Internet Data and Telephones

We have a school holiday in Utah during the month of October for the Utah Education Association or UEA. It is a 2-day conference where teachers go and learn how to be better educators. The rest of us refer to it as Utah's Exodus to Anaheim as it is a great time to take the family to Disneyland. I know that Disneyland can be crowded and so I wanted to avoid it at all costs. Instead I took my wife and son someplace else. Unfortunately I still found myself yesterday morning at the Los Angeles International Airport trying to catch a flight back to Salt Lake. Chaos is the only word that can describe the situation.

Our previous flight had a mechanical issue and so we were late getting to Los Angeles. We landed with 20 minutes before our next flight was scheduled to depart. While we all managed to get to the new gate with 10 minutes to spare, the airline saw fit to give our seats away. We were told it was an oversold flight. There was one remaining available seat and so I sent my wife home assuming my son and I would be able to catch a flight later in the day. Unfortunately there were no available flights to Salt Lake and the best any airline could do was put me on a plane the next morning. That was unacceptable as I had to catch a 6:45 am flight this morning out of Salt Lake.

I was glad to have my iPhone with the Southwest app as I could verify that they didn't have any flights. You see, I was on another carrier and the rest of the airline industry doesn't get along with Southwest and so they don't share flight information. Being able to look that up on my own helped me realize what a dire predicament I was in. It also illustrates that just because you have Internet accessible data, doesn't mean your problems will be solved. In my case it only illustrated how really screwed I was.

With no flights available it was time to go to plan B: Hertz rental car. Salt Lake is only a 9-hour drive from Los Angeles. A single phone call later to 1-800-CAR-GOLD and I had a reservation for an economy car. I then spent the rest of the day having quality time with my son while we made the drive. I arrived at home just after 9pm. When I asked my son where he wanted to go next year for UEA, he replied, "Let's just stay home."