Let’s hope the start of this little adventure…

June 17, 2010

isn’t any indication as to how the rest of my trek to discover the secrets to actually making Cerec InLab work will go.

Had a 6 pm flight scheduled to depart Dulles and put me in Charlotte around 7:30.  Unlike Steve Campbell of B&D, I’m one of those people who gets to the airport 2 hours before flight time, just like TSA instructs.  Usually I end up sitting at the gate for 90 minutes, but yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to discover there was any earlier flight that had been delayed about 45 minutes, and had a few seats open.  When the gate agent asked if anyone was interesting in leaving early, I jumped up and ran to check-in.

Big mistake.

No sooner (maybe 5-6 minutes) did US Air get everyone on the plane and the door closed, did the pilot inform the passengers that we would be in a weather delay, and that he would keep us updated every 15-30 minutes.

Minutes stretched into Hours.

At the 2 hour mark, US Air got cute.  According to the new FAA regulations, they were supposed to have everyone deplane at this point.  However, they told us that if we got off the plane, we would not be allowed to re-board.  Didn’t seem like cricket to me, but…

A handful of people departed, but the rest stayed on when we were told that a later scheduled flight (my original flight) would not take off before ours.

Another 1 1/2 hours passed.  At that point, they told us we could get off the plane, but we had to be back on in 10 minutes, in the event we were given clearance to take off.  No one left, and (lo and behold) exactly 10 minutes later we were given clearance, but had to wait 20 more minutes before pushing back from the gate because they needed to add more fuel because we would be taking a new, longer route to Charlotte. Super.

Finally – 4 hours after boarding the flight – we took off.

I’m grasping here, but I’m hoping for some parallels between my flight and my experience to date with Cerec.  Its been about 4 years since I purchased the system, and its basically been “sitting on the ground” for most of that time.  I hope this course I’m attending provides some clearance, and I will actually be able to make the damn thing “fly”.

More tonight…

© 2010, Jeff Saylors. All rights reserved.