Seattle trip 2010 - Not the best start

I've had worse starts to my trip - like waking up 1 hour late and rushing to the airport (in Phoenix) in record time only to arrive at the ticket counter at the exact time my flight was scheduled to leave. This time I did everything right, arrived at Sky Harbor in plenty of time, and had this happen:

Self check-in kiosk indicates that 40 minutes to departure time is the deadline for self check-in, and I need to talk to a clerk. I look at my phone, it's 39 minutes to departure time. Great.

There's 1 clerk, and a line of 3 people. Great. One of them let me in front of her because her thing wasn't pressing (thank you!) and she even tried to get some other clerk to help me (there were many clerks, but evidently only 1 computer). Despite her efforts, it took FOREVER for them to get to me, and by that time they had given my seat away.

Best part (and by "best" I mean "worst")? Before I left home 2 hours earlier I thought about checking in online. I even went back inside after getting in the car to leave in order to do so. I went to the online check-in page, and was maybe 2 clicks away from checking in, but realized that (1) my laptop and my printer never talk to each other, (2) it would take forever to turn on my old computer in order to print my boarding pass, and (3) I'm checking a bag anyway, so I decided I'd just take care of it when I got to the airport.

What a stupid thing to think!

If I had checked in online, then when I hit the kiosk I could have printed my boarding pass and then dropped off my checked bag and been on the plane. In retrospect, had I not bothered going back inside I might have made it to the kiosk in time to check in. One of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations I guess. What are the odds?

So they confirmed me on another flight... tomorrow morning! And in the meantime I'm on standby for a flight at 1:30, and failing that another plight at 4:45. Either of the flights today would be nice, I don't particularly want to start my vacation by sleeping (nor by NOT sleeping) at an airport and missing 20% of the frisbee tournament.

I'm trying to look at the bright side though. Sky Harbor has free WiFi, and I happened to bring 2 of my favorite movies (Boondock Saints and The Last Boyscout) as well as a DVD of Veronica Mars (season 2, disc 5... I like that show!). And while they skipped me (twice), my $12 chicken sandwich and fries tasted really good when I finally got them, and they have free refills on soda (not that I really want to drink a lot of soda).