Did someone say something about omens? It seems I cannot get a break with travel. We taxied out on to the tarmac and were ready to take flight.. when suddenly we turned around and headed back to the terminals.

Sure enough, something had gone wrong - one of the onboard generators was broken and needed to be replaced. About an hour and a half later we finally hit the skies. Did I mention that United hasn't upgraded their 747s yet? Which meant EmPower.. which no one had any adaptors for at Sydney airport.

Naturally, this meant the rest of my connections were not going to work. I got through customs in time to see my 11:45am flight missed. But to my surprise, it seems that another flight was canceled and that flight was now delayed.. and delayed.. and delayed.. oh, and did I mention packed full of people?

I was given a 'bump #1' card if there were any free seats on the plane. This bump #1 status didn't mean as much as I thought, as others were handed out boarding cards at the last minute. I watched with dismay as it came down to two remaining boarding cards. The names were called - but no one answered.

Finally, a double check was done and it was confirmed that those two people weren't on the flight, so me and another person were taken to the plane and luckily I was on it. My luggage had already been expedited by the transfer service desk back at Customs, so my luggage has probably beaten me to Cincinnati by now.

I'm now waiting in Chicago for my flight, which instead of being at 7pm is now at 11pm - i get in to Cinci rather late. Unfortunately too - by the time I could call Tamara, her husband had already headed out to the airport to pick me up. Sorry Boris!!

It'll be late by the time I get there and a taxi ride will take my to my colleagues home where I can finally crash and get some sleep.

The adventure will resume on Saturday when I head to Portland....