holiday travel is full of fail.

i thought my trip to south carolina was rough. the trip was a two-leg flight: st. louis to washington-dulles, and then from dulles to greenville-spartanburg. the first leg went without a hitch. i arrived at dulles, hopped on the train to the other terminal...and promptly found out that the flight (which was supposed to be leaving at 9:45 pm) was not leaving until 12:18. that was a bummer.

then it got delayed another fifteen minutes. sigh. a drop in the bucket.

and then...the plane arrived a little after midnight. the pilot was there. the flight attendant was there. the first officer...not so much. no one knew where he was. i know, i know, they usually keep flight crews together, right? apparently, united does not. apparently they are stupid.

finally, they found the first officer--he had been on another flight that was even more delayed than the plane coming from philly, the one that would be taking us from washington to greenville. finally, he landed, and we left dulles a little after 1am. by then, i was loopy, slap-happy, and tired. i just wanted to get out of the airport and go to bed. luckily, i slept the entire flight, got to my friend's house...and proceeded to sleep until noon.

i thought that was bad. i thought that was a travel nightmare. i stand corrected. today is already worse--and i haven't even left greenville yet.

( more travel drama ahead! hooray! )

jonathan lee riches © is still special.

jonathan lee riches © is still crazy, and still made of win. justia has been increasingly sporadic about posting his lawsuits, but every so often they still deliver. yesterday it delivered in a big way--and presented about thirty lawsuits for everyone's reading pleasure.

he has changed his modus operandi as of late...instead of making pages-long lawsuits that lack a common thread, they are now single-page rants. some of them have a common thread linking the entire paragraph, although most do not.

(we are, of course, talking about jonathan lee riches © here. his ability to produce coherent pieces of writing is lacking, or at least he has made a conscious choice to be as incoherent as possible.)

anyway, i present: the best of the new batch of riches © lawsuits.

• riches © v. Steve Fairchild: "Fairchild is in a major conspiracy with Pete Rose, ancestors of the 1919 White Sox, and Rick Tochett [sic] to fix the up and coming December 16, 2007 Buffalo Bills v. Cleveland Browns game. He is going to coordinate the offense to score no points and lose, this will knock the Bills out of the playoffs, then Fairchild plans to be the Colorado State football coach. I learned this from Miss Cleo."
• riches © v. Gran Telescopo Canarias: "The North Koreans are making 1/2 my cell the DMZ line, and the other half has Writers Guild strike workers. I take middle ground because I'm a center Republican. My Constitutional rights are also violated because I never received a ballot to vote Fred Thompson, who spoke in Iowa and said he will eliminate NASA's budget. I'm for it, because then the Defendant and any unknown telescopes can't invade my privacy."
• riches © v. Nicole Scherzinger: "My blanket has no warmth, the material comes from Coldplay."
• riches © v. 202-456-1414: "This is the White House. I want a pardon. Defendant will not give me a pardon but will give Lewis Libby one. This is unconstitutional."
• riches © v. Ryan Howard: "Howard went to a Tampa Bay halloween party dressed as a steroid needle."
• riches © v. Somali Pirates: "I get served expired Ensure."
• riches © v. Lisa Leslie: "She threatens me with spark plugs."
• riches © v. Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eve 2008: "Everyone on New Years are going to be celebrating my 5th year in prison. FCI Williamsburg plans to host a Super New Years party bash on TV. Every major credit card company, and retail stores plan to blow horns and party like it's 1999 in front of my solitary cell."
• riches © v. Iran Contra Affair: "I'm being sent to the North Pole for Christmas. I have to tape presents without gloves outside."
• riches © v. Daniel Day-Lewis: "Daniel took my website www.jonathanleeriches.org from me. He is Act da Fool!"
• riches © v. Termini Bros. Bakery: "Termini and Travia has been violating my civil rights at FCI Williamsburg. Threatens to throw pies in my face, and strap me to a gurney and force feed me 10,000 calories every three hours through a Schiavo feeding tube of liquid hydrogene [sic] and Alpo."
• riches © v. Ashton Kutcher: "I used to have Ashton Kutcher good looks, now prison made me go bald."
• riches © v. Johnny Depp: "I was only served baked beans that were cold on 12-10-07. This is a civil rights violation."

if i had just one-tenth the creativity of this guy, i swear i'd quit law school and become a comic or a writer. you just never know what he's going to allege next.

holiday travel is full of fail: part deux.

i'm writing this from an airport bar. needless to say, this means the news is not good.

the afternoon was relaxing. i lounged around on megan's couch, surfed the internet, blogged a bit [okay, a lot...], and got to meet megan's aunt and uncle, who had arrived for the holidays. it was a perfect opportunity to blow off a bit of steam before facing the airport one more time. around 4:20, i said goodbye to megan's family (again!), and we set out on our way.

i'm not big on visualization. i find it to be new-age, oprah winfrey bullshit. but, i caught myself shutting my eyes on the way to the airport and visualizing the board at the united counter: Chicago O'Hare, 5:42 pm, ON TIME. Chicago O'Hare, 5:42 pm, ON TIME.

i got my comeuppance for trying such a moronic tactic.

i walked into the airport, walked over to the united counter: DELAYED. i hoped it was just a short delay...twenty minutes or so. any more than that, and there was no way i was going to be able to make my flight from chicago to st. louis. i should have known better, though: what i hope for on this trip today is never what happens. i talked to the ticketing agents, and got the following bits of news:

• bad: the plane that we're supposed to take from greenville to chicago won't be landing until 7:30 tonight.
• worse: air traffic control has held the plane until 9:53 tonight.
• even worse: i'll miss my connection, and even if i would have made my connection, the flight to st. louis may be cancelled due to mechanical failures.
• shoot me now: there aren't any open seats on flights to st. louis until sunday, december 23.

so, i was faced with two choices: chancing it in greenville until sunday and then hoping i can get out of here, or flying out to chicago late tonight, staying around there for two days, and then trying to get from there to st. louis on sunday. i chose the second option just for the sheer numbers: there are a lot more flights from chicago to st. louis than there are from greenville to chicago...or really, from greenville to anywhere that lets me then connect to st. louis.

so, there's where my travel saga stands. i'm hanging out in the greenville airport, waiting for a flight to chicago. i'm nursing a beer, eating delectable airport food, and taking advantage of the ever more rare airport amenity: free wireless.

hopefully this flight won't be cancelled, and i'll get to chicago tonight. hopefully i'll get back to st. louis midday on sunday. given the way today is going i should really stop hoping for anything. but, it's about all i have to keep me sane.

holiday travel is full of win, for once.

i'm still hanging out at the greenville airport...and we're not slated to fly out until 10:17 tonight.

but...my two day layover in chicago has been extended to five. :) i'm going to be in chicago from tonight¹ until midday wednesday, and spending christmas with foofy_attorney and his family. ♥

if anyone in chicago wants to do anything with me this weekend, give me a call or just leave a comment!

***
¹ hopefully, tonight. hopefully we'll actually get out of here, and the idea of a flight leaving greenville isn't just a pipe dream.