One More Night in the Windy City

Tuesday, August 09, 2005, at 04:54PM

By Eric Richardson

Today's plans to get to Chicago via train went off perfectly. Kathy and I boarded the 10:30 South Shore train in Michigan City and were in Chicago at noon. We wandered around pretty much every block on the loop, ate a great dinner, picked my bags up from the lockers at Union Station, and I took her back to the station. She intended to catch the 7:18 train, but the 6pm had been delayed and she caught that out at 6:45pm instead. I walked back to the Blue Line and rode out to O'Hare.

I wasn't checking any bags, so check-in took a literal thirty seconds. The security line was non-existant; I was worried I wouldn't have my metal objects out of my pockets and into my bag before I got to the front. All told, I was at the gate ten minutes after entering the airport.

Then they cancelled my flight.

They actually cancelled it ahead of time, though, ahead of even when we were supposed to be boarding. They first said we were waiting on a crew, then changed to a mechanical-based cancellation. I stood in line for a bit and now find myself sitting in the Doubletree Hotel in Rosemont, with a good night of sleep ahead of me at United's expense.

Being the bum that I am, I asked the United guy for a 1pm flight so I could get a good night's sleep. That puts me back in LA at 3pm tomorrow.

My original flight tonight was scheduled for 10pm. That's about what time I made it to the hotel, and a few minutes later I was up in my room sitting here at the laptop when I heard it absolutely start pouring rain outside. Lightning and thunder followed closely. I'm sure if United had waited just a bit they could have turned this into a weather-based cancellation and gotten out of the room obligations (or at least I think that's how that works). I definitely prefer it this way.