Getting to Cincinnati Was Only Half the Fun

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For months I’ve been hearing nightmarish stories from fellow travelers about delays, cancellations, and  a general downturn in service in the airline industry.  Until this week, I really hadn’t been affected by it.  Turns out I’ve just been getting lucky.  Due to some severe weather in Dallas, my mid-morning flight was delayed (at the last minute – we had actually boarded the plane), and my connecting flight was canceled.  Later flights were also in danger of not leaving Dallas.  As a precaution, our internal travel folks booked me a direct Austin to Cincinnati flight for later in the day on another airline.  So far, I couldn’t blame the airlines, but that all changed when I tried to get ahold of my luggage. 

My original airline (let’s call them "Airline AA") told me there was no way to get my luggage off the delayed flight.  When I explained that I was trying to catch a different flight, they were very nice, but insisted again that my luggage would be traveling (maybe) with the plane that it was on. On top of that, it was quite possible that all flights out of Dallas would be canceled that day, and my bag would probably end up on a carousel somewhere – well, somewhere other than Cincinnati.

Knowing that I HAD to be in Cincinnati that night, I opted to part company with my luggage and hopped the alternate flight.  I arrived in Cincy at 7:30pm and began reconstructing the materials I would need for the SWUGN Summit event the next morning.  On to Office Depot for badges, folders, pens and paper, and a quick trip to Kinkos to reprint everything.  A side trip to a grocery store and a department store (clothes and such) and I was almost set.  One last detail – all of the prizes for the event were still in Texas.  I had to think up something else:

Prizes

Even though there was a lot of scrambling, the SWUGN Summit – Cincinnati turned out to be a great event.  Thanks to all of the users to attended, and special thanks to the local user group leaders for their help and support – Dave Burbrink, Randy Adams, Dan Bertschi, and Richard and Graham Wand.  I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention Larry Moore and Jeremy Regnerus of SolidWorks, and from 3DVision, the man who from now on shall be known as KevinJeff Sweeney.

And my luggage?  It finally showed up in Cincinnati late Monday night.  Airline "AA" wouldn’t deliver it because I didn’t take their flight, and Airline "B" wouldn’t deliver it because they didn’t "lose" it.  So I drove to the airport and picked it up myself.

Richard Doyle

Richard Doyle

My official title is Senior User Advocacy & SolidWorks User Groups - but most people just call me "The User Group Guy". I've been a SolidWorks user since 1997, and was one of the founding members of the SWUGN Committee. Since starting the Central Texas SolidWorks User Group in 1999, my career path has led me to DS SolidWorks and a dream job supporting the SolidWorks User Group Network worldwide.
Richard Doyle

@https://twitter.com/swugn

Richard Doyle