I was a little nervous about the drive to the airport Sunday morning. It was supposed to snow pretty good the night before. It did snow a bit, so I shoveled the driveway before I left at 4:30am for my 6:00am flight. The snow got worse on the drive, but I made it to the airport fine. The snow was coming down in these massive flakes. I pulled out my phone in the parking lot to take a picture.
I got through security just fine. I brought my new small banjo because I really wanted to pick some tunes with Jeremy. When we boarded the plane it was really coming down hard. We waited for the de-icing crew, who were busy with another plane. Then they ran out of fluid and had to get more, then do that same plane again. Wait wait wait. They finally started de-icing our plane… and ran out of fluid. As they were about to come back, nearly 2 hours later, we got word that the crew on our flight had exceed their maximum hours worked in a shift and we had to de-plane. There was no other crew to take their place.
I got rebooked on a flight a few hours later… canceled. Snow was coming down to hard to keep up with the de-icing.
I got booked on a flight 8 hours after that, which I was prepared to wait for… canceled.
I got a “seat request” ticket for a flight the next morning, but I would have missed my talk slot at AEA SF even if I got that seat. They probably could have shuffled things around for me, but I made the call not to go. Driving to and from the airport was dangerous in the blizzard conditions, and I didn’t feel good about leaving the family in that way anyway.
I felt horrible for the organizers. I’ve been to so many AEA events I consider them friends, and I let them down. It sounds like they scrambled to rearrange the first day without my slot.
What I was able to do is sit down at the computer to record my talk and sent it in for them to play at the end of the first day, for anyone who wanted to hang around and watch it.
I heard it went OK! I heard good feedback from two people via email, one via Instagram messages, one Mastodon post, and one SMS message, and one passing Tweet.
I find that funny, these days. There was a hay day for Twitter and conferences, where you could give a talk anywhere and the meta-conversation on Twitter would be flying. Well before this current embarrassing period for Twitter, those times were dying off. Now what is left is fragmented. I suspect some of the meta-conversation has disappeared behind private barriers like Discord and Slack. I also suspect some of it died in the pandemic. It’s just not as common to shout to the world you’re traveling and attending large events. Whatever happens to Twitter, those bustling old days are forever gone.
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