all went to hell. The flight I was supposed to go out on suddenly was going to Las Vegas. I spoke to three Pittsburghers on that flight. THey had been asked to stay aboard since it was our flight then about ten minutes later asked to get off because it was now going to Vegas. When we asked it said 'the planes were 'swapped.'

We were now leaving at 6:15 instead of 4:30. We hear them say your plane is landing now and we're going to clean the plane and get it ready for it's flight to Pittsburgh. 15 minutes later the Pittsburgh take off time goes to 730 and that plane goes to Las Vegas too. and it happens a THIRD time and the time is changed to 830

We start getting mad. We were told we might have to get a hotel room and leave at 3 pm the next day. We say put us on another airline. They started telling us the planes had 'engine trouble' and we replied then you must hate Las Vegas because we SAW you load the damn plane. If you're going to try that lie, move the people you're screwing to another gate so we can't SEE you using planes you're telling us are broken.

In the end they gave us 200$ travel vouchers (that'll help pay for my trip to Salt Lake next year for my seminar) and the flight home was half full (probably the reason they kept bumping us). I shared a row with a handsome young African American young adult who looked like an ad for Adidas (the shirt, the basketball shorts, the corn rows later topped with a doo rag) and immediately eschewed cultural stereotypes by dragging out Agatha Christie's And then there were none. He was so happy to talk about it once he finished.

I got in at 430 AM and the guy at the airport told me Delta had been hacked and they had to displace everyone which might have contributed to this disaster.

I get home sleep for a couple hours and wake up to look at my insurance to find out not only did they NOT fix the person in Texas being added onto my insurance they added EIGHTY-FOUR new charges many from last year. OMFG.

At least I'm home and tomorrow I'll start the travel posts Hope you enjoy those.

Oh and feel free to link me up wiht anything you think I'd like to see from the last six days!

And happy birthday to catw00man!