On the day prior to kickoff of the much anticipated StartingBloc conference, Fellows from around the world are finding themselves stranded in airport lounges from Dubai to DC! As a wave of winter weather barrels across the country, flights are being cancelled and roads are slicker than an olympic ice luge! As for me, I left this morning navigating my way through unplowed road to get to a ridiculously slippery I-70 that would take me to the Indianapolis Airport. It took a while to get used to the driving conditions (after I turned my car sideways after first getting on the highway and managed to correct myself). The 70 MPH speed limit let way to a cautionary 30-40 MPH pace. Every few miles there were cars who managed to find themselves in ditches on either side of the road — fortunately I was not one of them…yet!

I successfully arrived at the airport an hour before my flight, pulled into the long-term parking lot only to find that it had not been plowed and parking spots were nothing more than piles of snow up to 4 feet. My first parking attempt led to my car getting stuck halfway. After managing to get out of that situation, I successfully parked in another spot (just missing the shuttle to the airport). When I finally got to the ticket counter, my flight was 20 minutes away from takeoff. Apparently, the computers lock out 30 minutes prior — meaning I was S.O.L!

So now I’m writing to you all from my “headquarters” for the day: Starbucks in the Indy Airport In an effort to mitigate against all risk of missing another flight, I’ll be camping out here until my flight tomorrow at 11AM. It’s been nice — I ended up meeting with my cousin Ben who was flying into town for business. And I’ve managed to get a lot of work and reading done!

For everybody traveling, stay safe and keep your spirits high! All the StaringBloc Fellows, I’ll see you in the days to come as we trickle into Boston from all over the globe!