Thanks to Midwest-sized hospitality from my good old friend Dann and his team in St. Louis – Vince, Debbie and Scott and the rest, I saw my first full (ice)hockey game of my life. Best seats in the stadium. We had the two teams and the commentators on either side of the plexiglass. Right on the center line. And on the ice. And I mean right on the ice. I was one plexiglass away from pronouncing “boss, it was blown to smithereens” as “boff, ith waf fluh fo ffithereenf” (Tintin aficionados, no doubt recollect the villain Alan’s talk after his teeth got blown out 🙂 )

I had no idea about the rules of hockey. As it is, whenever somebody says hockey, I think of the hockey I used to play in India – which is called field hockey here, I think. I had no idea growing up what ice hockey is all about. Ice is something you got out of a refrigerator and on very hot days (which means any day in India), you put it in Dipy’s Squash and enjoyed the drink. That you can cover a whole darned field with ice was beyond my wildest level of imagination of refrigeration capacity.

My brush with a field filled with ice in Dallas, wasn’t a particularly pleasant one. There is nothing more frustrating than being an adult and having to go thru the same process you went thru when you were eight months old – trying to stand up and falling down. In front of our friends. Repeatedly.

And then I had heard about the old saying – “I went to see a fight and a hockey game broke out”!!

So, you will pardon me for not knowing what to expect. I have to say I had the best time of my life. Learnt a lot of rules. BTW, whose great idea was to put 3 periods in a game? It is like “we are not as small as soccer but not as big as football either”!!! I also learnt three key things:

1. Plexiglass is very important 🙂
2. Concept of fun while playing can be highly relative concept 🙂
3. Midwestern hospitality rules !!

Above all, I know have some awesome friends in St. Louis.

Remember all my bravado of facing into the weather? Well, the customer must have read my FB post too! They canceled our meeting 🙂 So change of plans and I head back home, tail between legs and all 🙂

Forty eight hours of adventure begins. Decided to brave the winter storm and stick to my original travel plan – Philly, Richmond, DC in three days.
Philly was uneventful. Rest of it promises to be fun. The storms have picked up now. Pretty strong wind. Snow starting. Tried to get out early and switched to an earlier flight. They promptly delayed it by an hour.
Puddle jumper in strong winds taking off and landing in snow. Ought to be exciting. Not!!

7 in the morning and DC is totally wrapped in fog. (Cue in your jokes about politicians without a foggiest idea here 🙂 ). This is in Reston area. Wonder how the Foggybottom area is looking like now… 🙂

At the risk of assuming people actually want to meet me, let me apologize to all those who I promised to meet next time I am in Dallas. I am coming in for a short meeting and dinner and then head out first thing in the morning. Can’t wait to see good old Dallas though. And you, when we come on vacation in December. — at Ronald Reagan National Airport.

So, today’s Delta 3659 saga so far:
6 changes of gates.
Spanning 2 terminals.
6 changes of time.

So far. In the last two hours. We have not yet gotten inside the plane!!!

Make that 7 changes of time, 6 changes of gates, 2 changes of terminals, 2 changes of equipment. Now we are sitting in a plane though!!!

Here is a small experience that inspired me about values. As I was boarding the flight to NY last night, I was chatting up the flight attendant who has been with Delta for over 25 years. I asked her about an interesting event she experienced. She talked about how just the previous day, the CEO of Delta was in her flight. She regretted she could not serve him because she takes care of first class and he with his office people were sitting waaaaay back in economy. I called up one of his direct reports who I happened to know professionally and he confirmed that the CEO travels economy in his own airline for business!!!
I recognize there are different styles to succeed but this story somehow spoke to me!