Hilton Garden Inn, Austin
Monday was not a good day. Tuesday was much better.
When I checked in at the airport Monday morning, I learned that the Internet was down throughout eastern Washington. Probably another back hoe digging up a fiber optic cable. Since I had checked in on-line Sunday, this didn't affect me. Except for the bag. I had three pieces (laptop case, data projector, and clean clothes) and TSA allows two. When I packed Sunday night, I thought, "How could they screw up? Transfer one bag in Minneapolis from one plane to another with an hour to do it." So I packed my projector and clothes in one bag and checked it. Travel light. Since the network was down, they had to attach a handwritten bag tag. As you anticipated, the bag did not arrive in Houston when I did!
So I filled out the missed bag report at the Houston airport and went to the rental car facility. Enterprise had a nice Ford Focus awaiting. I then drove to the Houston Office Depot on US 290 to pick up my printing order. What order? It seems that all the remote printing jobs through the Internet for this area are being funneled through Dallas, and the truck had not delivered my job to the Houston store. Even though I received a message that my job was done and ready for pickup! So they printed it from scratch locally, which took about three hours for half the job.
I now had enough workbooks for my Austin class. I left the store about 8 p.m., for the three-hour drive to Austin. It took three hours. I checked into the hotel and asked if my boxes from ASQ were there. The front desk guy said, "Yes, they are in the luggage storage closet." I replied, "I will get them in the morning." I also asked the night manager too call me if my airline bag arrived. (I did not expect it until Tuesday afternoon.) At 2 a.m. she called to say it was there and she would deliver it outside my door. Yipee! I had my data projector and clean clothes.
When I went downstairs Tuesday morning, I asked about my UPS boxes in the storage closet around the corner from the front desk. What boxes? The only one was from my colleague, containing his workbooks and handouts for the Wednesday session. So I had to go online to get the UPS tracking data, to tell them who signed for it on Monday morning at 9:36. They called him and he said the boxes were in the sales office. Found em! I managed to get most of the room set up by the time folks started rolling in about 7:45.
Everyone on the registration lists showed up. There were no last-minute additions or walk-ins. The class went very well. All were attentive and asked good questions. Our lunch was served on time and the baked potato with soup and salad buffet went over nicely. We are the only meeting here, so we had complete staff attention. This is a very well-run property and I told the manager.
I slept in today (Wednesday) and will drive back to Houston. First stop will be Office Depot to pick up the rest of my print job, then on to the Fairfield Inn to drop off my stuff. Then I will return the rental car (saving a day's charges) and shuttle back to the hotel for Thursday's class. I fly home Thursday evening right after the class is finished.
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