Toronto Day 1: Flights, weather, and delays, oh my

So today was not all that great. I took off work about an hour early in order to get to my flight to Toronto on time. Made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare, and started making preparations for the trip. As the first-class passengers were starting to board the plane, I noticed that the skies outside were getting quite dark and the rain was pretty heavy. The flight was delayed by an hour.

As I had a connecting flight from Chicago with only a fifty-minute layover, I realised that I wouldn’t be able to make it. I called to change the flight, and bumped it up to the next connection. No big deal. Another hour goes by, and we still haven’t boarded. I called to change the flight again, and realised that now I wouldn’t be able to rent my car as the rental agencies in Toronto close at 22:00. Ugh.

We get to Chicago, to find out that neither of those connecting flights made it in, and that we will have to take the flight to Toronto departing at 21:30. With the time change, we will now be arriving at midnight. Unfortunately, that flight didn’t take off until about 11:30, and we didn’t get to YYZ until about 02:00.

While in Chicago, though, we were tired, hungry, and thirsty. These wonderful girls from Toronto gave us some of their breakfast bars and water, since there were no restaurants open in the airport. They were incredibly nice, and uplifting during an otherwise not-so-pleasant experience.

On the flight into YYZ, I sat next to a man from the area, and we chatted about life in Toronto, and all the things that we should do while visiting. I told him that I had been to Ontario (including Toronto) about four years ago, but that it had been during the summer. He looked at me and said “were you here for one or both days of it?” Quite funny, although he might have been serious. 😉

After landing, going through customs, and getting our baggage (which miraculously arrived on the same flight), we needed to find a taxi. That was not the easiest task, and we ended up taking a “car.” Not understanding that the driver meant a luxury car, and being too tired to really care, we went for it. The roughly eight minute drive to the hotel cost me an amazing CAD $70! WOW, that’s more than the car rental for the entire trip!

So, I’m glad that the day is finally coming to a close, and hope that the first full day in Toronto proves to be nicer.

|:| Zach |:|

New Libera site

After many months of preparation, and tons of coordination over the past few weeks, the new Libera site has gone live! Thank you to Ian at colesi for the beautiful design implementation, Andy for liaising between Ian, the rest of the Libera crew, and me, and to all others that had a hand in this amazing new look! The first server has been launched in Saint Louis, Missouri, United States. As soon as finances allow, I will be placing another server in London, UK (or Amsterdam, Netherlands depending on choices of carrier hotels) followed by possibles in Kyoto, Japan, and Sydney, Australia. My hope is to geolocate DNS so that everyone around the globe will have as quick and efficient of a connection to the site as possible.

Please check out the new site, and drop me a line if you have questions, comments, or concerns:

www.libera.org.uk

|:| Zach |:|

New babies!

Today is an exciting day! I just received an email from my cousin Tony telling me that his twin baby girls were born late Saturday night (18 December 2010). I am so happy for you, and a very warm welcome to Brooke and Chloe.

|:| Zach |:|