B22 to F12 O’Hare sprint, overloaded Air Boss, + misc. weekend ramblings…

I’m not sure how I managed to book a 42 minute layover in O’Hare, but I did. UA8089 was scheduled to arrive at ORD at 7:17am this morning and my connection, UA6518, was scheduled to depart at 7:59am. This normally wouldn’t concern me too much, but I was traveling with golf clubs. And then I learned that we were arriving at B22 (all the way at the end of Terminal 1) and 6518 was departing from F12, which is basically about as far away in Terminal 2 as you can get from B22.

I wasn’t overly concerned until I deplaned at 7:25. Convinced my clubs might not make it, I began walking briskly to the E/F concourses. I made it in plenty of time, despite having put about 15 lbs. of “stuff” in my Air Boss. (I needed to bring a bunch of shirts with me as I was playing golf every day, plus I brought the Bose headphones, a pair of sneakers, a hardcover book… it added up!) I used the Tom Bihn Absolute Strap with the Air Boss, and it reaffirmed my findings in my recent shoulder strap comparison test.

The Absolute Strap is simply tremendous: grippy, comfortable, with plenty of “give”: you can feel it flexing as you walk. Oh… the fully loaded Air Boss easily fit into the overhead on the CRJ 200’s I flew on for all four legs. I used the Kiva keychain backpack to segregate the items I wanted to use onboard, and it worked like a charm: get to my seat when boarding, pull it out of the Air Boss, toss it on my seat, and stow the A.B.; while waiting to deplane, I’d quickly unzip one of the Air Boss’s compartments and re-stow the tiny Kiva backpack; slick.

The good news: my clubs made it just fine. As always, I write my itinerary on a plastic bag tag attached to the bag itself, in case the paper airline transfer tag gets ripped off in transit, but of course it never came into play. Better safe than sorry.

The weekend was great, albeit too short. I was able to play three rounds with my old golf buddies and my brother joined us for a couple of rounds.

Plus… we crammed a lot into a few days – a couple of good dinners, visits with family, and a quick drive out to my old childhood home in Taborton, NY. (Google Earth may not cover this place… it’s out in the boonies! Beautiful country.)

I switched to the latest version of WordPress last Wednesday night, and my FREE Downloads page immediately went south on me – without my knowledge. Many thanks to reader Tira who alerted me to the problem, and it’s now fixed.

Have a great week, everyone!