A 6-Year Love Affair...

....and his name, is Stockamp.

Today marks a pretty monumental life landmark for me. It is the 6-year anniversary of the day I started working for my company. And boy, what a 6 years it has been. I am a far cry from the 22 year old that walked into that office in Lake Oswego, OR on January 10, 2005. I had just graduated from college (which was strange for me because I was a semester ahead of all my classmates, and felt a little "on my own," though also very excited), packed up all my belongings, moved to New York City, and then was starting my first real job. All of those things happened in a span of 21 days. My head was spinning just a bit.

I could write for days about all that I have been through and experienced in the past 6 years (and it would be endless fun reliving the awesomeness of working for Stockamp), but alas, I don't quite have time for that. So instead, I thought I'd do a quick synopsis of my day today...as it has been a perfectly fitting anniversary day for a traveling consultant.

The story technically starts yesterday, around 10:00am EST. My flight for 24 hours later (Atlanta to LA) already gets cancelled...as do hundreds of others. Delta automatically rebooks me...but not until Tuesday afternoon. That's not gonna fly. (Pun intended) So I call the lovely special phone number for people with status, and talk the nice man into putting me on the 3:05pm EST today instead. I had dinner with 3 friends last night...and 3 of the 4 of us were all in the same boat for this morning. But that's fine...that just allowed us to relax, and hang out longer into the night! I can deal with that.

Well, we monitored all the flights very closely all last night and today...because more and more flights were getting cancelled nonstop. But still, this 3:05pm flight showed as "on-time." Gotta stay positive, gotta stay positive...

Actually getting to the airport was a whole other hurdle that we hadn't quite anticipated fully. Atlanta was pretty much in a state of emergency from the snow and ice that had completely blanketed the city and surrounding areas. We had to drive to the airport at no more than 12 MPH the entire way...including on the interstate. We felt like road warriors as we got closer and closer to ATL, and eventually arrived in one piece.

Upon arrival at the airport, here is what we were greeted with:



Yeah. So unless your destination is LA (our one measely flight), Allentown, PA, Bloomington, IL, Cairo, or Columbia, SC...you're pretty much up a creek with no paddle, and barely even a boat. (Ok, yes there were a few additional options, but it was seriously slim pickins'...I can't remember the last time I saw so much red print on a departures board)

We walked right up to the security line....NO one else was there! And folks, this is ATL. So the security line is never empty...not even at 3:00am on a Tuesday. It's always nuts.

And then the terminals were like ghost towns too. Barely anyone anywhere. Very odd...and a little creepy even. And when was the last time you saw this?

Yes, that's Hartsfield Jackson with ZERO plane traffic. It's the world's busiest airport...but throw down a few inches of snow and some ice, and everything stops. NO movement. I obviously had to capture on film because it's almost too crazy to believe.

Anyway, we made our way to the Sky Club lounge to hang out a bit before the flight. Then went and boarded the plane (first class upgrades!), and then sat on the plane at the gate for about 1 hour and 20 minutes. They finally closed the plane door, and then we taxi-ed out and sat on the runway for about another 40 minutes, waiting for our plane to get de-iced. After that? #1 for take-off, of course...there were no other planes as competition! Go Flight 592, go!!

And here I sit, almost 40,000 feet in the air. Just anxious to get home after the last 32 hours of travel madness. Although tons of people ended up way worse off than me...I got off pretty easy in the grand scheme of things. I guess it was my anniversary present from the travel fates.

Here's to another 6 years of bettering hospitals, and patient experiences, and flying all over the darn place, and certainly to having incredible amounts of fun with some of the best people around!! Cheers.