Dear American Airlines, United Airlines and Chicago O'Hare (ORD)

Sorry for the extra week off. The trip was so good that it took me another week to wind down. The weather was perfect, the sights were unbelievable and the conference - what I got to attend of it - was great.
I say what I got to attend of it as I missed a full half day of the conference on the first day due to my flight the night before being delayed by a full 3 hours.
I made an important decision after this trip. Although my travel writing has really started to take off (pun intended), I've decided that I will minimize my carbon footprint further by specializing in places I can get to by car, train or bus.
The primary reason isn't necessarily environmental, it is one for my own sanity. When I was a child, flying was such a dignified way to travel. My mother and I would dress up and the people at the airport, as well as the crew in the planes were so nice.
I'm not a masochists and I refuse to pay $600-$900 a ticket to be humiliated by security by practically stripping down; walk through a gross, germ infested terminal in my socks, and be told by a jerk at Chicago's O'Hare airport that my small, billfold sized purse that is hanging from my neck is a 3rd carry on while he makes me step out of line and take it off and crunch it down in my book bag before I check my other carry on with the valet (on regional, small sized jets, they allow you to throw your own bag onto the luggage cart before boarding so you're only boarding with usually one bag anyway). I traveled in 6 airports that week and ORD is the only airport in the country that counts a small billfold sized purse as a carry on.
All of that, and I got to spend an entire evening in the Knoxville, TN airport that completely closes at 8 p.m. (they even closed the bathrooms for a time so they could clean them)while AA brought in a plane so we could make it to Chicago and spend the night in a hotel across from the airport. The next day was my conference, which began at 8 a.m. While Milwaukee is only a 15 minute flight from Chicago, the first flight out wasn't until 9:15 and I had another hour drive from the airport to the conference resort.
So, count me among the people who will not be flying any longer. Not only is it the most environmentally unfriendly way to travel, it is the most undiginified, unpleasant way.