UMTravels

The morning was spent redoing all the bookings for the WorldMark Santa Fe for the second week of December. Why use points when it’s available cheap at the last minute.

And then came the panic.

The call from an unknown cell phone number with an area code I didn’t recognize — turned out it was Jim calling from the shop where we had internet service, but no phone line. Panic. No phone line on the day before Thanksgiving — one of the big wine shopping days of the year. Yikes.

Trip number one to the store: On the phone to Qwest. They confirmed no dial-tone. Escalation to the switching office. Right, no dial tone. Escalation to the programmer. Yes, the phone is programmed correctly, but it doesn’t have a dial tone. I head back home to put up my MajicJack — which is a VOIP (voice over internet protocol) device since we have internet service. Add a stop for ribs at the BBQ place on Cherry where a ½ pound of pork ribs is $7.50 and I swear it weighs in at over a pound. Several more calls from CenturyLink while I was driving home.

Trip number two was interrupted 2/3rds of the way back by…  a call from the shop (Madrona Wine Merchants came up on caller ID). The phone is working. Jim got a call from CenturyLink and the rep said, “Well, it’s working again, and I have no idea why, but we’ve cancelled the service call for Friday.”

Needless to say I installed the MajicJack and trained Jim on it just in case. The thought of not being able to run credit cards for three days was unnerving. Maybe we should get one of those wireless merchant machines.

Done with the panic I went home and tried to relax. Should have had a nap, but it didn’t happen. Instead are started worrying about the Hawaii trip at the end of March to the south end of the Big Island. At the summer gathering I bought 3 nights in a three-bedroom three-bath house a couple of blocks from a clothing-optional black sand beach. The plan is to split the place ($350 for the three nights split three ways, and an extra $150 [again split] for an extra night) with Solus+ from Vancouver and DancingBear who has a boyfriend in Hilo, about 45 minutes away.

I’m feeling poverty stricken so the goal was to use as few as miles as possible while still flying First Class and not missing any days of work (since I’d like to actually take off the Breitenbush weekend in February). I was successful, but boy to I have an odd routing:

• Sunday, after working until 5pm, fly from Seattle to Oakland, arrive 10:30pm, have a night cap with Mark and Onyx
• Monday morning at 11am, fly from Oakland to Kona (direct on Alaska Airlines)
• Friday afternoon fly back to Oakland and have a night cap with Mark and Onyx
• Saturday morning at 9:30, fly to Seattle with enough time to show up at the 2-4pm tasting.

Whew!

Solus+ is now looking into arriving/leaving Kona the same dates using miles since he is going to the faerie gathering in Thailand at the end of January and is counting his pennies. It was made easier now that he doesn’t need to add a side trip to Maui onto the trip. Now I just have to get DancingBear on board since the dates we picked match when his boyfriend is out of nursing school on spring break. Hopefully that will happen tomorrow night when he meets up with Swanda and I for my Thanksgiving Number Two.

Nothing much to say about dinner other than a stir fry of ginger pork with a side salad. For once I missed rice.

[210.7]