My hubby & I have now returned to the East Coast from snowy Colorado. The snow was beautiful, but it's a pain in the butt when it causes delays/cancellations of flights back home. My hubby's itinerary was changed 3 times in one day by the airlines due to cancellations related to an anticipated storm (i.e. the storm had not even started). Luckily, he did make it on a flight, albeit much later than he had hoped, and made it home safely.
I spent one extra day with my family and flew out the day after the big storm, so no major problems for my air travel (excepting the 1 hour delay due to ?who knows what?). My hubby was a total sweetie and picked me up at the airport at 1:30 am. What made it even sweeter was that he had arrived just the night before at around the same time, had to get up about 6 hours later to go to work, then stay up and wait for me.
After a night of rest and sleeping in, we continued our holiday travels. We braved the NJ & NY roads and have come up to Connecticut to see my in-laws and celebrate a very nice 2nd Christmas. Tonight was "Christmas Eve" when we exchanged gifts. Tomorrow will be "Christmas Day" when we will have our traditional Christmas dinner followed by church.
Oh how great are the Holidays...especially when they never seem to end!
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Rough Trip to the Rockies
December 23rd began my annual trek out to Colorado to have Christmas with my family. Even more exciting this year is that my "new" hubby (we've been together for almost 6 years, but we just got married this summer and this is the first year he is joining my family for the Holidays) is accompanying me on the trek. We booked our flights for Sunday evening thinking we would have the weekend to pack/relax, then make it to my family's home in time for all the Christmas festivities.
The (not so) friendly skies had a different plan for us.
We planned our travel day well...gave ourselves plenty of time to make it to the off-site parking lot, thus giving us plenty of time to make it to the airport to check our bags, thus giving us plenty of time to make our 5 pm flight.
Being a neurotic planner, I of course checked the status of our flight before leaving home. The United website told me that our flight was delayed until 7 pm. Trying to be optimistic, I figured we ought to get to the airport in time for a possible 5 pm departure anyway.
We arrived at the parking lot at 2:45 pm. I had located & printed out an online coupon to save us $5 per day of parking. Unfortunately, I forgot that during the Holidays, lots of people fly to see family, thus parking their cars. The lot had room for us, but would not let us use our discount coupon. We had to weigh the pros & cons...ultimately, we didn't have enough time to find another parking lot that may or may not have been cheaper, so we agreed to pay the full price. Good decision, given that the airport was likely going to be crowded and we wanted plenty of time to check bags/pass through security/get to our gate with time to spare.
We arrived at check-in at 3 pm. Given that the Newark airport does not have many United Airlines flights, our check in line was about 1 person long. We got through in 5 mins. With so much time to spare, we figured we could hang out in the airport food court for a bit before going through security and limiting our options for food & entertainment. By 3:30 pm, we headed to security, just in case the line was super long. The line was actually super short. We got through in 5 minutes. That was with shoes, coats, backpacks, and a bag full of wrapped gifts (I had nightmares about the TSA agents demanding to open all of the gifts, including the ones to my hubby, who would have been standing next to me at the time).
As we approached our gate, we decided to check the status of our flight yet again. So much for my optimism...our flight was now delayed until 9 pm. Ugh. That meant 5-1/2 hours of waiting at the gate. Good thing I brought a few books! We were pleased to see a mini-TGI Friday's near our gate, and planned on having dinner there a bit later. We parked ourselves near an electical outlet so my hubby could play games on his laptop, and we settled in for our long wait.
Every now & then, I would get up and check out the flight status monitors...optimistically thinking that our flight would suddenly say "boarding". No such luck. Our flight was unfortunately not the only one delayed. In the area surrounding our gate, there were hundreds of people waiting to be told when their aircraft would arrive so that their flight could take off. Even worse, a couple of flights were cancelled. No sensible reason was given, just that "air traffic control" was not allowing flights to come into Newark. My best guess was high winds & rain, but that was never confirmed.
Right before we packed up our stuff to head to TGIF's, we checked the monitor again. AGH!! Our flight had been delayed again...we were now scheduled to leave at 10:40 pm. What bothered me most was not that we would have to wait another couple of hours (though I was certainly not HAPPY about this), but that at some point the airline reps would come on the loud speaker and say, "Sorry folks...we know you've been waiting for your flight for 6 hours, but it's now been cancelled and the next open flight is Christmas Day." I crossed my fingers and headed to dinner.
We had our mediocre dinner, sharing our 4 person table with a very nice couple who was waiting for their flight to San Francisco to leave, and headed back to find some seats to wait for another couple hours. Time was now about 7 pm. I was getting extremely bored with my book at this point, and didn't want to take out my i-pod (fearing that I would run the battery down with our long wait). I entertained myself for a bit watching my hubby play his computer game, watching a couple of kids run around like little maniacs, and walking around to look at the flight status monitors.
A miracle happened at about 9:50 pm. Our aircraft had arrived at the gate!!! Having seen a brand new pair of pilots walks behind the podium, I knew we were safe from the "timing out" issues other flights were having. Within 20 minutes, we were boarding and the end was in sight.
Four hours later, we touched down in Denver. It may have been 1 am Mountain time (3 am Eastern time), but I was awake & excited! We were finally in Colorado!
After a good night's sleep, our terrible travel day was a long lost memory. Who cares how long it took to get home?? We were just happy to be home!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
The (not so) friendly skies had a different plan for us.
We planned our travel day well...gave ourselves plenty of time to make it to the off-site parking lot, thus giving us plenty of time to make it to the airport to check our bags, thus giving us plenty of time to make our 5 pm flight.
Being a neurotic planner, I of course checked the status of our flight before leaving home. The United website told me that our flight was delayed until 7 pm. Trying to be optimistic, I figured we ought to get to the airport in time for a possible 5 pm departure anyway.
We arrived at the parking lot at 2:45 pm. I had located & printed out an online coupon to save us $5 per day of parking. Unfortunately, I forgot that during the Holidays, lots of people fly to see family, thus parking their cars. The lot had room for us, but would not let us use our discount coupon. We had to weigh the pros & cons...ultimately, we didn't have enough time to find another parking lot that may or may not have been cheaper, so we agreed to pay the full price. Good decision, given that the airport was likely going to be crowded and we wanted plenty of time to check bags/pass through security/get to our gate with time to spare.
We arrived at check-in at 3 pm. Given that the Newark airport does not have many United Airlines flights, our check in line was about 1 person long. We got through in 5 mins. With so much time to spare, we figured we could hang out in the airport food court for a bit before going through security and limiting our options for food & entertainment. By 3:30 pm, we headed to security, just in case the line was super long. The line was actually super short. We got through in 5 minutes. That was with shoes, coats, backpacks, and a bag full of wrapped gifts (I had nightmares about the TSA agents demanding to open all of the gifts, including the ones to my hubby, who would have been standing next to me at the time).
As we approached our gate, we decided to check the status of our flight yet again. So much for my optimism...our flight was now delayed until 9 pm. Ugh. That meant 5-1/2 hours of waiting at the gate. Good thing I brought a few books! We were pleased to see a mini-TGI Friday's near our gate, and planned on having dinner there a bit later. We parked ourselves near an electical outlet so my hubby could play games on his laptop, and we settled in for our long wait.
Every now & then, I would get up and check out the flight status monitors...optimistically thinking that our flight would suddenly say "boarding". No such luck. Our flight was unfortunately not the only one delayed. In the area surrounding our gate, there were hundreds of people waiting to be told when their aircraft would arrive so that their flight could take off. Even worse, a couple of flights were cancelled. No sensible reason was given, just that "air traffic control" was not allowing flights to come into Newark. My best guess was high winds & rain, but that was never confirmed.
Right before we packed up our stuff to head to TGIF's, we checked the monitor again. AGH!! Our flight had been delayed again...we were now scheduled to leave at 10:40 pm. What bothered me most was not that we would have to wait another couple of hours (though I was certainly not HAPPY about this), but that at some point the airline reps would come on the loud speaker and say, "Sorry folks...we know you've been waiting for your flight for 6 hours, but it's now been cancelled and the next open flight is Christmas Day." I crossed my fingers and headed to dinner.
We had our mediocre dinner, sharing our 4 person table with a very nice couple who was waiting for their flight to San Francisco to leave, and headed back to find some seats to wait for another couple hours. Time was now about 7 pm. I was getting extremely bored with my book at this point, and didn't want to take out my i-pod (fearing that I would run the battery down with our long wait). I entertained myself for a bit watching my hubby play his computer game, watching a couple of kids run around like little maniacs, and walking around to look at the flight status monitors.
A miracle happened at about 9:50 pm. Our aircraft had arrived at the gate!!! Having seen a brand new pair of pilots walks behind the podium, I knew we were safe from the "timing out" issues other flights were having. Within 20 minutes, we were boarding and the end was in sight.
Four hours later, we touched down in Denver. It may have been 1 am Mountain time (3 am Eastern time), but I was awake & excited! We were finally in Colorado!
After a good night's sleep, our terrible travel day was a long lost memory. Who cares how long it took to get home?? We were just happy to be home!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
Saturday, December 22, 2007
The Office Holiday Party
When it comes to the "office holiday party", there is about as much variance in how to put on one of these shindigs as there are towns in NJ that I have never heard of (i.e. a lot). Having never had a "real" job--meaning that even though I've been out of school for 5 years, as a physician-in-training, most people (family included) ask me "how is school?"--I can't say that I've attended any great holiday parties...that is until just recently!
When I was growing up, I remember going shopping with my mother for sparkly evening gowns or the like that she would wear to my Pop's company holiday party. The event was always held in the ballroom in a posh hotel in downtown Denver. There were, I imagined, amazing hors d'oevres, plenty of wine & spirits, dancing, and prom-like photographs for all the employees and their spouses/partners/significant others.
Suffice it to say that I was very disappointed when I went to my first "office" holiday party ("office" being in quotations because it's a stretch to call the department of psychiatry an "office"). To name just a few reasons why it was a disappointment: It was on a weekday, during the work day, and the attire was "come as your are" (i.e. in your white coat with your patient notes hanging out of your pockets), the food was mediocre, there was no alcohol (for obvious reasons, but still...), and there was no dancing.
Coming to my new job, now in a child & adolescent psychiatry department, I didn't expect much of a difference. I have been pleasantly surprised. Not only are there multiple parties to attend (one of the perks of working at multiple hospital sites), but all the parties have taken place after work hours, had GREAT food, plenty of wine & spirits, and great company. Still no dancing, but beggers can't be choosers. Here are some photos of the 1st party of the season:
Left: A group of happy kiddie shrinks plus 2 hubbies (mine is on the far left).
Right: A co-worker & his adorable son.
My family-friendly office holiday party was followed, the next evening, by my hubby's ultra swanky office holiday party. This event, thrown in not just 1 but 2 ballrooms in a posh hotel in the NJ suburbs, was exactly what I have imagined when the topic of the office holiday party has come up. The food was amazing (at least 5 types of food stations with different national cuisines), there was free-flowing wine, beer, & spirits, and more kinds of desserts than I have ever imagined (the cannolis were amazing, as was the white chocolate fondue fountain). To satisfy anyone's musical preference, they had a live jazz quartet in one ballroom and a DJ spinning dance tunes in the other ballroom. Everyone was dressed to the nines, including 2 men wearing kilts. Check out some of the photos below:
Left: From left, a kilt-wearing guest, a co-worker, my hubby, & I.
When I was growing up, I remember going shopping with my mother for sparkly evening gowns or the like that she would wear to my Pop's company holiday party. The event was always held in the ballroom in a posh hotel in downtown Denver. There were, I imagined, amazing hors d'oevres, plenty of wine & spirits, dancing, and prom-like photographs for all the employees and their spouses/partners/significant others.
Suffice it to say that I was very disappointed when I went to my first "office" holiday party ("office" being in quotations because it's a stretch to call the department of psychiatry an "office"). To name just a few reasons why it was a disappointment: It was on a weekday, during the work day, and the attire was "come as your are" (i.e. in your white coat with your patient notes hanging out of your pockets), the food was mediocre, there was no alcohol (for obvious reasons, but still...), and there was no dancing.
Coming to my new job, now in a child & adolescent psychiatry department, I didn't expect much of a difference. I have been pleasantly surprised. Not only are there multiple parties to attend (one of the perks of working at multiple hospital sites), but all the parties have taken place after work hours, had GREAT food, plenty of wine & spirits, and great company. Still no dancing, but beggers can't be choosers. Here are some photos of the 1st party of the season:
Left: A group of happy kiddie shrinks plus 2 hubbies (mine is on the far left).
Right: A co-worker & his adorable son.
My family-friendly office holiday party was followed, the next evening, by my hubby's ultra swanky office holiday party. This event, thrown in not just 1 but 2 ballrooms in a posh hotel in the NJ suburbs, was exactly what I have imagined when the topic of the office holiday party has come up. The food was amazing (at least 5 types of food stations with different national cuisines), there was free-flowing wine, beer, & spirits, and more kinds of desserts than I have ever imagined (the cannolis were amazing, as was the white chocolate fondue fountain). To satisfy anyone's musical preference, they had a live jazz quartet in one ballroom and a DJ spinning dance tunes in the other ballroom. Everyone was dressed to the nines, including 2 men wearing kilts. Check out some of the photos below:
Left: From left, a kilt-wearing guest, a co-worker, my hubby, & I.
Right: A co-worker, after several drinks, doing a dare. (This photo has been removed at the request of my hubby, but imagine a well-dressed man licking an ice sculpture)
It's not even Christmas, and I've already had this much fun! Can't wait for the next party!
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
End of the Season
The Fantasy Football season is officially over for my team, the New Jersey Commuters. It's a bittersweet moment for me. While I no longer have to worry about how much my players are sucking week-by-week, I will miss the competition that was all in good fun.
If you have read my blog previously, you'll know that I had accepted the fact that I had a sucky team, but had made one (and only one) goal for my team this season: TO NOT FINISH LAST PLACE. I am extremely happy to report that while this is a really lame goal, I did achieve it.
Yes, folks, the New Jersey Commuters came in 11th place out of 12 teams in the Vagina Mono-League.
Furthermore, the New Jersey Commuters, while having terrible luck with match-ups and thus having a 4-9 record (that is wins-losses), still scored MORE points than some un-named team who is now in the Fantasy Football Playoffs. (Sorry, la Commish, that was a pretty low blow, but being at the bottom of the Fantasy Football barrell, I have to find something, anything to brag about, as petty as it may be. )
So, here's to next year with (hopefully) better players, better match-ups, and coming in 10th place!
If you have read my blog previously, you'll know that I had accepted the fact that I had a sucky team, but had made one (and only one) goal for my team this season: TO NOT FINISH LAST PLACE. I am extremely happy to report that while this is a really lame goal, I did achieve it.
Yes, folks, the New Jersey Commuters came in 11th place out of 12 teams in the Vagina Mono-League.
Furthermore, the New Jersey Commuters, while having terrible luck with match-ups and thus having a 4-9 record (that is wins-losses), still scored MORE points than some un-named team who is now in the Fantasy Football Playoffs. (Sorry, la Commish, that was a pretty low blow, but being at the bottom of the Fantasy Football barrell, I have to find something, anything to brag about, as petty as it may be. )
So, here's to next year with (hopefully) better players, better match-ups, and coming in 10th place!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)