Happy Birthday to me

I'm now back in Boston after having spent 48 hours in transit trying to make a trip that Eric made in 6 hours.  I spent my entire birthday in the Las Vegas airport getting rolled over from flight to flight the entire day.  It wasn't until 10pm, after a total of 37 hours at the airport, that I finally got a flight.  When I got on the plane, the host got on the microphone and said "Would passenger Mr. Anthony Pollington please ring his flight attendant call button."  I thought, what now?  Are they going to kick me off?  After I rang it the flight attendant said "Ladies and gentlemen, it's that man's birthday and he's been trying to get on this flight for two days."  The plane then clapped and sang me a lackluster "Happy Birthday."  I finally got back to Boston at 11 am and got to work at 12.

Things are going pretty well in the office here.  I have a ton of work to do getting columns and analyses run, but hopefully I will have everything locked up by the end of next week.

I also found out today that we got a package from the people we rented our moving van from charging $450 for a dent that we got from hitting a tree.  We had purchased insurance with a $0 deductable and when we turned in the car the checking in agent looked at it and said we would be fine and the insurance will cover it.  So the package we got says that since we hit an overhanging object that voids the insurance.  The tree wasn't overhanging...it was from the side; and what's the point of having insurance that only covers certain collisions?  We understood it that we could basically total the van and everything would be fine.....not so!  So, I'm going to call Budget tomorrow and try to get this charge removed.  I'm feeling bad because if I can't get it removed, Ellen says she'll pay it for now.  This trip to Utah has tapped out most of my money.  I have a little left to last me two weeks until pay day....but there's certainly not enough to pay 1) rent in Wisconsin, 2) rent in Boston, 3) collision on a van that we had full insurance on.  I will get reimbursed for all the purchases I made doing field work, but who knows when?  This sucks.

On a lighter note though....I love Ellen.  Check out her blog.  It's much less whiny than this one.