Misery in Missouri

This week I traveled to Missouri, Kansas City to be exact, to visit a client.  I enjoyed the trip out there, and the visit to the client, but ran into some issues on the way back...the weather changed.

Woke up on Thursday to graupel pelting me from the hotel and the long walk across the parking lot to the client's building.  For those of you unused to graupel I've taken the time to describe steps to simulate it (I'm considerate that way):

1) Buy stones from your local pet store, the small kind one find's lining the bottom of a Beta Fish tank.
2) Place the stones overnight in the freezer.
3) Get a friend (or an enemy) to grab a handful of these frozen stones, have him stand about ten feet away.
4) Have said friend hurl this handful of stones at you about as hard as he can.

That is what it felt like.  Fortunately, I had my hat and a leather jacket to deflect most of the damage.

When I finished at the customer site, there was more grapple, until i reached the rental car, at which point it had changed to a strong snow.  The snow made traffic awful and the usually uneventful 40 minute drive to the airport turned into a nerve wracking 3 hour journey.

Along the way I did stop and have Chinese food at the Iron Wok.  Very good food, highly recommend it!

There were no earlier flights so I settled down and did some email work.  What follows is the brief version of the announcements pertaining to my flight:

1) T-1 hour (an hour before my flight was to depart) an announcement came on saying our flight was delayed due to mechanical problems at its point of origin.
2) T+0: an announcement came on stating they had begun boarding at the point of origin.
3) T+ 40 minutes later: The flight was delayed on the tarmac at the point of origin due to weather.
4) T+ 70 minutes: The flight had taken off from the point of origin.
5) T+3 hours: The plane lands at the airport
6) T+3.5 hours: We board the aircraft.
7) T+3hours 50 minutes: Deicing operations begin.
8) T+4 hours 5 minutes: Deicing operations knock out the Auxiliary Power Unit on the aircraft.
9) T+4 hours 20 minutes: APU is back up
10) T+ 4 hours 30 minutes: They need to deice the plane again
11) T+ 4 hours 50 minutes: Deicing is complete
12) T+ 5 hours 5 minutes: We finally take off.

Instead of arriving in bed at around 10:00 pm, I finally get to sleep some time after 3:00 am.  Not a pleasant trip.