October 2007 travel notes

Boring trip, which is a good thing. Last time I went on this exact trip, with the same person, there were...fireworks. I'll take the boring! We were so overly polite to each other that it was almost a dance of manners, so that was funny. Sort of.

Found a guy's passport at the waiting area near the gate. Hope he was done with his trip! That pretty much set the standard of the rest of my trip, because no matter what happened, it couldn't be as bad as his day likely was if he hadn't done all his checking in :(

A cancelled flight, of course!!!! But I made it there the same day as planned (albeit much, much later), so can't complain. Too loudly.

They still serve free food on Delta! To people in Economy class! I got a tiny box of raisins, some crackers, (chemical, but not terribly chemical-tasting) cheese spread, a shortbread cookie, and a biscuit. Glory be, what riches!

Factory visits weren't particularly interesting. Same old, same old.

Rain in Monterey, so no beach view. Sad, because it is one of the most beautiful places in California that I've been to, and I'm really starting to rack up the Cali points...

Commercial flower fields were pretty, though. As far as the eye can see...

Consolation prize

The one good thing about going in to work on the weekend?

Pajamas.

:)

'Tis the season

Currently: Yum!!

Oh, Honeycrisp apple! One bite, and I am transported to a land of...honeyed sweetness. Bright, refreshing, and naturally sugary tart! That first bite simply revels in...crispness. Each bit is crunchily chewy, bursting with clean, brisk flavor and a pleasingly (crisp! again! because they are no appropriate synonyms for "crisp" to convey the exact texture) firm, yet-not-too-hard (granny smith, this means you!) texture.

Huh.

Well played, apple-naming people.

Brilliance?

This is why they pay those guys who went to schools of hotel management the bug bucks:

and the close-up:

Now, if they could just figure out a way to get the hotel staff to put the right pillows in the designated cases...

Some assembly required

Mating! Ten ways! Is HARD!

So, the wardrobe is not quite as tall as my ceiling, but is tall enough that it could not be assembled on the ground and then tilted up against the wall. Instead, the first half was put together on the floor, but the other two pieces were joined while the base was standing up. Now, mating 5 screws and dowels at the bottom of an 8-foot board is difficult, especially when you are holding it from behind, unable to see, and trying to follow someone else's enthusiastic but ultimately-not-specific-enough directions. Picture this, however - trying to mate 10 screw and dowel ports while holding a heavy, 4-foot board over your head with your arms outstretched, eight feet in the air, with no direction whatsoever. Awesome, right??!! Did I mention that we were putting together two adjoining wardrobes?

Good car!

We went to Ikea so make some big (as in large) purchases, but were a little fuzzy on the details about getting everything home. Turns out, wardrobes as big as a walk-in closets take up a lot of space, even in unassembled form.

This isn't the actual car, but you get the idea...

We made a Focus unicorn!!! Or a narwhal.

Someone mocked my (albeit slightly sarcastic) idea that we'd have to arrange the boxes to go through the sun roof. Since driving with the back of a hatchback open is a scary, scary business, this was the only way to bring home our haul in one trip. We still had to take most of the planks out of the boxes to make it all fit! The diagonal boards and boxes took up most of the room in the car, so we had to scoot up veeeery close to the dashboard. And then drive extremely slowly home. And then unload into the house, piece by piece, for nearly an hour, well into the twilight.

We were well pleased when we got it all in and found out that we had not bought a piece of furniture taller than my ceiling :)

Gypped

I'm not the really type of girl who enjoys discussing sparkly shit. Rings are nice and all, and I'm pleased to admire your newly-acquired (or newly-polished, or antique, or WHATEVER) ice or other random bauble for the moment, but I SO DO NOT want to talk about settings, and the 4Cs, art deco vs. classic, and the proper degree of obsequiousness in waitpeople, the best temperature to put you in the mood for jewelery shopping, and the like.

On the other hand, I'm willing to put up with much in order to suck up to the people who decide whether or not I deserve to have new office furniture. My chair is of the 70s in a rather less-than-cool way, and I was hoping to trade up for a newer, leather-er model that just happened to be unused in the untenanted offices down the way. We plopped ourselves down in the chairs, oohed and ahhed at their clear superiority, and I, desperate to make a pleasant small talk impression on the gatekeeper, made an innocent inquiry regarding her shiny hand decoration:

Oh, squeal! New fiancee! Happiness and joy!

[interest and felicitations]

The first ring didn't cut it. Here's why.

[my seriously? eyebrows were smoothed down into sympathy and admiration]

This is how I picked the new, perfect ring.

[frozen, pasted smile]

5 digits he spent on me!!!

[I'm all for glee, but under the circumstances...]

But there's one more I have my eye on...

[OMG]

What do you think?

[babble]

etc.

FOR AN HOUR.

That I could have billed.

And no, I didn't even get my chair. Life is grotesquely unfair.

M&W

Once you allow yourself to commit to keeping a white car (even semi!) clean, you are letting yourself in for a world of misery and woe.

Especially if you happen to park under extremely sticky sap-ariffic trees plagued by patchy black fungi. Which transfers to paint.

Done

Mood: It feels surreal, like it never really happened.

I dropped off the hardcopies, which I most emphatically did NOT make extras for myself, to keep in perpetuity in my basement.

I delivered the electronic version of the final draft and the appendices.

He shook my hand.

Congratulations were tendered.

Even though he says he'll take care of any last minute formatting, typos, TOC regeneration, etc., I simply don't believe, and that is kind of sad. This paper has been hanging over my head (guillotine fear!) for so long, that even though I've been celebrating some draft milestones along the way, I don't feel like it's really over.

(Of course, that's probably because I still have to lock horns with my committee to ensure that they accept the BFB as my capstone paper, and then write an analytical summary of WHY I HATED THIS PROCESS - which, I'm actually looking forward to doing - after I win. One potential committee member has already bitten the dust over this controversy.)

Soon, though...

Making the bed

...is an interesting strategy for staying out of it. I'm still not sure I approve of the practice, however, as a messy bed is just so "climb on in!" inviting. Which, I know, is the whole point (though it doesn't hurt that I don't really find any aesthetic pleasure in a neatly made bed), but still, seems a tad Puritan for me...

Still sick

Question from my coworker, through the glass window looking into my office, once I'd dragged my tired a** back to work after taking a few days off to cough in(to) my pajamas, but was nice/cautious enough to keep my door firmly closed:

"Are you still radioactive?" (accompanied by exaggerated hand gestures and concerned mouthing of syllables)

In a word, YES.

:(

Factory update

Oh yeah, forgot to update on the neat factories I visited. I love seeing things being made!

Best of the trip: seeing nacho cheese being squeezed into big (several gallon) bags. Partly plastic-looking, partly disgusting, partly pure awesome! I now know where Taco Bell gets its orange cheese and it's not exactly pretty...

Also interesting, seeing the insides of a Pepsi-bottling plant. Towers (several stories) of soda pallets is an intimidating sight! I tried freshly-bottled Squirt! (It's okay. I prefer Slice or Sprite.)

Assorted metalworking places, including a 55-gallon drum maker. There, were got/had to step directly over the assembly lines to walk around the plant. You had to carefully time your step across the line, or else be whacked by a freshly-painted barrel!

A feed-making operation (very dusty, with powdered grain everywhere and constantly waving off of buzzy flies) and its neighboring ethanol plant. Great synergy.

There has to be a travel story, right?

But of course! My flight from Phoenix to Fresno, which actually originated in California, was cancelled at the last minute, the hub system thus stranding me out of the state I'd started and wanted to end up in. Naturally, the hotel where they stashed me for the night had broken air conditioning. In Arizona. Since I like to sleep all year long in frigid temperatures and buried under a thick layer of blankets, the stress and heat was an ideal mix for a sleepless night, or exactly the kind of night you wish to spend before flying off, early in the morning, to arrive several hours late at your one-day meeting. Sigh.

The flight home, however, long, was an exercise in best-case scenario perfection. I was actually afraid that they wouldn't let me on the plane, as I was looking extremely ill and obviously hacking out my lungs. (I learned on this trip that I am absolute asshat with perfect disregard in personally contributing to deteriorating public health, because I am only concerned about spreading pestilence among my loved ones. To the folks that I contaminated: sorry, but I probably caught it from you, so welcome back to the never-ending circle of plague.) Luckily, I was allowed on and even snagged a seat in first class for the long flight back to the east coast. The kindly stewardsfolk kept me supplied with a steady stream of orange juice mixed with ginger ale all through the night. (GOD, I HATE RED EYES.) (Upon reflection, first class, with its limited access to other passengers, ready supply of liquids, shortened wait for the restroom, and cabin full of the people most likely to have easy access to the finest health care on the planet, is an excellent way to travel while ill.) When I got to JFK, my bags were some of the first luggage off the plane and a towncar driver snagged me the moment I walked through the security doors. Ironically, he had to drive me past my original destination on the way to the Long Island airport. (I'd decided to skip family time to avoid spreading disease among my people and fly the extra leg straight home.) (By the way, flying while congested and headachy is pure torture, as the pressure changes feel like they will shatter-squeeze your skull to pieces.) There, Southwest had me on the first flight back home for an extremely reasonable, bought-at-the-airport (first time for everything!) fare. (Air travel really is amazing these days, as you can walk up to the counter and literally go anywhere in the world. Holy cow!) I was met at the airport by the most personal of car services and was whisked home, with a brief stop for some longed-for and most restorative breakfast pho, with a minimum fuss and fanfare.

Later, my sister told me that, knowing my luck, she was amazed that the new and improved travel plans actually came through without a hitch. Believe me, SO WAS I. I am so grateful to the travel gods, for being spared me from their blackest of humor on the most crucial of days.