I’m officially on vacation from work (though my phone was ringing off the hook all morning and I did end up logging in for a bit to settle a few things down). Last night I packed up my stuff and crashed out at a little past 00:30 - a perfectly reasonable hour to catch an early flight the next day. Only it would have been much better had I remembered to set my alarm. I awoke with a start at 07:12, and was out the door in less than 5min with my luggage on the road and a taxi on the way. I live pretty close to the airport, but even if I had woken up right at the check-in counter I’d have been pushing my luck. My flight was scheduled to depart at 07:44, and my only hope was that it was delayed. It wasn’t.
After a little runaround with three ticket agents from three different airlines and an hour and a half on the phone with Aeroplan (and one disconnect/callback), an angel appeared in the form of a US Air ticket agent. She put me on the 14:30 flight (standby), and we figured that my Star Alliance Gold status would put me in decent standing to get a seat - even though the flight was known to be oversold.
By this time nearly 2hrs had passed, and I still had 2hrs to kill before I could check in (3hrs early is the max if you have luggage). I disappeared, and called Jen just to tell her how much I suck. She responded by coming by and we went out for breakfast - which was a nice tonic for the morning’s madness and confusion. I showed up a little before 11 and got my luggage checked in. I also paid $80 for my bike case. I’ll be curious to see if I get charged on the way home as well, given that I average around 50%. Something got me flagged at NEXUS, so I had to go into secondary but they just waived me on after checking my documents - apparently the system thought I had an expired travel document.
I also learned that bike cases won’t fit in the XRAY machines at YVR, so every bike case gets opened. At least that’s what they guy at the belt told me as he made me open the case so he could swab it. That done, I proceeded to the Air Canada lounge to chill out for a bit (I still had over 2hrs before my flight). Had a beer, did some work, and then went down to see if I made it onto the 14:30 flight.
Well, this time everything did go right and I was assigned seat 6E - an economy class middle seat. (I had booked business class as that was the only available option on points when I made my reservation - and even then it was tough!) I’ve never been so happy to get a middle seat. I lucked out with two “normal sized” guys on either side of me as well, so no organic armrests for me this time. 
I’m in PHX now, waiting for my connector to ELP. They have free wireless here, which ROCKS.
Good times…