Off topic post today, but a recommendation nonetheless. :lol:

So, I'm in Las Vegas right now for the annual ISSN (International Society of Sports Nutrition) conference right now. I arrived yesterday evening and the two-day conference begins today. It looks to be a good lineup but I'm most looking forward to reconnecting with an old nutrition professor - Dr. Stuart Phillips - who is speaking at the conference.

Anyway, as a rule I only take direct flights whenever possible. Why? Because I hate the fact that stop overs add to the time it takes to reach your destination. I want to get there as quick as possible. :lol: The second reason is potential luggage issues, delays, etc. However, given I was so slow on booking my flight for this trip, to go direct out of Toronto would have cost me a few hundred dollars more than going out of Buffalo with one stop. Now, Buffalo flights are always typically cheaper as it's considered domestic, opposed to international when I go out of Toronto, travel. So I hummed and hawed about money vs convenience and I decided I'd just try to save a few bucks this time around. Go figure. Bad move.

My scheduled departure out of Buffalo was 10:20am. I arrived in plenty of time (another impressive feat), but quickly found the flight to be delayed until 11:00am. Ok, minor annoyance, but shouldn't be a big deal. Then I realized my time between my Chicago landing and my Vegas departure was about 1 hour. But, we were told they'd make up some of the time in the air.

We ended up landing at 11:55am in Chicago (one hour time difference) and I booted to the next concourse after seeing my Vegas flight was delayed by 25 minutes. Sweet, a delay! :lol: No problem making this flight.

So we board the plane, sit there for a bit, taxi out and then the pilot comes on and says due to inclement weather, we're going to be sitting a while. Uh oh. Pilot comes on with another update to say the Chicago airport is shutting down due to weather. What great news. Looking outside I see no inclement weather but it was supposedly up in the sky somewhere.

So we couldn't even deboard since we'd already taxied out. We actually watched an entire movie before even leaving. We ended up sitting on the ramp for just under THREE HOURS before finally taking off. I eventually landed in Vegas at 5:00pm (8:00pm home time) and then it took about an hour to get out of the airport and over to my hotel. So, all in all, that is 13.5 hours door to door.

I guess the only plus is I worked on three articles/Q&As/blog posts, etc on the following topics

1. The Hoax of the Glycemic Index
2. The Most Misunderstood Concept in Sports Nutrition
3. Why My Post Workout Carb Rules Are So Lax

Lesson? Pay the extra money and go direct. The 4 1/2 hour flight would have been worth it.

Posted Jun 09, 2008 by Erik Ledin.
This entry is filed under Off Topic.