This place has WiFi?

Oh yeah, SXSW definitely has WiFi. Like, all over the place. But, what I really can't believe is this crap-hole of a motel I'm staying at tonight in Florence, KY has WiFi. Who knew? Oh... Yeah, I'm still in the midwest because the damn flight got cancelled. Apparently, they were short crew members, or the fellas they had were at the limit on flight hours? Who knows. What we do know is that we had plane, de-iced and ready to go, just no one to fly it.

So, that's when the saga begins...

Once the cancellation was announced, we all lined up to get flights to Austin for the next day. They best that could be done is a flight at 4:30, or something like that. This will pretty much make us miss the entire first day of the conference - that totally sucks.

So, with the cancellation, we are offered hotel rooms on Delta for the night. After a little deliberation, we decide that it would be best to actually take the hotel instead of getting Julie's car out of long-term parking and heading home on crappy roads. Plus, the weather for tomorrow is suppose to be bad too, so that's another trip to the airport that we would have to make. so, let's just take it easy, get transportation to and from the hotel and play it safe. Cool.

So, at this point, the shuttle to the hotel we were given a room at is no longer running - it's midnight. We had up to the taxi stand to get a cab. The guy running the cab stand declares to me "we have not cabs". Great, what does that mean? Well, eventually, after him bitching about the hotel shuttle, he gets back to the point that there will be more cabs by in a few minutes. He eventually gives us a slip and tells us the cab will be by in 3 minutes. What's the deal? Whatever, we have transportation lined up.

Julie and I, along with another stranded (and quite pissed off) traveler hop in the cab and head to the hotel. Upon our arrival at the hotel, we see that it's PACKED with folks trying to check in. The line to the front desk wraps around the lobby and pretty much out the door.

After 15 minutes or so of waiting in line, the hotel manager comes out and declares that they are over-booked, but he will find a place for everyone to stay. This seems like quite a simple statement to announce, but he somehow made it very difficult to understand and pretty much had to repeat it three times before anyone understood what was going on.

So, no one budged. everyone stayed in line and didn't try to get other accommodations at the other hotel he was talking about.

Another 15 minutes goes by and the manager comes out again and asks if folks with a later flight could hop in their shuttle bus and take a room at the other hotel. Consider there were still many people ahead of us in line at the hotel, Julie and I jump on the chance to take the shuttle and expidite the prosses. We hop aboard a 15 passenger van along with 6 sassy black ladies. While waiting for what seemed for an eternity for the shuttle drive to come out and get going, the sassy ladies kept us quite entertained. Maybe it was late and we were punchy, but it was pretty funny.

Alright, so we eventually get back on the road and head down 75 to Florence to the Microtel or some crapfest of a place to stay. I really have no clue what this place is called. The room key card has a Domino's ad with the room number taped to it. No Hotel logo or anything. I guess this is why the hotel manager said it was "a nice place" and "newly renovated". Unfortunately, we were out of ear-shot when he said that. I might have waited it out at the first hotel if I heard that. It was nice place.

So, we are now checked in and each of us has rooms. It has a bed, a TV and WiFi. There is some old Matt Dillon movie on Oh!, so I've got that going for me. We will get an early start over the airport in the morning and hang out there all day. I would much rather be in Austin, of course.