My Wild Ride Home

I think I finally have the energy to fully relive my flight home in writing. Christmas was great and spending time with family was great, and I'm really glad I actually made it home to spend that time with family.

So let us start at the beginning. I left Princeton at 12:30 p.m. EST and got to the airport at 2:00. Before leaving I had upgraded the seat on the second leg of my flight, so I was looking forward to that. My flight was scheduled to leave at 5:25 and when I checked my luggage, my flight was still on time, though the agent warned me that that could change at any time. Bad omen. So I decide to get something to eat before going through security and waiting at the gate (Newark is weird in that you go through security when you want to get to your gate, not when you first enter the airport; doesn't sound safe or logical to me, but that's just me). So I go through security, which is rather painless, and arrive at my gate. Let the fun begin. At about 3:15, they announced that the flight leaving at 3:25 had been canceled. There was no announcement that the flight had even been delayed, it was simply canceled.

I went to the agent to see if any information was available on my flight. This agent was what made my time in Newark actually enjoyable. He said he wasn't sure what was going to happen to our flight because of the mismanagement happening at Milwaukee. It wasn't weather problems or computer glitches that were causing delays but poor management at the various airports. So we were basically stuck in the waiting game. Our plane was stuck in Milwaukee and was only doing a roundtrip flight between the two cities, so if it made it to Newark, it was going to head back to Milwaukee.

At this point I called up my friend Christine, who lives in the Milwaukee area. She told me that if I got stuck in Milwaukee to give her call, and since it was looking that way, I decided it was good idea to give her call. Thankfully the offer was still good so my goal became getting to Milwaukee. Meanwhile, I was checking with the agent to see what options I had and to continue to get information. He was letting me look at the screen where he was getting his information from. He called up Continental airlines to see if he could get me on a direct flight to LAX, which like everyone else was overbooked.

Finally at about 6:30, we found out that the flight in Milwaukee had pushed out from the gate, and was getting ready to head out to Newark. I had met another guy there who had been waiting at the airport for two days waiting for a flight to Milwaukee. We headed off to one of the sandwich places in the terminal (still inside security) to celebrate. We had a good conversation and I found out that he was a youth leader for a few years. He was also a new father of 7 months and his baby boy is very cute. It was a nice break in the mid of the craziness. A half hour before we were even certain that we were going to leave Newark.

Before the flight left, I had also talked to the agent about switching the second leg of the flight, so that I had a seat on a flight home. He booked me on the next flight out of Milwaukee for LAX that next morning at 8:00 and I was told I would have a guaranteed seat. So things seemed to be falling in place. Our flight finally got off the ground at about 8:30, over three hours delayed. I arrived in Milwaukee after a fairly peaceful flight, and Christine's family picked me up at the airport.

At her house, we called Midwest airlines again so that I could be sure that I had a guaranteed seat on the flight. The woman over the phone told me that yes, I did have a guaranteed seat, so I was able to sleep 2 hours fairly peacefully until I needed to be up again to go to the airport. I arrived in Milwaukee at about 10:30ish CST and got to bed about 3:00 CST.

We left for the airport in freezing temperatures with a pretty good snowfall going at 6:15 a.m. CST. When I arrived at the airport, I did curbside check-in, got everything checked in about 2 minutes and things were looking good. I was told again that I had guaranteed seat on the flight, so I was pretty relaxed. Christine and I got coffee in the airport before we got to security. After that, I went to the gate and waited for the LAX agent to arrive. I needed to redeem my flight coupon for a boarding pass at the gate.

The LAX agent arrived and I went to redeem my boarding pass ... and I'm told I don't have a guaranteed seat on the flight. I was very upset and it was looking like I was going to be stuck in Milwaukee another day (not a bad thing though; I just wanted to get home). I was first on standby, but the way things had been going with other passengers, I was not getting my hopes up.

Thankfully I managed to get a seat on the plane, but it was not an upgraded seat; quite the opposite, I was almost toward the complete rear of the plane. No matter really; I was just glad to be getting home.

The flight was delayed by 40 minutes before they started boarding. I got on the plane and waited for take off. After a half hour I was still waiting. An hour passed, and we were still at the gate. An hour and half, same story. Finally, after two and a half hours of sitting at the gate for various different reasons (getting passengers on board, waiting for a fuel truck, air controller delays, asking passengers to give up seats for three free round-trip tickets to let other passengers on board) we finally took off (at 12:00 CST). Everyone on the flight, including the pilot, was edgy (though the pilot was tactfully and discreetly so)

At about 1:50 p.m. PST we touched down at LAX. Everything after that was pretty smooth, surprisingly enough. We got out of LAX quickly, and I headed home.

So that was my exciting trip home. I'm just got off the phone with Midwest airlines and they're going to look into my flight and see what sort of compensation I'm going to get. Once that's finished, I can finally put this thing away and just relax and enjoy my time at home. Here's hoping getting back to Princeton is not anywhere near as hectic.

Wishing Everyone a Merry Christmas

I just want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. I realize I haven't updated in awhile, and I'm planning on posting about my latest travel adventures after Christmas. But I am thankful to be home among family and friends, and I hope that everyone enjoys time with their families and friends.

Christ the savior for the world is born!

Spring Semester Schedule

And now the moment some of you have been waiting for: my schedule for next semester. I'm only taking 13 units this semester. After having endured a 16 unit semester, I understand why the seminary is changing the curriculum so that we don't have to earn as many units; 16 units is a lot of carry. So here are my classes for next semester:

Speech Communication II w/ Luke Powery - Monday 1:30-2:20 pm
Hebrew II w/ Jeremy Hutton - Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday 9:00-9:50 am
History of Christianity 102 w/ James Moorhead and James Deming - Tuesday and Thursday 8:00 - 8:50 am
The Radical Reformation Ch 350 w/ Ken Appold - Monday 10:40 - 12:30, Friday 11:40 - 12:30
Foundations of Missional Theology EC/TH 457 w/ John Flett - Thursday 2:30 - 4:20, Friday 2:30 - 3:20

The big advantages of this schedule:
- Less units
- No class Wednesday
- I'm done at 10:00 am on Tuesday
- With the exception of Ch 102, I'm taking with professors I'm somewhat familiar with

Hopefully those factors will make next semester a little more enjoyable. This semester has been a little less than that, so I trust that it will get better.

A Sense of Relief

I received word officially today that I will not be a part of the 2008-2009 international field education program. That means I won't be going to Scotland next year. Though that may sound disappointing, I'm actually really relieved. I think it would have been a great opportunity to go abroad, but at the same time it's a huge time commitment, and being able to spend a year here with my new friends and continuing to refine myself will be a better situation I think. Now I have to figure out where I will be doing my field education placement for the next academic year, but I'm not too worried about that. But I wanted to make sure everyone got that update.

Winter can be Very Nice

I woke up this morning and when I looked out the window I saw this. It was a beautiful morning.

My First Semester Injury

Well, I have my first battle wounds at Princeton. I was working the Princeton Basketball game on Wednesday for work. It's a very nice stadium: really big and then it goes five stories down. Anyway, in order to set up merchandise we have to bring up to eight foot tables from the fourth floor. So we were tearing down after we had finished and I was bringing the tables back down to the storage area. They were stacked on a lay-down dolly one on top of the other. So as I taking the first table off the dolly, I didn't pick it up well enough so that it jostled the second table. Sure enough, the other table fell off the dolly and directly onto my left big toe. Now, I was only wearing my converse sneakers, and due to the fact that I was holding the other table, I couldn't see the other table moving. So when it landed on my toe, there was very little absorbing the brunt of its weight aside from my foot, and I didn't brace myself for it. So after trying to walk it off, I kept going. After I got back to my dorm, I propped it up and tried to keep it elevated.

The next day it was a nice shade of purple. I was going to wait just a little bit before seeing a doctor to make sure that it wasn't just a bad bruise. Not much happened except that as I was walking down the sidewalk, there was a lip in the concrete and I caught it with my left foot. That didn't feel good.

It wasn't too swollen but it was growing increasingly purple so I decided to get it checked out this morning. And sure enough, it's probably broken. I still need to have it X-rayed to confirm that it is indeed broken, but either way, the only thing I can do for it is to have it bandaged up. Thankfully it's not very painful unless I put weight on it or do something stupid like kick a lip in the sidewalk or bump it on my bedpost. I just can't walk very well or very fast. So I'll probably be limping around campus for the final few weeks of school. But it's not too bad.