On the road again: Portland, day 5

So much for that hope.

When I went to bed late last night, we were on our scheduled American Airlines flights with bandwidth on the planes and a first-class upgrade on the first leg. Yee-haw!

When I reached the airport, I learned that thunderstorms in the midwest had led American to cancel our flights and book us on new flights that wouldn't get us home until Saturday.

No, that would not work.

After much waiting and forced pleasantries, we were able to get them to rebook us on Delta flights arriving four hours later tonight--but arriving today. Of course, we gave up first-class seats and instead had middle seats far apart, but at least we had seats. Mine was a gem, sandwiching me between two guys each of whom had shoulders at least as wide as mine. The plane offered bandwidth, so I worked, but we were so cramped that I had to brace the edge of the laptop on my legs and type looking down into the "V" shape it made. Not fun.

When we reached Atlanta, our gate was occupied, so we didn't get off the plane until it was time for our other flight to board. Much speed-walking and train riding later, we reached our gate to find that our flight was running late.

Still, I made it home, and only about five hours later than I'd planned.

Ah, the joys of business travel.