Only a Glancing Blow

Seems that the travel gods must have gotten distracted and were only able to send me part of the normal load of bad luck.  Maybe Agent W traveling the same day caused them to take their eye off the prize.

My flight out wasn't bad luck, just bad airline management.  We arrived in this tiny commuter plane as far out as is possible at the United terminal in Denver, have to wait for our bags and then hoof it for what they call a 50 minute connection.  But that's 50 minutes from our arrival time to the next flight departure time.  You will remember that flights board 30 minutes before departure and most often they close the doors 10 minutes before departure.  Fortunately my outbound flight was 15 minutes late.

On the way back, I was changing through Houston.  This is always a pain.  The main terminal is gigantic and the flight to Albuquerque is always in another commuter terminal which requires taking a train.  Our flight in Chicago loaded up on time and they we sat.  The captain finally told us that a cargo loader in the belly of the plane had issues, the crew working on it was at the end of their shift, so they just left it half fixed.  Then the next crew came on and they figured out it needed fixing.  This caused us to take off 30 minutes late.  Not really that terrible unless you have a 50 minute connection requiring long, long walks and trains.  They made up a lot of the time and I just barely made my flight.  Where upon I found that the light over my seat was broken.

Compared to the last few flights I guess I should be thankful.