Stranded Holiday Travelers

For the first time in my life, I'm watching the news about stranded air travelers from the position of being one. Mom and I were flying back from Texas today, but due to the weather and some negligence by Delta (we were rescheduled, apparently, to a flight very early this morning, which we could have made easily if only some one had bothered to tell us) we find ourselves stuck in Atlanta, scheduled for the last flight to Newark (note that our original itenerary called for us to go to Laguardia by way of Cincinatti...). Our flight - still more than an hour til it was supposed to board, is already delayed to 10:20 (again, originally we were supposed to arrive in NY at 5 pm) and at this point I'm favoring the pessimism that says we won't get out tonight - which would be very bad, because due to others having flights cancelled there is not a single seat to NY until Sunday. If it does get pushed back that far, it will rank as by far the lamest way I've ever spent my birthday (as I will be turning 26 on the 21st). All in all, it's been a fairly lousy day, spent entirely in airports or plains (2 and a half hours in a plain, 9 in airports so far). I was forced to check my carry on, and god alone knows if it will make it to Newark - it contains all clothes, toilettreies, most books and my computer. Thank god for Blackberry! Still, my spirits aren't bad, and at least we have seats on this flight, so if it actually gets of the ground we will get to NY - probably after 2 am.

Hope you all are having a better start to the weekend than I...