Greetings, For those of you who had heard about my now infamous travel luck, this should come as no surprise. Another trip from hell (or perhaps there and back). It took me 16 hours to get home from Hartford, 11 of those on the ground somewhere. I booked through Dulles knowing that they seldom get snowed or iced in (I grew up in Baltimore, which has similar weather). Well, not yesterday, and combined with the problems at ORD (another big United hub), they were having trouble getting planes to Hartford so they could fly them out. Here are some of the lowlights: * No aircraft at Hartford - it was stuck at Dulles. They finally put all of us from that regional jet on a 737 that came in from Chicago. I left Hartford an hour late, but the flight I ended up on was more like 4 hours late and most on it had already missed connecting flights. * The wireless Internet at Hartford was broken. I had work to do, but no Internet or e-mail. * Arrived at Dulles (IAD) an hour late, but I still had over an hour to make my 8:20 p.m. flight to Oakland. It was listed as on time so I grabbed a carry-out dinner. * In 20 minutes time, the departure time changed from 8:20 to 9:15 to 10:00 to 11:00. * The aircraft was there, but various problems were cited: Flight crew time expired, lack of crews to staff the deicing equipment, and on and on. * No Internet available anywhere in the Dulles airport. * We eventually boarded around midnight, but waited 45 minutes for de-icing. They must have had only one guy doing this job by then because there weren't many departures. * The video system malfunctioned, so they had to do the safety demo live. * The PA system malfunctioned two-thirds through the safety demo, so the chief flight attendant (a real piece of work) insisted on starting over from the top. * A passenger one row in front of me made fun of the demo, so the chief flight attendant (who was up in first class and didn't see the incident the same way I did from across the aisle) decided to report the passenger to the pilot. Him shouting at her from 12 rows away (things like "We are working and you are making fools of us!") didn't help matters. We returned to the gate and the police boarded the plane to remover the passenger. But the chief attendant also had the passenger sitting next to her removed even though he hadn't done anything. It seems his feelings were hurt, so someone was going to pay. This cost us another hour on the ground. * After the third time through the safety demo, the chief was satisfied with the performance. * The movie ran, but no audio. * When I reclined my seat, the guy behind me would grab it and shake it violently, complaining he didn't have enough room. Normally, I would take this up with the flight crew, but I feared the nazi in charge would have me arrested when we got to Oakland if I complained about anything. * My bag wasn't there when I arrived. I figured with all that ground time, someone would think of something clever to do with it, and they did. The crack crew in Hartford managed to send it to Chicago. They called a while ago and apparently got it to Oakland (12 hours after my arrival here) and will deliver it this evening. With my luck, TSA will blow it up before it leaves the airport. 73, Andy Oppel, N6AJO Vice Director, Pacific Division American Radio Relay League (ARRL) The National Association for Amateur Radio n6ajo@arrl.org home: (510) 864-2299 cell: (510) 851-6214