Okay, so let me tell you about my day a work. It actually started before I even left for work when - as mentioned previously - Harry called and offered me the fulltime spot. After arriving at work at 2, I talked to Harry, whom I saw for the first time in over a month, and signed off on my tardy from over the weekend. He also gave me a cap. Apparently the prize that Team RamRod received for winning our little friendly competition was a Pinnacle Airlines cap, which wouldn't be so bad if we were allowed to wear it at work, but apparently we're not. Today was also payday, so I grabbed my check stub (because I get direct deposit) and checked that out. Then I went outside and worked my first flight of the day. The day started off innocent enough. Everything was normal, and it was 84 degrees outside, but there was a nice, constant southwesterly breeze. About 4 o'clock that all changed. Corey and I were awaiting the arrival of the flight from Detroit when the wind instantly changed from the southwest to the east. This wind from the east was cold and strong. Within minutes the cloud cover had changed from thin and white to thick, gray, and menacing, and the temperature had dropped about 25 degrees. Oh, but it only gets better.... About 6:50, just as we're getting everyone onboard the next flight to Minneapolis and we're about to pull the jetbridge we get a message that that flight is being put on a ground stop for almost an hour. The captain decides to deplane everyone and we moved them back to the gate area. About 7:10 we reboarded the plane and sent it off. Then it sat out on ramp. And it sat. And it sat. Finally about 8:25, just as the next flight from Detroit is also coming in, the flight that was supposed to leave for Minneapolis radios back and says that they're experiencing mechanical problems, can't take off, and are going to return to the gate. Oh shit. So, I hauled ass outside to park the Minneapolis plane at gate 7 when I realized that Midwest had once again parked their little shit plane there, even though we're the one's paying thousands of dollars a month to rent that gate. Too bad our manager apparently doesn't have the guts to either tell off Midwest or get Big Northwest on their asses (that gets stuff done - believe me - having Big Northwest as your parent is like having the mafia for relatives). Not having a radio on me, I ran inside quickly to call ops and tell them 7 is unusable and ask them if we should use 6. That's what we ended up doing. We parked Minneapolis at 5 and Detroit at 6. Then we pulled the bags from Detroit and dumped them, cleaned Detroit, moved the bags from Minneapolis to Detroit, and sent Detroit out as Minneapolis. By the time Minneapolis finally left they had been delayed for over 2-1/2 hours. Okay, so that was one problem averted (sort of). We still had one more plane to wait on. As the plane used on the previous Minneapolis flight was supposed to be the one that came back for the next one, they couldn't send that flight out until the one that had been delayed for 2-1/2 hours arrived, was cleaned, and made ready to go. Combined with the weather problems, it was 11:50 before that plane ever even left Minneapolis (it's scheduled to arrive in Appleton at 10:30). They were then supposed to land at abour 12:45, but they had to abort a landing attempt when they hit really bad turbulence. They circled the airport for quite sometime. The wind was awful, the rain was coming down quite heavily, and there were spurts of heavy lightning as well. Finally they hit the point where they either had to land or would have to divert to Madison. Had that happened, we would have had to sit around waiting for the bus to come up from Madison, which probably wouldn't have arrived until well after 4. A little after 1:30 they made a final attempt at landing and were able to do it. We got them on the ground, Amy and Krista started cleaning the plane, and I pulled bags and dumped them. Then, as I was tossing garbage bags in the Dumpster, the wind blew the gate shut and I was trapped in the garbage area. The fences in there are over 6 feet high and topped by multiple layers of barbed wire. Thankfully, there was a nice security weakness and the gate to the outside was broken. Actually, this pretty much only means 2 things: 1) people can steal garbage, and 2) I could escape - yay! I ran out, used my badge to open the security door, and got back inside. Whew. By the time I finished shit outside and they finished cleaning the plane it was damn near 2:30. It was about 3 by the time I got home. It's been a long day. I'm ready for bed. It was 84 at 4 o'clock, 60 by 4:30, and it's down to the mid-30s by now. Good night.