Die United Die!!!

Got up early for my flight home on Saturday.  Got on my flight at RDU to Chicago...  finishing Voyage of the Sable Keech, I arrived at ORD (all comers world champion, undefeated O'Neill's Least Favourite Airport award 5 years running) to find that United had canned my connecting flight.  No data, no annoucements, so support people.

After an hour in a queue I managed to discover that I'd been checked onto a new flight via Denver.  So I find a check-in booth and go through the procedure, to find that the booth had me checked in on a return to Denver...  no onward connection to Seattle.  I call back and ask, it transpires that United had me booked in for an overnight AT Denver airport.  No thankyou, I implore, there must be a flight to Seattle today.

They then offer a flight to San Francisco (leaving in 5 hours so plenty of time to make that one then) with a connection which would get me into Seattle at mid-night (bear in mind this is 11am Central, so that would be about 15 hours later).

Screw you guys, I bought a direct ticket on Alaskan and got home a mere 4 hours late.

More Books...

18. The Ghost Brigades - John Scalzi:  A pretty effective sequel to Old Man's War, but I'm not sure if it really delivered more than being a good romp, when the subject at hand was actually quite fascinating from a philosophical point of view.  The nature of a solider and the concept of what defines free will are explored but not terribly in depth.  He also wastes something of an opportunity to explore if you can have a technological civilisation without culture.  Peter Hamilton did it better in The Night's Dawn triology.  Still, I'll read the third one.

As an interesting aside, I can't imagine I'll ever read another acknowledgements section which thanks Glenn Reynolds  AND Patrick Nielsen Hayden... 

19. Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond:  Probably not a lot to add to what has been said about this book.  A must read.