Traveling Travails (Macau Awaits)

Was a day full of teases, I’m afraid, as far as getting to Macau was concerned.

Made my flight to Chicago yesterday without incident, then settled in at O’Hare for a nearly four-hour layover before boarding for the flight to Hong Kong. We made it away from the gate a couple of times, on both occasions under the impression we were really leaving. But both times we went back.

Electrical problems, they said. They even described “restarting” the sucker, which sounded a little like turning a computer on and off after you don’t know what else you gotta mash to make it do. Finally they had to give up, and we got off the plane and waited in the terminal another hour or so before being told our flight would be leaving in the early evening, about six hours after it had been scheduled.

Given food vouchers, we all dispersed then quickly reconvened, this time at a different terminal designed for a much smaller plane than the big 747 we were flying. Or hoped to, anyway.

That meant there were about 60-70 seats when there were something like five times that number of people waiting, including a lot of whiny infants. And, eventually, some whiny adults. That picture above was taken while sitting on the floor, listening with everyone else to the announcements about “cleaning the plane,” and “security checks,” and finally something about a pilot coming in from another flight.

I flashed back to my May adventures trying to get back from Uruguay, and thus already knew some time before the announcement was made that our flight was probably not going to be leaving last night. In fact, others knew it, too, because a few had received email alerts showing the flight had been canceled, which helped ignite a small multi-lingual revolt that was finally quelled by the official announcement.

It would take another hour-and-a-half or so to get shuttled to a nearby hotel where I stayed the night. Now readying to try once more, hoping that we really will leave at 9 a.m. as they said we would. Gonna be missing part of the first day of the ACOP Warm-Up event, I’m afraid, which starts midday Saturday but I won’t be getting there until later in the afternoon.

But I’m rolling with it, not getting worked up. Kind of like when I logged into my Full Tilt Poker account for the first time in more than 18 months a couple of days ago only to see my account balance read $0.00 instead of the $279.85 that had been there the last time I’d logged off in April 2011.

Like those community cards that may or may not cooperate with your holdings, best not to get too upset over that which you cannot control.

That said, wish me luck today in my efforts to fly 7,787 miles to Hong Kong, then catch that ferry over to Macau.