It's a friggin miracle.... I actually flew back from Chicago today via O'Hare and made it home on time! Why is this so miraculous to me? Lets take a step back for a second and set the scene.I've been flying in and out of Chicago for work now for two years pretty much twice/three times a month. I always have flown Continental to Midway and it was a breeze. Rarely was I delayed and Midway is located three minutes from my office and 10 from my client. Then one day in May, I see in the paper that Continental is discontinuing its service to Midway May 31st, so after that it's either O'Hare for me, or going back to Southwest, which if you were a past reader of this blog, you know I will never do. (For the story, click here.) So since June 1, I have been flying in and out of O'Hare. The first four times I have flown through O'Hare I was two hours late, cancelled and held over until Saturday, three hours late, and two hours late. Talk about the weak beav. O'Hare is a friggin nightmare. Check out the differences in the two for me:
Midway
1. 90% ontime
2. Continental gate is literally in front of the airport
3. The rental cars are in an attached garage a short three minute walk from the gate.
4. Midway is right by my office and my clients office, allowing me more time to stay at either place on Fridays.
5. There are probably 50% less people at Midway, meaning shorter security lines.
O'Hare
1. Up until today, I have yet to make it home any earlier than an hour late
2. The gate is in terminal two all the way at the end of the concourse
3. To get to my rental car, I have to wait for a shuttle, which then goes through terminal three, and terminal five, before getting to the rental car place.
4. O'Hare is 3o minutes away from my client with no traffic and 45 from my office.
I forgot to mention that I got there on time today, yet sat on the runway for 45 minutes because our gate was being used by another plane. So essentially when you are on time, its actually a bad thing.
Others have told me the answer is easy. Drop the anti-Southwest routine and get back to Midway, but if I do that, I lose my Continental status and miles, and other than Chicago, Southwest isn't flying anywhere direct from here anymore. I've got no choice but to suck it up and deal.
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Meanwhile, there is no better summer city than Chicago. We cannot wait to go there in a few weeks. Today, I took my clients to the most underrated place in the city, Hot Doug's. We buried four different kinds of Sausages and three orders of Duck Fat Fries. Here's what we ate:Über Garlic Pork Sausage with Roasted Garlic Dijonnaise and Widmer Brick Cheese
Saucisson Alsacienne: Bacon Sausage with Crème Fraîche, Caramelized Onions and Comté Cheese
Merguez Lamb Sausage with Chili-Garlic Mayonnaise and Feta Cheese
Bell Pepper and Mozzarella Chicken Sausage with Pizza Sauce, Sauteed Peppers & Onions and Fresh Mozzarella Cheese.
How good? I'll be taking Andrew there two weeks from tomorrow and getting a photo of him with the great Doug Sohn himself.
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Can't wait for some live Tribe ball tomorrow night. Haven't been to a game in almost a month. The good news is I'll be going to three games in the next six days.
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Brett Favre - please go away...more on that later.
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