Day 3: The Return of the Dolberry

9:15: Awake.

9:30: Go to fitness center. All 4 treadmills & 4 exercise bikes are in use. Head back up to room w/ another "its the thought that counts workout".

9:40: One thing Dolberry likes to do at hotels is to walk past the conference rooms & decide which meeting he would rather be attending on that day. Today, it's a close call between the "Cobra Resources Meeting" & the "Retired United Pilots Association Meeting". I suspect the RUPA folks might catch that Dolberry's too young looking still to be a retired pilot. Am guessing that the "Cobra Resources" meeting is a CIA-front for some upcoming paramilitary action in the jungles of Venezuela. Knowing Dolberry & his people-pleaser nature, I'd probably be on a flight to Caracas by dinner. So, I decide to do my SECA meeting instead.

11:15: Headed to meeting. Walk takes me right past CA Capitol. Is very nice. While I saw t-shirts that said "The Governator", I didn't actually see Arnold. Would have been a highlight of the trip had it happened (right behind that Dire Straits song). I still have some questions about the plot of Predator.


3:00: Meeting was fine. Get to airport & gate in time to find the people from the 1:30 flight to ORD, deboarding their plane. Can't think this bodes well for our 4:30 flight. Or making the connection into RDU. But the Sacramento airport provides free WiFi, so that's pretty nice.

4:00: Still waiting. According to united.com, our flight's scheduled for 5:50 & the flight to RDU is now scheduled for 2:00am to get in to Raleigh at 3:56a. Sheesh, I might as well go straight in to work.

5:15: Getting on plane.

6:00: Wheels up from Sacramento.

6:30: The baby that was crying in the terminal is still going strong in the plane. At one point in the overcrowded terminal there was a screaming baby, a blaring security buzzer, and a little yappy dog barking in a portable kennel ... all competing for the title of loudest irritant. My colleague said the scene only lacked someone w/ Tourette's. Dolberry thought a dash of Jehovah's Witnesses might be a nice addition.

7:15: Flight attendant takes screamer for a little walk. This only increases volume. But shortly after return, little one quiets down. They must have had a talk about "security considerations". In defense, Dolberry has had to don the headphones & the classic rock channel again. Still on the same loop. I've now listened to enough CSN, Pink Floyd, and late Beatles to experience some sort of secondhand hallucenogenic experience. At one point, I could swear that the baby was screaming in time w/ "Dark Side of the Moon".

7:30: Am really getting bored here. Looking forward to the Italian Beef place at O'Hare w/ probably an undue amount of excited anticipation. This has me thinking of my favorite roast-beef-related sandwiches of all time. Here's what I've got. If I've forgotten anything, let me know.

#8: Quizno's Smokehouse Beef Sandwich. Very good. Kinda pricey though.

#7: Jersey Mike's Philly Cheesesteak. GpD swears by this one. I agree they are excellent.

#6: Regular roast beef w/ homestyle fries at Arby's. Thankfully there's no Arby's nearby Dolberry, or there wouldn't be a plane that could get him off the ground.

#5: The Italian Beef sandwiches at O'Hare: Filled w/ juicy shirt-staining roastbeef goodness and supplemented w/ the gentle tongue-tinging taste of shredded sweet peppers. Also nicely complimented w/ fries.

#4: The hot roast beef and gravy sandwiches we used to get at that lunch place in Hikes Point. I want to say it was called Salmonella's, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't. It was right by that bowling alley that used to be there, if I remember right. Recall going there for lunch w/ Mom & GGma & Junior Dolberry always ordering the hot RB w/ gravy. Mmmmmmm.

#3: Any buffet or wedding reception where there's a guy w/ a funny white hat carving roast beef that you can put on those little buns & scarf down about 14 of 'em.

#2: The Philly Cheesesteaks at BrightHouse Stadium in Clearwater FL. It is impossible to explain how good these are. If it wasn't a 26 hr roundtrip trek to get these footlong slices of heaven on earth, I'd have at least one a day. As it is, I'm counting down the days until I next partake of them. 91.

#1: The sandwiches Mom used to make for my school lunch after we'd have a rump roast for Sunday dinner (if Junior Dolberry didn't eat it all the preceding night). Meat, Miracle Whip, White Bread, & the touch of Mom's love that makes everything just a little bit more special.

7:55: Believe DCV has officially "jumped the shark" w/ the Top 8 roast beef countdown.

8:30: TV had an episode of "The Office". Love that show. "The office is like a jungle. I am like a tiger. And Dwight is like the monkey who stabs the tiger in the back. But we don't know what's in the tiger's mind. We don't have the technology."

9:05: Switched now to the air traffic controller channel. Chicago put us into a hold at 1-3-thousand, 10 mile lanes are approved, tango-echo-delta-delta-yammer (somewhere near Janesville WI), hold Northwest as published. Speed at our discretion. Pretty cool to know (they pilots haven't informed the non-Channel 9 listeners), but doesn't help me much. We are scheduled to be released from the hold at 0247 (9:47). Our pilots didn't complain, but another pilot said "what's gives, clear skies, I can see you from here." ATC says tstorms over NE IN have shut down that corridor.

9:50: Plane lands. Sprint to meet 10pm flight.

9:56: Get to gate E2 (from B6) in a 6 minute sprint ... actually I sprinted about 4 minutes, then walked the last 2... to find the flight had just closed out. Gate agent said, "Oh you're Mr. Dolwick. Yeah, we tried to to go as slow as we could. Sorry." Customer service was of no help. Blamed it on ATC, claimed no responsibility. Booked us on the earliest flight tomorrow (2pm) & put on standby for 630a flight.

10:15: Start the O'Hare allnighter at the only open restaurant (Chili's). First real meal all day. Nothing beats Hot Wings at 10:15p.

11:30: Starts to get pretty quiet.

12:45: Settled into a nice routine here. Lots of vacuuming. Fair number of refugees. I'd say 20 w/in sight. One nice guy also on his way to RDU. Talked some football.

2:00: Now. Not much going on. Rich can walk the moving sidewalk backwards in the wrong direction in 47 seconds. I'm going to beat that.

2:15: Now, now. Pretty dull. My collegeue (need to figure out how to spell that) & I are having an e-mail discussion for the sake of our EPA friends. Every 15 minutes we send another e-mail debating a specific topic. The goal is to have each e-mail become more & more incoherent.

2:55: Getting tired. Thinking about calling C-Lo for place to crash for a few hours. Wish I knew the number. Tried information asking for C-L0 & I got a Carlos Lopez from Oak Park. He wasn't happy to hear from Dolberry.

3:30: OK, here are my PR's for going the wrong way on an O'Hare moving walkway:

backwards: 74 seconds
forwards: 48 seconds
one leg: N/A (fell over)
one leg backward: N/A (fell over)

3:45: Wish I would have taken that flight to Caracas like that guy w/ sunglasses I was talking to in the elevator suggested. Wonder if it's too late ....

4:40: Found a remaining set of chairs w/o an armrest & fell asleep w/ a NY Times over my head as a blanket.

6:00: Wake up. Feeling worse than before went to sleep. Airport has lost it's empty charm as all the vaccumers have been replaced w/ busybee travellers who weave in & out in front and behind me as I walk zombie-like to the restroom w/ my shirt untucked & airport-terminal-seatlines pressed into my face.

6:30: Get some McDonalds. Feel slightly better. Getting a good feeling about this standby flight at 7:34.

7:35: Get on flight as standby passenger #9.

9:35: Land at RDU. Bag even makes it as well.

10:10: Get to work, almost in time for 10am team meeting.

12:00: Go home & sleep for a few hours.

8:30: Updating last blogs w/ pics.