The End of Something Great

It's official. I no longer have good luggage "karma". After 3 years of trouble free air travel (flight & weather delays and terminal dashing notwithstanding), I have suffered my 3rd luggage delay since March. One could reason that I brought this on myself by bragging about my good record.

West Jet. I love you guys, and tell the world that you're the best and my preferred Canadian airline. But today was the second time you delayed my bags, and I've only had occasion to fly with you 3 times this year. I understand that tight connection times can make it difficult to transfer luggage (as it did in the first incident in March), and that I'm ok with. But today's delayed bag was clearly marked YYZ, and yet was left on the plane ended up in Halifax. How does this happen? I envision some system of arranging bags in the plane's belly to prevent such occurances, but something broke down today.

I will give your staff at YYZ baggage claim the customer service line kudos for being helpful. They did their best to provide my bag's coordinates and ETA when known. I really do love all Westjetters.

Truth be told I wasn't too choked about the delay, as I had planned to drop my belongings in my hotel room, and head straight for downtown TO anyways. And, it wasn't like Air Canada that left 2 people's month-worth-of-stuff bags at LAX, forcing myself and travel buddy to wear the same clothes for 52 hours in Bangkok in the summer. They didn't even offer a complimentary toiletry bag! (I don't know how to link yet, but you can refer to the mid-May postings for more details.) Or the time they took 5 days of a 7 day trip to get my boss his luggage in Europe. Today's biggest disappointment was not getting to wear my newly acquired Blue Jays hat to the game tonight. I'm certain the Jays lost as a result... not enough fan spirit from me.

FYI - I'm in Toronto right now. I'll be here for the next 9ish days, 6 for work, and 3 for fun. Don't worry, fun days are on the weekend.

After many queues and unexpected delays, I got to hang out with an old friend, whom I have not seen since like 2001, maybe 2002... I can't remember. But she lives and schools here, working on her doctorate at the U of T. We had a great time, and she walking toured me around the downtown. It was great! Walked through part of the U of T campus, saw all sorts of beautiful buildings, took in Yonge Street, Lake Ontario, the CN tower, some rain, and of course street hot dogs. "It's all part of the experience!" she said. Love it!

When deciding what to do with my extra time today, I figured that a Blue Jays game was in order, for I had never been to a pro ball game. So I bought a ticket online, and made my way to the Skydome. They played the Orioles, and lost 6-2. But... it was a shut out until Hill and Luna both cracked leftfield homeruns (really close to where I was sitting!) at the bottom of the 9th, and denied the Orioles that pleasure.

I ache with fatigue, and am going to bed. 4am was so long ago, and 6 is coming to soon. Oh wait, that will still be 4am in my brain.