Yesterday I started the last business trip of the year. I flew out of Colorado Springs through Denver into San Jose, California. I got out of the houst about 15 minutes later than I wanted to leave for a 7:40 a.m. flight and then missed the exit off the freeway to the airport. Due to construction in that area, the exit configuration had changed rather dramatically and I went flying by the exit. That added about five minutes to the trip to the airport. However, none of that mattered since the flight was delayed and perhaps cancelled.

This flight was operated by Air Wisconsin and equipment problems grounded the planned airplane. A replacement airplane was being ferried to Colorado Springs but probably wouldn’t be available in sufficient time for me to catch the flight from Denver to San Jose. So, I rebooked to take an 8:40 a.m. United flight to Denver and an 11:20 flight out of Denver to San Jose.

While I was sitting in the airport in Colorado Springs waiting for the rescheduled airplane, United filed for bankruptcy. That shouldn’t make much difference for me in the short term, but probably means a huge difference for United in the long term. No airline has ever emerged from bankruptcy and survived.

Sunday’s newspaper had an announcement that security at the airports will change “just in time for the holidays.” Not a day too soon, in my opinion. One of the changes implemented after 9/11/2001 attack was to implement supposedly random inspection of passengers at the boarding gate. Amongst the frequent traveling public, this has become known as the “old lady search.” Because it is imperative that the random inspection of passengers at the boarding gate not delay flight departure, the inspectors pull the first person in line for inspection. When they are finished inspecting that person, if there are sufficient people still in line to board, they will inspect someone else. So, all the seasoned travelers hang back from boarding until someone is being inspected. That usually turns out to be an elderly person, usually a lady, who approaches the boarding gate hoping to get early boarding so she can get situated. She’s usually walking with the aid of a cane and carrying a lot of stuff. She becomes the sacrificial lamb and as soon as she’s snagged, the boarding gate is mobbed. It’s definitely time for this absurd practice to end.

Of course, when I arrived in San Jose, I was more than two hours late for my rental car reservation. That necessitated a stop at the rental car counter to get the reservation reset and get a car rented. The net was rather than arriving at my San Jose office about 11:00 a.m., I didn’t get there until about 2:30 p.m.

The purpose of the trip is to attend two all-day meetings. In times past, these would have been so-called “offsite” meetings. However, in the current economic situation, we’re meeting on-site in one of our conference rooms — an on-site offsite meeting! The first of them is an e-commerce working council meeting followed by an all-day IT management meeting on Wednesday. I’ll fly back on Thursday afternoon. Perhaps travel will be less of a travail on Thursday?