I've finally arrived in my hotel room. I'm far too tired to write a long post just now, but to tie up loose ends, and describe a few others: My flight landed in Chicago as predicted. Though the attendants asked passengers to let those with connecting flights to get off first, so they might have a better chance of catching their connection, the fact is that on United, at O'Hare, nearly every passenger is meeting another flight, so being in the back of the plane, I waited about 10 minutes to get out. When I finally did get myself free of the gate, I looked at the little red clock on the walkway which informed me that, indeed, it was 8:46pm and I had four minutes until my flight to Pittsburgh left from a gate over a half-mile away. ...and the doors would close three minutes before that...

Still, I had to try. A plane can be late by a few minutes as easily as another can be delayed two hours, and better to feel righteous running up to the just-closed gate than walking sdately to the same fate plus the knolwedge that a stitch in my side would have saved time.

So it all played out exactly as I thought: Run, walk, run, wheeze, pant, run, walk, gasp. And so it was that I made it to gate C-3 a scant minute after the 8:50 departure time, to see the welcoming open face of a gangway and two of United's finest waiting. Trying to control my breathing I make my way to the plane and to my center seat, trying to pretend that I'm not radiating heat like the sun, and probably smelling none too fresh.

Five minutes later the door is still open and a few elderly people, presumably from my flight, make it on the flight as well before we pack it in and taxi into the sunset. Like I said, I'm just happy to not be spending the night chasing winks on the O'Hare concourse floor.

It's late, so I'll keep the rest short: O'Hare was only the first trauma tonight. Wanting (stupidly) to feel self-empowered on this trip to a city where I'd never been, I decided to take the airport flyer bus and a connecting bus to my hotel. Ignore for the moment that I don't know what connecting bus to take, nor am I really aware of the scale of my simple map, so I don't know what's walkable (or even what's a safe walk with a suitcase at one in the morning!). The airport shuttle took me to the CMU campus and the driver gave me a transfer and some advice on what bus might bring me closer to my destination. When that bus came 20 minutes later, he told me no, I wanted this other bus that I could catch around the corner. I thank him and wait around the corner for literally 40 minutes. A taxi sidles up to my bus stop, begging me to not be so stubborn, but I look away and he trundles on. I memorize the number on the side though. Now, knowing the taxi's true name (err, number) I can summon it at will using my magic wand (um, cellphone). (Can you tell I'm punchy? Does it show? Does it?)

So a 71A goes by the other direction and I'm at least gladdend by the knolwedge that the line exists and is still running at this late hour. About 10 minutes later a 71A comes my way and I step on, asking the driver if they go to Baum and Negley. Sure, but you want to catch it across the street, going the other direction. I just saw that one go by. How long will it be before there's another? Well, I'd probably be the next one. Well I'll just hop on then. Are you sure? (note to self: As if I didn't learn this lesson well enough when handing Jeff and Kelly Hanock my blank college recommendation forms 12 years ago, when someone unexpectedly asks you "are you sure?" pay attention and think about why they'd ask that.) Sure; it beats sitting on this bench for another half-hour.

Wrong.

Like any city, Pittsburgh has nice areas, decent areas, and iffy areas. Unfortunately Pittsburgh has areas where even Iffy wouldn't go with a bodyguard detail and I was on the bus that ran through it.

Okay, enough about that. So nearly an hour later I get to my stop, walk to the hotel to find that they're closed up, and the promised envelope with keys isn't in fact, under the doormat. Seems they tried to call and confirm my arrival and they had the wrong number for me, which equated to my not showing up, hence no key. Now it was 2am, and I'm sitting on an eave contemplating sleep, even my jetlag-battery was running low, a subjective 11pm offset by little sleep and a very full day. Luckily the hotel phone number forwards to the owner's son who woke up to answer it on the eighth ring and set the gears turning to get me into not my room, which had been booked on the aforementioned assumption of my own non-arrival, nor the slightly larger room they were going to put me up in the last night of my stay, but a very nice one-bedroom suite with kitchen.

Happy to be in a room, any room, the owner's detailed instructions of how to operate the satellite tv box, however handy, fell on very tired ears. Now he's gone and I'm settling in, drawn inexorably to the hundreds of channels now available to me. It's 3:30am, and I'm writing a post...

goodnight.