Birmingham, AL

Birmingham is a cursed city! Everytime I go there something happens to me. Either I have a delayed flight, I want to kill the ticket agent at the airport (true story), or this...

I was supposed to go to Sylacauga, AL to install Opera in a new-build Holiday Inn Express. My project e-mail told me to call the GM on his cell phone when I got in so that I could find out where I was staying since the hotel would not have it's CO (Certificate of Occupancy) yet. Since I would be arriving in Birmingham at 8:30pm and then picking up my rental car and driving 50 miles, I decided to call the GM while I was waiting to board my flight in Houston, so that I wouldn't be rude and call him late that night. I called him and he told me that the hotel hadn't passed some of their inspections and pushed another week and that I wasn't supposed to be coming. I got on the phone with my project specialist to find out if indeed I was going, but she was at home and didn't have access to the IHG information, and told me to wait and she would call me back. Meanwhile, my flight starts boarding. I asked the ticket agent how long I could wait before I HAD to board the plane. He told me I had 15 minutes. I called Steve and asked if I needed to, could I get picked up from the airport... 10 minutes later, I get a phone call to tell me that IHG had not sent the official push information to my office and I did have to go. My project specialist told me that I should just get a hotel near the airport in Birmingham since I would probably be flying out the next morning. Off to Birmingham... I arrive in Birmingham and there are no rooms at any hotels. I called the 1-800#'s for every major hotel chain and tried to get a room for that night and there was nothing. Finally, the front desk agent at the Holiday Inn cancelled a non-gtd reservation and let me in. At 8:00am the next morning I got a phone call with my return flight and 5 hours later I was boarding a flight to Houston.