Update: Events of Dec 1
Dec. 7th, 2005 09:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smofbabeFor the second day in a row, I was out of bed at 5:30 a.m. and when I blurrily looked out the window, I found that as predicted, the strongest storm of the season had hit the area. By 7 a.m., I was standing outside in the rain, illegally tossing seven full 20-gallon trashbags out of my rental car and into a commercial dumpster at a nearby shopping center. (I'm a bad, bad person...) During the 90-minute interval, I'd also discovered that the stuff I'd planned to fit into my two extra luggage items I'm entitled on the trip back to Melbourne was just a little too much to fit. I'm entitled to three bags up to 70 pounds each and up to 62 linear inches each. Given that the current boxes I was using are 18x18x16, I had a little room to go up in size before I hit the max.
After trying three drugstores and even *shudder* Wal-Mart, I remembered a small pack-and-ship place in the small downtown of my suburb. Their stock was all in a back room and when I explained what I needed, the elderly clerk went into the back and emerged with a box about 48 linear inches. I said, no, that's even smaller than what I have now. He said no, you count all four dimensions. I said no, I think you only count the three printed on the box. After he argued back for a while ("but that's how much room it takes up in the hold") I finally just told him that I'd like to buy larger ones and would take responsibility, and he then brought out the perfect 20x20x20 box. Given that by then I was paranoid about it, I did a Google search when I got home to make sure that my assumption was correct (which it was).
The charity truck to haul my stuff away was supposed to show up between 9:30 and 10:30, and I specifically told the guy who does the arrangements that I had to catch a plane. I had figured I'd finish boxing up the kitchen stuff and putting in the trash all the remaining stuff in my condo (e.g., bathroom supplies, cleaning supplies, etc.). 10:30 came, no truck. 10:45, no truck. I called at 11 and they called back shortly thereafter to say that because of the crummy weather, the truckdriver was running late. *ack* Finally, at 11:25, he showed up, and it was the same crotchety guy who had come the last time, only this time without the nicer younger guy accompanying him. As last time, he took forever to load things, at one point wasting 20 minutes trying to get the drawers back into my dresser once he'd hauled them all out to the truck. Meanwhile, Stephen's plane had landed and his flight to Portland that was supposed to take off at 1:25 kept being delayed because of weather. I meanwhile was hauling trash out to the rental car and to my complex's bin waiting for the move guy to finish. That didn't happen until 12:45 and I was supposed to be meeting my friend at the rental car place at 1:15.
I took the quick shower I'd been planning on but had no time to return the library books or the digital cable box. For once, when I actually *wanted* my flight to be late, no luck. When I arrived at the rental car place, I basically blackmailed my patient friend, explaining that if he didn't think he could turn the digital cable box back, I'd call Alaska and try to get on a later flight. He reluctantly agreed, and got me to the airport on time to catch my flight. I was exceedingly glad that I'd decided to fly out of San Jose rather than San Francisco given that Stephen's news delivered by cellphone was worse and worse: at one point, only one runway was open at SFO. My flight, OTOH, arrived on time and I took the convenient lightrail to the SMOFcon hotel and fell over until Stephen arrived at about 6:45, a really looonnnggg day for him.
[SMOFcon report sold separately]
After trying three drugstores and even *shudder* Wal-Mart, I remembered a small pack-and-ship place in the small downtown of my suburb. Their stock was all in a back room and when I explained what I needed, the elderly clerk went into the back and emerged with a box about 48 linear inches. I said, no, that's even smaller than what I have now. He said no, you count all four dimensions. I said no, I think you only count the three printed on the box. After he argued back for a while ("but that's how much room it takes up in the hold") I finally just told him that I'd like to buy larger ones and would take responsibility, and he then brought out the perfect 20x20x20 box. Given that by then I was paranoid about it, I did a Google search when I got home to make sure that my assumption was correct (which it was).
The charity truck to haul my stuff away was supposed to show up between 9:30 and 10:30, and I specifically told the guy who does the arrangements that I had to catch a plane. I had figured I'd finish boxing up the kitchen stuff and putting in the trash all the remaining stuff in my condo (e.g., bathroom supplies, cleaning supplies, etc.). 10:30 came, no truck. 10:45, no truck. I called at 11 and they called back shortly thereafter to say that because of the crummy weather, the truckdriver was running late. *ack* Finally, at 11:25, he showed up, and it was the same crotchety guy who had come the last time, only this time without the nicer younger guy accompanying him. As last time, he took forever to load things, at one point wasting 20 minutes trying to get the drawers back into my dresser once he'd hauled them all out to the truck. Meanwhile, Stephen's plane had landed and his flight to Portland that was supposed to take off at 1:25 kept being delayed because of weather. I meanwhile was hauling trash out to the rental car and to my complex's bin waiting for the move guy to finish. That didn't happen until 12:45 and I was supposed to be meeting my friend at the rental car place at 1:15.
I took the quick shower I'd been planning on but had no time to return the library books or the digital cable box. For once, when I actually *wanted* my flight to be late, no luck. When I arrived at the rental car place, I basically blackmailed my patient friend, explaining that if he didn't think he could turn the digital cable box back, I'd call Alaska and try to get on a later flight. He reluctantly agreed, and got me to the airport on time to catch my flight. I was exceedingly glad that I'd decided to fly out of San Jose rather than San Francisco given that Stephen's news delivered by cellphone was worse and worse: at one point, only one runway was open at SFO. My flight, OTOH, arrived on time and I took the convenient lightrail to the SMOFcon hotel and fell over until Stephen arrived at about 6:45, a really looonnnggg day for him.
[SMOFcon report sold separately]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-12-07 09:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-07 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-07 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-07 10:13 am (UTC)All FOUR dimensions? The airlines measure how far your luggage extends into hyperspace?
no subject
Date: 2005-12-07 10:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-08 01:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-11 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-07 10:35 am (UTC)SEA on the 1st our flight out of SD was delayed due to problems at SFO and our flight out of SFO was delayed for hours! I actually got a letter from United yesterday apologizing for the delay. Oddly enough, Jordin didn't get the same letter. Most peculiar.
MKK
no subject
Date: 2005-12-08 12:15 am (UTC)