Well, I finally finished my last class ever today. Nearly twenty years of school, and all I have to show for it is doing two more years of research for my Ph.D. Anyways, I am off to California tomorrow (will be in at around 7 PM PST) for a warm Christmas (whoever dreamt of a white Christmas, obviously was insane). I will leave you all with the same story I told last winter of my harrowing journey back to Madison following my first winter trip home (originally found here):

We got to the airport at 11:30 AM for a 2:15 PM flight because we had a tip that it could take awhile to get in (this was during one of the Orange Alerts for Southern California airports). Then, we find out the flight is delayed because Chicago is windy and they are taking more time for landings. So, we leave Orange County around 4:30 PM and get to Chicago at 10:30 PM Central Time. Well, our flight from Chicago to Madison was supposed to leave at 9:15 PM, but it got delayed so much it was canceled. So, we got a discount at a hotel (the airline wouldn't comp it because the FAA shut flights down, not the airline itself). We didn't get to our room until after midnight, which gives us a whole 6 hours (sleep at 1:30, wake up at 7:30)

We get the 10:20 AM flight to Madison and our luggage is going on the 8 AM flight. Then, we get on the plane and have to wait 20 minutes extra while they fill up the fuel more than they need to (it had had enough in it, but they wanted to top it off, I guess...it's only a 25 minute flight). When we are in the air there is a fuel leak or something and so we land in Milwaukee at about 11:15 AM (which is about the same distance from Chicago that Madison is, but the flight path takes us over Lake Michigan making Milwaukee closer). They tell us they will bus us to Madison and the bus will be at the airport in 20 minutes. Well, the bus made it at 12:15 AM. Then the driver decides the bus isn't running right (or something) while on the on ramp to a freeway. So, he goes in reverse to get to the offramp right next to it (they had asphalt connecting them). We go back to the airport, get on another bus and drive the 60 miles to Madison.

We make it to the airport at about 1:45 PM, where our luggage is no longer waiting for us. They have it behind the ticket counter wall (seems like a good place). Well, they only have one person getting bags for people there and all of his time is taken up by one guy. This guy is complaining that kerosene spilled onto his bag (a valid complaint). The problem was that the guy gave him two options 1) they could keep the bag and clean it there and have it ready in a couple of hours or 2) they could give him a voucher to have it cleaned himself. Well, he didn't like option 1 because he had to be in a meeting in an hour and he needed his bag and he didn't like option 2 because he was leaving right afterwards and he wanted his bag cleaned now. Well, his complaining was obviously not going to miraculously change physics to allow the airline to clean the bag on this guy's timeframe, so we were really peeved at this point (25 hours of travel time does that to you). Finally, we get our bags after about 25 minutes of waiting there and get a taxi and head home. We got home around 3 PM, which means it took us 26 hours or so to go from point A to point B.