As I write this I’m sitting in seat 10C on a United flight from Reno, NV to Denver, CO after aproximately 24 hours in Nevada. I think Murphy came with me on this one…
It started yesterday morning with my leaving my bag at my house instead of bringing it with me to the office so I could go straight to the airport for my 3pm flight. That created the necessity to go back home to get my bag.
After checking into my hotel in Reno I was off to Sparks, NV (a Reno subburb) to find the Sparks branch of the Washoe County Public Library. This short trip was to make sure where I needed to be the next morning to teach my class. I went in, introduced myself to the librarian at the reference desk and said that I was confirming this was the branch I was looking for. She confirmed as such and even pointed me to their meeting room as that’s where training was generally held. I thanked her and headed back to my rental car. A few feet short of the car I reached into my pants pocket for the keys and found only lint. I’d locked the keys in the car.
Luckily I have a AAA membership so I pulled the card out of my wallet, and, since I was in Nevada, and not Colorado, figured it would be better to call the national 800 number instead of the local 303 number. I dialed and was immediately put through to AAA Colorado. It seems that their system is “smart” and figured out that I must be calling from Colorado due to the caller ID on my phone. I informed the person on the phone that I was not in Colorado but in Nevada and his response was to ask me if there was a land line I could call back from as that would be “faster” than him putting me through to AAA Nevada. (Look, I understand how the system works, but in an age of cell phones, what’s the point of having both local and “national” numbers when, if you’re calling from a cell phone, your actual physical location becomes irrelevant to the system?) I was eventually promised that someone would be around to help me “within the hour” and 1:15 later, someone did arrive. It took the lock guy exactly five seconds (I timed him) to get into the rental car.
That’s the end Thursday for me and I ended up having dinner at the hotel as I didn’t want anything else to go wrong.
This morning I awake early, find a Starbucks, have some java, and arrive back at the Sparks branch at 7:00 in anticipation of my contact person showing up to let me in at 7:45 for my 8am class. At 8am, I’m starting to get nervous as no one else has shown up yet. The phone calls to both BCR and my contact’s office number start at this point. I leave a voicemail for my contact and the folks at BCR confirm that I’m in the right place as far as they know. At 8:30 I get a phone call from one of the students (who got my cell number from BCR) wondering where I am. Well, I’m at the Sparks branch but all the students are at the Spanish Springs branch, which, by the way, is also in Sparks. (At this point, I’m sure the total confusion was my fault.) Off to the right branch I head to start class 45 minutes late. (This is the first time in nine years I’ve not started a class on time.)
After class, a wonderful lunch with some systems folks, and a much needed bananna frappaccino at the same Starbucks from the morning, then off to the Reno airport for my 4:30 flight home. The flight home by the way, is going through San Francisco (no need to draw you a map I’m sure) and gets me into Denver at 11:50pm. At about 4:00 I head to the mens room and notice that at the next gate over is a direct flight to Denver leaving at 5:00pm, getting me home about 8:00pm. I ask if I can switch flights (I’ve only got carry-on) and I’m granted not only a seat on the dirct flight but an exit-row seat in economy plus. (Mondo leg room here I come!)
So, I’m in that seat. The seat that doesn’t want to stay in it’s “full upright and locked position” (real fun during takeoff,) and a reading lamp that won’t stay on, or off, for anylength of time.
I need a vacation…
