Am in the hotel in mid Manhattan after a clusterfuck typical of NYC travel. As anybody who flies knows, it is pretty much impossible to involve O'Hare AND La Guardia in your itinerary without something fucking up. Naturally, we had to sit on the Tarmac for 40 minutes at O'Hare because they didn't have things sorted out at LGA. Wheee squared.
So I'll be here for a couple days to do some work with the New York City office. I've never been to these digs, so we'll see if they are in fact piled on top of each other (as I'm told they are, and that's pretty much how everybody is in NYC anyway). This is actually the first time I've traveled with RM. As part of the Omnicom fleet of agencies, we have a corporate travel agent. When looking over my itinerary before leaving I noticed that the notes section showed "purchase price is valid through April 11th after which they will be cancelled". What the fuck did that mean? The agency hadn't purchased the flight tix before sending this out? Needless to say, the train ride to O'hare (which was a clusterfuck in and of itself...apparently the blue line is under construction out there) was nerve-wracking. I went up to the self-service American Airlines Kiosk not exactly sure what was going to happen. All ended well. I guess we'll find out if they managed to book the hotel too (I'm assuming they did, but fuck it's mid Manhattan, somebody will have a room if they didn't).
Ran the Crazy Legs this weekend in Madison. Good times for sure. Didn't go quite as fast as I do around here, but that wasn't really the point anyway. After the race, I basically spent the afternoon and evening drinking off any health benefits the 8k distance would have brought me (not that 40 minutes of running is all that special anyway).
Oh, and this is a fun fact. Seems my iPass hasn't been pulling money from my account, for like the past year and a half (I had to switch atm/debit cards and they changed the number, but nobody from the highway people bothered to let me know it wasn't functioning). I got a lovely little letter in the mail from the Illinois Toll people looking to collect on not only the tolls I've "blown off" but also $20. The total damage? 1600 bucks. Jesus Aitch Christ that'd be hilarious if well, it just wasn't. I requested a hearing so we'll see if they can give me a break on those fees. It certainly wasn't intentional on my part (although I probably could have sensed something was amiss since it's never bothered to hit my card again). The long and the short of it is 1600 bucks in tolls 'n fines ain't exactly part of my 'financial plan'. I suppose I'll live without that money (if they hold me to it), but fuck can't a guy get a break?