I digress

I really didn't mean to go on and on in that last post about how much I hate United but clearly, I am not a huge fan of the airline and I'm still enraged by the poor way they treated me!

I did also mean to give a few updates. And when I say few, I mean very few since there seems to be nothing going on in my world, at least not that I haven't mentioned. As I've stated before I don't work until 12:00 every day so I had a lot of great plans for that time: working out, applying for other jobs/grad school, study for the GRE, and other great industrious things. Sounds great right? Well most of this time has been spent sleeping in or playing around on Facebook. Not such great use of my time. Don't get me wrong, getting enough sleep is very important but if I would just go to bed at a decent hour I wouldn't need to sleep until 10:30 to receive a healthy amount of sleep.

I take the GRE in exactly one month from today and you think that would be motivating right? Well since I'm blogging instead of studying you can see what my answer is... I took a 6 week prep course and discovered I don't remember math a whole lot beyond basic arithmetic. The GRE also has algebra (I remember a little) and geometry (I remember even less). I ordered a book online from Amazon on Geometry but I have the hardest time studying it! Hmmm.... Hopefully there's a grad school out there that will take me...

One of the other industrious things I was planning to do in my mornings was exercise. I finally got the motivation about two weeks ago and got up and hopped on the treadmill. After about 15 minutes my left knee started to hurt so I jumped off. I was only walking at a fast pace, not even running or jogging yet so I'm not really sure what happened. Maybe I didn't stretch out enough prior to starting? Or maybe I'm too heavy right now and need to lose weight with lower impact exercises first? Maybe I'm just not meant to be a runner and should find a different form of exercise. Not really sure. I may talk to a personal trainer about it and see what I may be doing wrong and see if it makes a difference. The problem with that plan is that my paychecks have been severely lacking since moving to 30 hours a week (not surprisingly). I've thought about getting a second part-time job since I can't find one decent full-time one but I'm having a hard enough time studying for the GRE as it is!

So that's what's currently going on in my world. If anyone has any tips on running or studying for the GRE, PLEASE let me know!

I hated United!!!!

As I mentioned in my last post, I went to California June 9th. My trip did NOT start out well. My original flight left here at 6:00 AM. Yes, despite my better judgement, I booked this flight. I figured getting up at 4:00 would give me enough time to get ready and go. My family was already in Cali and I didn't want to torture anyone else so I decided to park there in the econo lot. I made it in the doors at 5:20 and waited in line until 5:30 at which point I was told I was unable to catch the flight... Really United Airlines? I caught a Southwest flight back to Denver at Christmas time with only 10 minutes until departure time! Not only that but the counter person was a total biotch and was completely unwilling to help me and actually suggested I try US Air. Thank you bitch, from here on out I will!!! (I apologize for the language but even just thinking about this has made me furious all over again!)

So I came back home and called United customer service. They tell me the next flight into San Luis Obispo is a flight out at 9:00 PM with a connection in LA (there's no direct flight from here to there). So I ask to be put on that flight...until... she tells me the price.... An additional $1,000!!!! I was OUTRAGED!!! I had been pretty nice up to this point but as soon as she said $1,000 I LOST my mind! Things were coming out of my mouth and I wasn't even thinking it through first. I'm not really sure I've ever been this pissed off before. Eventually I got everything out of me that would come and then asked how much a flight out tomorrow would cost. She either anticipated this reaction beforehand or while I was yelling at her looked up my cheapest option because she then offered it to me. I could fly to Denver at 5:00 and then to Santa Barbara for $400 more. I would arrive close to midnight and my brother's house was an hour north of here (hence the reason I wasn't flying in here). So I begrudgingly booked that flight and gave her a pretty nasty customer service survey at the end (where I also yelled at, telling them how much I hate them and will NEVER fly them again!).

I waited for two hours to call my parents (since it was still like 6 AM here, 5 AM in California). My Mom was like well what about flying here or there, etc... Finally I was like Mom, they'll charge me an additional $150 to change my flight again plus I had a hotel booked and since it was less than 24 hours couldn't cancel it so you'll just have to come and get me. Then I took a little nap since I only got about 4 hours of sleep and being that mad is exhausting. After I woke up, I was able to find a friend to take me to the airport at 3. I wanted to make sure to get there with plenty of time and lo and behold I get there and there is no line to either check in or go through security. Whatever... So I sit in the Salt Lake airport for 2 hours, have about an hour flight in the wrong direction to a city I'm not too fond of and then sit in that airport for another 3.5 hours. I would have called a friend there but I was too worried about missing another flight that I ate at McDonald's in the airport (that's actually become a DIA tradition for me), purchased a magazine, and people watched for the 3.5 hours I was there. Every United flight that night had been delayed. One man's first flight was so late he missed his connecting flight and he was berating the gate agent. I had to refrain from joining in... Luckily my flight was on time and we actually ended up getting into Santa Barbara 20 minutes early.

The rest of the trip was pretty good. We didn't do much on Friday but run errands and took the kids to Chucky Cheese. My nephew Logan was a little scared of me... Sad. Saturday we drove down to LA and went to the temple. My sister-in-law went for the first time and they were sealed afterward so it was a long day. We then drove back to where they live and said our goodbyes Saturday night. Sunday night we got up early and drove back to Utah. It's roughly a 12 hour drive and I slept a little over halfway... It was awesome! I figured I'd never get to sleep that night but I had no problems!

Here are some images from the temple:

Downtown LA from the temple steps:

The temple from the back:

My brother and sister-in-law sharing a moment afterward:

In the foreseeable future I will only be going places that I can drive to... And will definitely NEVER FLY UNITED AGAIN! I'm pretty sure Satan himself is running that airline...