Adventures in traveling...

Well folks, I am in San Diego. I will be here for a few days working on-site at my biggest client's conference.

The trip out here could have sucked a lot more, but it was by no means my best experience. It felt more like a comedy of errors.

Issues started on Thursday when my boss attempted to check me in and got all of our information jumbled. I took it upon myself to re-check-in on Delta.com. Being a skymiles member, I attempted to attach my account number to the flight, only to find that i first had to change my name on the account. "No problem," I foolishly thought. when I changed the name on my Discover card, all it took was a phone call and a brief sales pitch for whatever financial protection they were offering that week. And that was a credit card - a skymiles account should be a breeze. Wrong.

I called the customer service # and was told that I have to fax a request that includes my current name, my requested new name, and a copy of my marriage certificate. I asked if I could go ahead and get credit for my current flight, but the customer service person said it wouldn't work until I change my name, so i have to send in copies of my boarding passes as well. we will handle that next week.

I return to the Delta site to continue re-checking-in and I have the option of selecting a new seat. My boss made all of the travel arrangements through Expedia and he told them that I wanted either a window or an aisle seat - which is fine. However, I have managed to strain my foot/ankle, ram my knee into a table, and drop and iPad on my foot - all left side of course. So, I decided to change my seat to an aisle seat, closer to the front of the plane, on the right side specifically so that I could have room to stretch out my left leg and have no one on that side to bother me.

Cue Friday - I head to the airport super early to make sure that I can easily maneuver long term parking/shuttles, and go to the actual ticket counter to look at my boarding pass one more time. Oh, did I mention that my boss spelled my name wrong? So I go to the counter, the chick fixed my boarding pass and took my luggage. I breezed through security, grabbed some Chick-fil-a and propped myself down next to the only available outlet so fire up the PC and follow up on a few emails. I played a quick game of "OMG, is that Bootsy Collins?" and waited for my zone to board.

As I pass my boarding pass to the Gatekeeper, it doesn't beep like all the others. Crap! She informed me that my seat has been reassigned tot he other side of the aisle so that another party (who obviously checked in after me) could sit together. Fun. Fortunately, no one sat int he middle see between me and Little Miss Pees A Lot. She got up at least 4 times that I could remember to go to the bathroom. And she was super skinny with the ability to squeeze between me and the seat in front of me, so she never bothered to wait for me to move. I sat reading my latest book purchase: Are You There Vodka? It's me Chelsea. I think my incessant giggling bugged my bladderless neighbor and overly made up chick who just had to have my original seat.

My second flight from LAX to SD lasted about 45 minutes (24 minutes in the air). I again chose a new seat than was originally assigned. It was next to a much larger man  who couldn't quite get the arm rest down. I decided not to let it bother me as I only had to sit next to him for 45 minutes. Until he fell asleep and kept sliding down in his seat. He smelled kinda funny too - kinda musty, like the awesome denim shirt that he was wearing had been packed away in the attic for the last 20 years since it was "cool" and he decided that yesterday was THE day to wear it.

All-in-all, not a bad day. And San Diego is, as always, beautiful. The weather is perfect. It got a little chilly as the boss and I walked back to the hotel after dinner in the gas light area, but nothing that an extra sweater or jacket couldn't handle.

Today we head over to the convention center. I was told that today is the "easiest" of all our days. We are only scheduled for about 8 hours of prep work.

Fun.