Madison, Wisconsin

[The Queen]

So the plan was, fly to Savannah, work through Saturday, drive to Florida on Sunday, take a few days off to enjoy hanging with my mom, then fly home and stay there for at least the next couple months. Yeah, not so much. Another trainer’s mom passed unexpectedly, and so she’s unable to teach a class this Saturday in Madison. I spent most of my (“day off”) Monday trying to find someone else to go, but none of my 23 other training agents are available to cover it, so it falls to me, and I spent much of Monday afternoon and evening making travel arrangements. Then I spent almost the whole day Tuesday writing the workbook for the class and getting someone to cover the Zoom class I was supposed to teach Friday afternoon at 3 pm. Finally got it all finalized at 8 pm this evening.

So, I fly back to Fresno tomorrow late morning, should be home just after dinner. I get to spend one full day at home, then turn around and go back to the airport on Friday and fly to Milwaukee (on Southwest, ugh) pick up a rental car (which was trickier to arrange than should be the case, but Milwaukee’s rental car counter closes at 10 pm and my flight — the only one available — arrives at 10:15 pm and none of the major rental car companies was willing to guarantee that someone would stay late for me, so I’m trying out Enterprise for the first time…) and then drive 90 minutes or so to Madison, Wisconsin. I get to teach all day Saturday, then drive back to Milwaukee in time for a before-the-crack-of-dawn flight home on Sunday. 

So much for time off. The only time I didn’t spend working was a couple hours this afternoon helping clean up the remnants of Hurricane Ian out of my mom’s backyard, brunch yesterday and dinner this evening. And it’s mid-80s and humid and mom’s AC wouldn’t turn on when I got there Sunday night. The guy came out to fix it today, so I should be able to sleep tonight. 

At least one thing went right on this trip. On my drive from Savannah to Lakeland, I stopped in a small town called Waycross, Georgia and had lunch with two of my favorite podcasters. That was fun.

[Drunk Monk]

Ouch. Bummer. 

At least you missed the quake. 

Seriously though, the podcaster thing is cool. Did you know them prior to that lunch?

Hope you catch a break soon. Be safe in your travels.

[The Queen]

“Know” is a bit of a stretch. We’d met very briefly once before at an event, where they met at least a hundred other people, and we’re FB “friends” — which is to say we comment on each others’ cat pictures. I was happy they seemed to enjoy themselves as opposed to being weirded out by a fan showing up in their incredibly small, isolated town. There is no set of circumstances other than the one I was in that could possibly have resulted in someone making that trip without being a stalker.

[The Queen]

I had my boarding pass on my phone and no bags to check, so I skipped the front desk at FAT and went straight to TSA. Realized as I was getting into the line; oh, wait: I’m on Southwest, and they don’t know me like United does… and realized that no, I did NOT have TSA pre-check on my boarding pass, crap. Long time since I had to take off my shoes, take out all my electronics (computer, steno machine, iPad) go through the “put your hands over your head” booth and then recombobulate everything.

It wasn’t until I got my shoes back on and checked the board to double-check what gate I was at that I saw that they had announced a half-hour delay for my flight. “Oh, fuck,” thought I, as I considered that my layover in Denver was only 45 minutes and the flight to Milwaukee was the last one, and started trying to think of alternatives… only to find out when I got to the gate that no, there’s no delay. Still, I was suddenly concerned about being able to get my bag in an overhead bin and get off the plane and from one end of the Denver airport to another (after all, when you have a really short layover, it’s inevitable that the gates will be extremely far apart and that groups of unruly small children and idiots on phones not paying attention will be blocking your running path between the gates). So, I coughed up extra $$$ to jump to the front of the line (as my very smart-like-bull husband had suggested earlier — I really ought to listen to him).

Anyway, I got a lovely aisle seat with my bag in the bin right above me just four rows from the front of the plane. It worked: I was able to do the 29-gate sprint, using all my best Aussie agility training style moves around the children and the idiots, all of whom showed up and blocked my path as I anticipated. I made it to the gate with 5 minutes to spare.

Then I realized that my $$$ for preferential boarding only extended to the first flight. For the second flight, My boarding number was B-38.

I really hate middle seats. A lot.

Well, another hour of flying, and hopefully no drama when picking up the rental car and driving to Madison.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!

[The Queen]

The reporters of Wisconsin were pleased with their training session. Alarm is set for 2:45 am so I can drive to Milwaukee tomorrow morning in time for my 6 am flight.