Merry Merry! Happy Happy!

We caravaned from Steamboat to Mom's house in Grand Junction, CO yesterday. It's a nice 3-hour drive through such boomtowns as Craig, Meeker and Rifle, 2-lane state highways most of the way until the final stretch on I-70 into GJ.

Tri-Daughter #3 is still with me; she's flying home to the Great Suburban Outback on Christmas Day. Having her around a few extra days has been a great Christmas present. The friends she came out with insisted on returning to the Denver Airport on Wednesday - in the teeth of the blizzard. They're STILL stuck in some ratty hotel and may not get home for 5 days or so. We told them they were welcome to stay and ski with us, bunk with us, eat with us and travel with us. But NOOOOOOOOOOOH!

Here, the post-blizzard air travel mess is starting to resolve itself and I'm scheduled to fly home tomorrow. I want to compliment United Airlines for (1) actually answering the phone when I called, (2) staffing their call center with efficient, English-speaking employees, (3) and re-booking me in less than 30 seconds, all in the middle of a pre-holiday air travel disaster.

The same can't be said for Orbitz. Those dipwads were the most unhelpful bunch of cretinous yahoos I've ever encountered. After asking me every conceivable question to ensure that I was, indeed, who I said I was, they rudely told me that I needed to re-book directly with the airline. So I did. I guess "customer service" truly is an oxymoronic term when your business is just a web site backed by a call center in some third-world rathole. Sometimes the "New Economy" isn't new - it's just stupid. Sometimes the "Old Economy" works pretty darn well.

Heading out for a high-altitude run later today, followed by a strength-training visit to the health club. Maybe a movie tonight followed by an early bedtime and 3:00 A.M. wake-up call tomorrow morning. See ya! Merry Merry! Happy Happy!