Nevermind...

Here's what I thought I'd see out of my window when I woke up this morning -- palm trees, waves, sunshine, seagulls.

Here's what I actually saw out of my window when I woke up this morning:

(OK, so it wasn't that bad and I didn't get a picture, but everything was covered in snow and when I walked to work it was snowing.)

The trip to Miami for the conference?  Didn't so much happen.

Wednesday night there was an explosion at the fuel depot at the Miami airport that caused a huge fire.  The fire was put out by early Thursday morning (and I don't think anyone was injured), but the fuel pumps were damaged and they had to truck fuel to the planes instead of pumping it which, apparently, takes a really long time.  So, lots of delays in flights going out caused lots of delays in flights going in.  And, for many (including us), canceled flights.  Major sad day!!!

As much as I don't really like traveling, I was SO looking forward to getting out of town for a little while and relaxing on the beach a bit.  And enjoying some warm weather.  And eating Cuban food!  I have been craving fried plantains since we first decided to go to this conference in October!!!

(Oh, yeah, and going to a conference and networking and giving a presentation and learning stuff about science and math education, too.)

(Lucky for me that I didn't brag about getting to be in the sun while snow was expected here or people would be attacking me today!)

I'd heard about the fire before we left yesterday morning, but, at that point, it sounded like it wasn't causing a real problem for flights coming into Miami.  When we got to the airport 3 hours later (we live in the middle of nowhere) we walked up to the kiosk and started to check in.  The agent behind the counter looked at us and said "where are you going."  I smiled and said "Miami."  He sadly shook his head and I asked "we're not?"  He proceeded to tell us the flight was canceled and that we needed to go stand in line to talk on the courtesy telephones to rebook.  We spent about a half hour on both the courtesy phones and our cell phones and on-line trying to do so only to have American disconnect our calls over and over again every time they told us they were putting us on indefinite hold ("Your wait will be over an hour") to speak to an agent.  The other passengers who were getting through, were told that the best they could do was send them the next day, if that, and there weren't even any open options of other airports around the area.  (Apparently there are all sorts of things (giant music festival, etc.) going on in Miami this weekend so flights were overbooked.)

(I must say, I was highly unimpressed with how American handled this.  I've had similar problems arise when flying Delta recently and they were overly accommodating.  They sent me e-mails about the status of the flight and automatically rebooked me before I even knew the flight was canceled.  They called me and left a message (an actual person did) to tell me what was going on.  When I called back because I needed to re-rebook, when they had too high a volume they said "your wait will be long, give us a number and we'll call you back when an agent is available" or they said "we're overloaded right now, call us back later" and didn't just disconnect me without warning.  They let me do things on-line -- American wouldn't.  And, then, the wait wasn't really that bad -- and this was when it was 5 pm on Christmas Eve and they had just canceled 700 flights for Christmas Day!!  And, the Delta agents on the phone couldn't have been nicer about it all.  And, the fact that the agents at the airport couldn't help us with this?  Ridiculous.  I think there might have been one or two who could have (with long lines) but there were also several just standing around.)

So, anyway, if we wouldn't have been able to get down there until this afternoon we would have missed our presentation last night and 3/4 of the conference and would have had to turn around 24 hours later to fly back.  We decided to wait until they weren't crazy busy to talk to them about getting vouchers or something and we went out for lunch and then drove another 3 hours home.  And, I'm back to work like it's a normal, cold, snowy day.  My students were confused (hopefully not too disappointed) at seeing me instead of the sub I'd arranged this morning.

Sigh...

Oh, how I wanted to be sitting on the beach on Saturday afternoon after the conference sweating in the sun and worrying about whether I'd covered myself with enough SPF60 and long sleeves and hoping that I wasn't, ahem, expelling progesterone through my swim suit!!

Oh, well.  Just think of all the work I can get done this weekend instead!  Wow, how exciting.

And, damnit, no distraction from this f'ing wait!!!  Now at 7 days and counting...with IPS coming out the wazoo -- literally.  So, I beg you to distract me instead!!  Give me ideas or links that will keep me laughing all weekend long, please!!!