Update: Events of Dec 1

For 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. ( Minor Box Saga )

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]

Update: Events of Dec 1

For 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. ( Minor Box Saga )

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]