How fitting that I wrote up that last post on changing plans this morning!
Just as I was about to head out the door to the office I got a call from the head of our local office here. He’s the guy that I had come up here to relieve.
“You better pack your bags. We may be sending you home today.”
OK, I thought. The company just spent a bunch of money to change my flight, which was originally scheduled to leave yesterday, had me go get a rental car. And now they want to send me home anyway?
“So do you want me to change my flight for one today?”
“Just call around and see what you can get out today, but don’t change your flight yet. We may need you to stick around. Call me and let me know what you can get.”
Sure. No problem.
I called the airline. Good news: there are still a couple seats left that would get me home tonight. Called back the office and let them know.
“We still don’t know for sure. I’ll call you once I know.”
So I wait. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Eventually he calls back. “Yep. Go on home. Thanks for all your help!”
Cool! I call the airline back. “We’re sorry there are no available seats until tomorrow morning.”
Oh, we totally saw that one coming.
I was explaining the whole deal to a friend of mine who said, “Flexibility — the key word of the 21st century.”
“Semper Gumby!” that’s my motto.
I was once on a mission trip and things were getting crazy. (I’m convinced there’s no word in Brazilian Portuguese for the English “plan.”) At one point I asked our leader if we’d moved through flexibility and on to the fluid stage.
He said, “Oh, we’re way past fluid. We’ve been gaseous for several hours now.”
I laughed long and hard when he said that. The double entendre with our reaction to some of the local food we’d recently had was just too much.
Of course sleep deprivation also may have made me a bit giddy at the time”¦
Anyway I should be heading home tomorrow sometime. Of course there are still about 22 hours for that plan to change. 😉
Enjoy!
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It got me thinking about how much control we really don’t have in our lives. I mean we can plan for all sorts of eventualities but in the end we just plain aren’t in charge of how things work out.
Sears Tower makes going up to their 
The view from the top is spectacular, as expected. There was a thunder shower off to the Southwest that gave us a spectacular lightning show. The sun was stetting off beyond O’Hare airport. I pointed out to the guy next to me that at nearly 1500 feet we were at the same altitude as the jets approaching the airport. He thought that was pretty cool. And there were lots of them. The jets were staggered in alternating pairs for the parallel westerly runways back across Lake Michigan as far as I could see.
I will have some business at the 
Jesus’ analogy of two thousand years ago still holds up in this modern automobile age. The back roads around here are typically passable and the traffic still flows. But the Interstates tend to get all jammed up with the crowds who flock to them. Now the Interstates are easier to find, easier to stay on, and don’t have any traffic lights. But the side streets will get you there at a steadier pace. And if your way is blocked (by say a stuck draw bridge, a fire truck, or construction — all of which have happened to me so far) you can go a few blocks around the trouble and still keep moving.
When I walked in the place it was really loud and the entry way was filled with a mob of people under 4 feet tall. I quickly weighed out my desire for good pizza against wanting to find a quiet place to enjoy reading some more in my book over dinner and I chose not to wade through all the kiddies to find a table.
Whew! It’s been a busy week so far. Lot’s of stuff to do. But looking at what we’ve got for the rest of the week, it looks like I might actually get a little down time. Gorgeous suggested I make sure I get some authentic Chicago style pizza while I’m up here. We definitely like our food, us Cree’s.
Going up in them to the observation area on a windy day you could feel the building sway in the wind. It was always cool to look down on the helicopters that were scurrying around the city.
I was commissioned as a Naval Officer about 6 months before the fall of the 
airport waiting area has TV’s blaring and all of them are tuned to some news channel. All I heard about was Mid-East violence, Korea & Iran and nuclear weapons, Typhoons killing hundreds in China. Now I’m not a bury-my-head-in-the-sand-and-pretend it’s-all-going-to-be-OK kind of guy. I’m in touch with reality. But I definitely got a reminder why I don’t watch much television news coverage anymore. I can get all the news I need with a quick scan of the headlines online and see, “Yep. The world’s still a mess.” I don’t need some photogenic announcer telling me over and over how bad things are.
For example I haven’t figured out how to pour anything from the little 4 cup coffee pot here in my room without massive amounts of spillage. Fortunately there is a little kitchenette with a sink to spill over and contain the mess.
You wouldn’t think they could be surprised by the plane’s arrival at the destination. I mean there was that big bump and all that noise when the plane landed. And yet I get the feeling that some folks are genuinely surprised. “Oh, hey! We’re here.”