business travel is not fun.

I’m a pretty fortunate person. For all the time I spend on the road, I rarely face major problems. Usually if something comes up I react quickly enough to beat the crowds, and I have enough of those frequent flyer/stayer/renter status cards to make things happen. Some times, though, it just ain’t in the cards.

The travel plan for this week was a Wednesday morning flight to DC. Training in DC mid-day Wednesday, then flight to Brownsville, TX Wednesday night to staff a Thursday election. Fly home Friday morning.

Mother nature protested my excessive use of jet fuel by grounding the DC to Houston leg last night for more than two hours. I missed the last flight to Houston and found myself in the airport at 10pm with no plan. I called the Hampton Inn, my usual standby, and they were booked.

With my phone battery dying I managed to book a room on Hotwire. Probably seeing that I had gotten the room for less than half price, when I finally got to the hotel at 11pm they put me in what had to be the LOUDEST room in the property, where the golfers jawing away at the bar mixed with an ice machine and elevator machinery echoed through the night. Not a good night.

This morning I finally made it to Brownsville but I’ve missed the most useful time to be here. At this point there’s not much left for me to do except stare out the window of my hotel room, within creepy stalker range view of a Chuck E Cheese. This whole ordeal, 5 flights, a miserable night in Houston, and I can’t even be of much use anymore. Two nights away from Ben and Molly, and really, it’s kind of for nothing at this point. Yarg.

Managed to run a solid 3 miler on the treadmill this morning though. I guess that’s the good news for the day.