Thursday, May 29, 2008

I'm going to California...

Another early morning trip to the airport. This time I'm headed to California for the weekend for work, and unlike last week, I've actually made it to my gate before my flight. Now this may be due to the fact that I took a cab to the airport, or it could be because I was able to leave for the airport an 1:45 before my flight, instead of 1:15.... There is also the nice and (ridiculously) early time: scheduling a cab pick-up for 4:30 a.m. is such fun (but at least there wasn't any traffic).

And today looks to be a long day. I fly out of Fort Lauderdale at 6:15 a.m. (4 a.m. wake up: yeah), and finish up with classes tonight at 10 p.m. Factor in the 3 hour time change (adding 3 hours) and that means a 4 a.m.-1 a.m. day: fun. Maybe I'll be able to catch a nap on one of the plane flights...

Have a good weekend.


Dreaming of a moment
When everything is right

Sunday, May 25, 2008

And it really makes me wonder

Right now, I am supposed to be flying back from Arizona.

I was supposed to leave from the Phoenix airport at 2 p.m. today, after having driven up from Tucson, where I was for the past day and a half attending the final days of a meeting.

I was supposed to arrive in Tucson late Friday night, after landing in Phoenix at 9:30 p.m. and driving down. This was after I was supposed to leave Fort Lauderdale shortly after work on Friday. This did not happen, and instead I spent the weekend in Fort Lauderdale.

Why? you may ask. Well, the short answer is because I missed my flight out on Friday. The long answer...

I missed my flight because:

  • When I arrived at the Fort Lauderdale airport at 4:45 p.m.--an hour before my flight, which should've been enough time--the parking garage was already full.
  • Because the parking garage was full, I was directed to remote parking, which took about 15 minutes to get to (I pulled into the lot at 4:57).
  • I found a spot in about 5 minutes, and proceeded to the shuttle bus stop to catch a ride back to the terminal (still had about 40-45 minutes before my departure);
  • I then waited 30-35 minutes at the bus stop, awaiting a bus to pick me up. After 2 buses drove by completely packed and spaced 15 minutes apart, I started walking back along the shuttle route. I also called the airport operator and advised then to add more buses to their shuttle route.
  • As I was walking back along the shuttle route, I caught a third bus that wasn't completely filled yet, but did fill up before I could get on--roughly 15 minutes from bus #2. About 5 minutes later a fourth bus, and I did manage to get on this one. This bus also managed to have enough room to pick up people at the stop where I had formerly been waiting.
  • The bus ride to the terminal took roughly 10-15 minutes, which got me to my terminal 3 minutes after my flight departed. After a brief debate over whether to bother trying to get through security to get to the gate, I headed over to the ticket counter instead, where they informed me that yes my flight had left, and the next available flight to Phoenix was the next day, arriving there at 11 a.m.
  • As this Saturday 11 a.m. arrival would put me in Tucson around 1 p.m., and I would be leaving Tucson again within 24-hours, I figured it was better I not go at all. This was confirmed by my contact with the group I was meeting, who said I should just stay here, rather than go through the craziness.
  • So, I left the ticket counter, and returned, via the shuttle bus, to remote parking and claimed my car and left the airport. The bus wasn't even a 1/4-full on the return, and it picked up no one out in remote parking....
And the best part: I got charged for parking. It also made my decision to drive myself, rather than try to coordinate a cab pick-up seem like the completely wrong thing to do. It also makes me wonder if the county/city is trying to supplement the local cab industry, or if they just aren't doing a good job of managing transportation options to the airport....


God damn my spinning head
Decisions that made my bed
Now I must lay in it
And deal with things I left unsaid

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Something happens and I'm head over heels

I have a new car--that's it over on the right here. Observant viewers will notice that this is not a C30 (love) nor the Jetta (money) so prominently featured in my previous post. Rather it is the barely referenced 3rd choice (and dark horse): a Honda Civic Hybrid.

How did I end up with the third, nearly dismissed, option? Well, last night, post my last kickball game for the season, I stopped into the Honda dealership on the way home to discuss total pricing of the car (so I'd have that to compare with the other 2 options).

As it turned out, they had 2 Civic Hybrids left in stock (of the 6-8 they had delivered over the weekend), one of which was the Galaxy Gray one you see (which is the colored I like for this car). So I sat briefly in the car, and determined that I'd be ok with the leg room within it (the big factor that had pushed it near disqualification). The salesman (Steve) and I then talked price and financing, and the numbers were alright with some fund shifting (particularly given the 2.9% financing American Honda offered).

I went home Wednesday evening, crunched some numbers, and then basically decided the price was do-able, with a minor delay on the down payment while my banks were sending the funds from one locations to another. So on my way into work in the morning , I called up Steve and left him a message that I wanted to buy the car. We then spoke at lunch, and I confirmed the hold on the car and that I would stop by after work, today. I thought this would be just to fill out the paperwork to clear it out until next week when my down payment check could clear.

After work, I drove into the dealership and began filling out forms. As I did, Steve grabbed my keys to inspect the car (to get the value for the trade-in). When he returned it was with my license plate and frame: at this point I asked if I was getting the car that day, and he said yes. I was surprised, but happy and somewhat bummed--I'd mentally prepared myself to have my '97 Saturn SL1 through the weekend (never mind the $40 in gas I put into the tank the night before).

But my having the Saturn for any longer was not to be; instead I drove out of there in my new car and headed off to see the new Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull--which I just returned from, and which was good. However, I'm now sleepy and miss my old car a wee bit, so I will say night and head to bed. Hasta.

Something happens and I'm head over heels
I never find out 'till I'm head over heels...

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

You can't fight the moonlight

I beginning to think that the lead-up to tonight's full moon has been wreaking havoc upon me, cause this week (and last week) have just not started off well. But I'm hoping that as the moon wanes, things will start getting better. And hopefully, that will me good things for my car decision making, as I'm now down to basically 2. This battle I've started to think of it as:

For Love or Money...


The Love option (all you need is love?) is the Volvo C30:
which is the only car I really liked to drive from my test drives (hence the love part); although purchasing it would be a huge stretch to my current budget. (The C30 did earn some bonus points tonight for this sheep-ad from Chile.)

The Money option (that's so money, man) is the Volkswagen Jetta:
which while fitting my budget, doesn't really wow me. It drives fine et al; I have a feeling it's a subtly good car (just not something one would notice right away).

So, I'm in a struggle between the two.... But who knows, at the rate I'm going--and once further along toward the 3rd quarter moon--maybe the Civic Hybrid, which was #3 and recently dropped due to cramped leg-space, will come back in a steal the show. (40 mpg city, and clean emissions are a hard thing to pass up.)

Underneath the starlight, starlight
There's a magical feeling so right
It will steal your heart tonight

Friday, May 16, 2008

No time to say hello, goodbye,
I'm late, I'm late, I'm late

On Tuesday morning, my alarm went off (as has been typical of late) at 5:35 a.m., so that I could get up to swim before heading to work. And per my norm (of late), I proceeded to turn my alarm off and re-set it for 6:45, so I could sleep instead of swim. In my half-awake state that morning, I inadvertantly hit some button, which was upsetting as it meant I had to wake up a wee bit more just to make sure I hadn't screwed up my alarm clock. After determining that things were good with the clock, I re-set the alarm and went back to bed.

Some amount of time later, I awoke and looked at the clock. I read it as saying 7:15, which caused a mild panic in me, as not only was I now on the verge of being late to work, but also because my alarm should have gone off (as well as a snooze or two) 30 minutes earlier. So I rapidly escaped my bed, showered, got dressed and out the door (yes, nearly that succinctly, as well).

As I walked out the door, a wee bit behind my normal departure time and just past the half hour, I noticed that the temperature outside was cool. This I appreciated greatly, as it's been rather warm of late here in South Florida, and the failing of my car's air conditioner has only exacerbated my awareness of this. The drive to work seemed pretty much normal. Normal employees at my normal 7-11 stop. Traffic on the roads was a wee bit lighter, which I attributed to snowbird season being over, and I managed to have some incredible luck with the multitude of stop lights I go through.

I arrived into the office parking lot, which was vacant as normal save for the boss's car, a few minutes before the hour. I wandered into the office, said hello to my boss (noting that he hadn't yet turned on the t.v.), and went to my desk.

As I entered my area, I checked my watched and noted that it read 6:58. I was glad to be there before the hour, but perplexed as to why my watch was still on Central Time: I thought I'd returned it forward an hour upon my return from Austin last week. But assuming I had just missed changing the time on my watch, I pulled it off and re-set it as my computer booted up.

Just after I got my watch back on, I glanced at the time on our phone system (which has not been adjusted yet from the Daylight Savings change back in March) and it read 5:56. My gaze then shot around 180° and up to the wall clock mounted just above my door; it read 6:58. I turned my head back around toward my now up-and-running computer and the time there was 6:59, thus solidifying and confirming that I was indeed an hour early to work (also that my clocks weren't synced).

I'm stunned. I'm relieved. I'm bummed. I'm perplexed. But, I accept it, and decide to get to work (the extra hour would be useful, and I really didn't have time or the gumption to go somewhere for the hour). The day ended up being a wee bit hectic, anyways (one of my co-workers was out all week, and I was helping cover for her absence) so on some levels I was glad for the extra time. In the sparse slower times throughout that day, I pondered where I'd messed up; by the end of the workday eventually settling on the fact that must have moved my clock's time an hour ahead with that half-awake mis-hit button push when the alarm first went off. Which held until I got home from work, and the time was right....

So now I just figure I sleepwalked through the whole trip to work (cause I also didn't catch the time on my car's clock)....

I'm late
I'm late
For a very important date
No time to say hello, goodbye
I'm late, I'm late, I'm late

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Baby, when the lights go out...

When the lights go out, it's time to replace them. But, if you're like my wee little condo association (there's only 5 owners--and maybe 1 or 2 of us that will do stuff), it takes a wee bit longer to replace them. Which is what (finally) happened last night.

After maybe a year of the lights on the 5 palms in the front of our building slowly going out one-by-one, I got up enough gumption to tackle replacing them (that's the 5 of them lit above: #4 has some overgrown shrubs around it, dampening its luster, but it's just on the other side of my gold car--i.e. not the fancy black one in the foreground). Assisted by a dallying sun, which had yet to set, I managed to have enough light to see what I was doing as I coerced the cap off one of the 4 not-lit lights (#3 in pic)--rust made that fun. Once off, I extracted (almost all of) the dead bulb, and proceeded to Home Depot to scope out replacements.

I returned from HD with 3 replacements in hand, and in the fading sunset began replacing the bulbs. The first went in relatively easily, with just a minor extraction of one of the tongs remaining from the former bulb to remove. Bulb in, bright light on, cap back on, and tree lit--the light's circular shadow floating in my eyeball was just a little bonus. I then moved on to the second palm (#2 in pic), struggled for a wee bit with the cap, got it off, bulb switched out and on, and cap back on.

Moving to my third and last replacement, I faced a decision: there were 3 trees left, but only 1 bulb. I went with the middle palm of the 3 (which is #5 in the pic), and began to attempt to get the cover off. After a fitful struggle, and not really getting anywhere, I decided to test out the other 2 options (hey, it was already dusk at that point and it's not exactly been cool of late--the latter, by the way, has motivated me to speed up my new car purchase). Back to the palms, my alternatives were for naught: the light on palm #4 turned out to seem just as difficult to get free of its cap as #5, and palm #6 turned out to not have a light (who knew?).

So, I trudged back to #5, and began in earnest to liberate the cap. In the process of doing so, I apparently shook the fixture enough to jiggle the existing bulb to get back in place, and suddenly had a fourth palm lit--sans bulb swap. With it lit, I moved back to #4, got the cap free, and eventually got the bulb in place (it was after dusk, and not really light anymore and I have apparently misplaced all my flashlights-dagnabit).

A wee bit later, I snapped the pic above, and then came in to post it. Then my camera decided to take a break, so posting was delayed to tonight. But that at least let me cool off and clean off the rust....


Baby, when the lights go out
Every single word could not express
The love and tenderness

Monday, May 05, 2008

Suerte que en el sur hayas nacido

A little Shakira, today, in honor of Cinco de Mayo; and Suerte seems appropriate given that my flight back from Masters Nationals last night got in a half hour early (got to love tailwinds: flight over took 3 hours, flight back took 2). The fact that all 3 flight attendants were middle-aged men, and that I had a little, old lady in the row behind me who I swear swiped one of Dolly Parton's big hair wigs (which looked too big for her wee frame), and had a propensity to skirt rules... well, that was just icing.

Anyways, so I flew back from San Antonio last night, coming back from Masters Nationals in Austin. The meet, itself, went ok for me. Of my six individual races, I'm calling 2 of them good, and the other 4 "not good" (baddisastrous) just seems too strong, at the moment; likewise . Event-by-event wrap up:

Thursday

  • 1650 free--17:07.47
    (While, I did win my age group, I also went slower than what I went in February; a not good way to get the meet started off. Oh, and you can watch the race here--I'm the one in lane 4 who waits to get up on the starting block until we were supposed to be up there ;-) Look for me hanging around peskily as lane 3 tries to pass me in the back half of the race, as well as a nice last 25...)

Friday
  • 400 IM--4:26.94
    (Just a wee smidgen faster than the 2 4:27 swum earlier this year, and a not good feeling back leg, boding poorly for my next event.)

  • 200 back--2:06.44
    (Third time's the charm? Not really... on the plus side, it didn't hurt a whole lot... although when your strategy is to try to hang with the sprinters the first 100 and come back on them during the second 100, and you don't... well, it doesn't looks so good to be in lane 6 and finishing noticeably back from the field. But someone has to be last, I guess? The
    3 hours break after it and before the relay did allow for some helpful brooding, as well as some lunch, though.)
  • 50 free (mixed free relay)--23.03
    (My ability to fake-a-50 seems to be returning somewhat--so this is a neutral. I say "fake", as I long ago accepted that I don't really know how to swim this race. My indication being that I'm not tired when it's done--unless your really not supposed to do any work in it?)

Saturday
  • 200 fly--1:56.60
    (Is good, but, wow, did this hurt; and some friends of mine took some rather interesting pictures of me panting heavily just afterwards. The scary part is that of late, my 2 back and 2 fly have been right around the same time... like withing tenths-of-a-second; not 10 seconds apart--that's for spacing between swimmers on sets, right Heidi ;)
  • 200 free--1:51.28
    (As the Friends theme goes... "It's like you're always stuck in 2nd gear..."; not a good song to have stuck in ones head, but an apt description of what the race felt like. Oh, and I was in heat 48--forty-eight--of 53! So the event took a little time to get through, even with odd and even heats at different ends of the pool.)
  • 50 back (mixed medley relay)--25.06
    (Man, did I have a lead... it was nice.)
  • 50 free (mixed free relay)--22.46
    (Noticeable for 3 factors: 1) It was .6 faster than the day before--which is a lot; 2) the relay that finished just ahead of us in the final standings, but wasn't in our heat, had their anchor go 20.1... and 3) the race was at 7:15 at night. The meet on Saturday went from 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.--the longest day.)

Sunday
  • 500 free--4:50.95
    (Good in that it bucked the bad free trend established in my previous 2 races--3 time was the charm. I held a pace, despite the fact that my legs started hurting at the 100... but it was the last event I did, and then I headed out to catch my flight.)

As we were leaving Austin, I grabbed some lunch at Chuy's (one last TexMex meal before departing) and picked up a new cell phone (a Sony Ericsson, which is a different brand of phone, so I'm going through learning a bunch of new quirks to its programming). But before I shove off, a big thank you to my teammate Linda for all her great support, and super counting during the event (I think she counted like 90% of our team's distance races....)--it was much appreciated.

And that's is all for now... (though I now feel a wee bit better about the meet overall). Hasta.


Contigo, mi vida
quiero vivir la vida
y lo que me queda de vida
quiero vivir contigo

Friday, May 02, 2008

Why don't you stop, and think it over...

Random shots from Austin...

Ah, the joys of 1/2 streets...



The view of the Texas State Capitol building from our hotel parking lot, as the sun sets...





Why don't you stop (stop)
And look me over (look me over)

Am I the same girl you used to know?