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MFF con report
17 years ago
General
The full wednesday in Chicago left me the opportunity to organize all my stuff, and stretch/frame the canvas pieces for the MFF art auction. It was a pretty late night, Hiway dozed off while I was still stapling for another 4 hours. The next morning, I awoke to an empty house, and proceeded to load the car. It was stuffed to the gills, and I still needed to pick up my MFF roommate Caladon Dalimar at O'Hare - with his two pieces of luggage. I really need to learn how to travel lighter!
Convention day zero, Thursday: We checked in to the hotel, and required two full cart trips, plus all we could carry as rolling luggage, even with Raptor Red's help too. Wow, a lot of stuff. Yes, that Dodge Caliber was full. I parked it out of the way, and went in to sort. Cal and I went out to Chipotle (do you see a pattern here?), and then to Staples office supply, for me to get the color laser printer. We also stopped at Target for some other items, and then back to the hotel. It was about 19:30 when I finally made it down to the art show setup, where I volunteered to build the panels. I did not leave there until after 11, when the art show lead determined enough was done for the night, and they all wanted to quit working on it. I reserved my panel space, which is sort of unprecedented, as it is "first come, first placed", but I was given this privilege for my trouble. I feared I would not have time to place the canvas pieces until later in the morning, since I needed to drive to Midway Airport in the morning. I realized friday morning commuter rush would suck horribly, so leaving at 8:30 was not advisable. I had red in my bed, so that was additional motivation to sleep in.
Even with a warm raptor in bed with me, I could not sleep to save my life. 2+ hours of tossing and turning later (in small part because of Cal's sleep apnea rip snorting), I gave up and opened my laptop to work on the bid sheets for the art pieces. Luci in the other bed was apparently also awake and unable to sleep, and when we started talking, it pissed off Cal a bit. He kicked us out because HE was able to sleep quite soundly ;) I can't fault him at all for that, if I wanted sleep, and was being kept up by chatty folk, I would kick them out too!
I went down to find out if the business center was available for printing my sheets, and was told by lobby staff that the business center did not in fact open until after 7am. I did not feel like making a lot of noise installing a laser printer in the room, of course that would have been easier, but I knew the noise would be bad. So, I just sat on the lobby sofa and chatted with Luci while I formatted the 13 bid sheets and also the master bid record.
When I was there, a fursuiter with no room to go to was wandering around, I encouraged him to sit at least, and relax. Sleeping in the lobby is a no-no if you are a single transient person, but in a group, no staff gives a shi* about it :) He was a cute husky in need of a place to go, but our room was no option, it had sleeping people already, and who knows what kinds of problems strays can cause. He managed to stay completely in character for an entire two hours, until someone came up and asked to try on his head. This struck me as quite odd, both inappropriate and a bit weird, but the husky actually consented to the request. I guess he did need some air eventually.
7am came and went, I asked if I could access the business center. The supervisor told me that the business center had no pritner (what?), but that if I e-mailed him what I wanted to have printed, he could do it for me. Ok, odd and annoying, but workable. I sat back down and compressed all my files as PDF, shot off the e-mail, and when I checked in 3 minutes to see if he had received it, I was greeted with a stack of printed sheets. Efficient, even if not convenient.
I went back to the room, crawled in bed exhausted, and set a wake up call for an hour later. As much as I tried, I still could not sleep. I knew that would mess me up later in the day, but there was nothing I could do about it. At least my raptor provided plenty of comfort. It was a very relaxing morning.
Convention day 1: Friday. Deciding it was far better to enter the canvas early, and not chance bad traffic, I got Red and Luci to help me hang the pieces, and scooted out quickly after to Midway. The drive was speedy, no traffic congestion at 9:30 - and I figured I would only be a little bit late. It was very handy that Kaa's flight was late by nearly a half hour, and I was very glad I had already done the art show hanging. We got back to the hotel at 11:30am, just enough time to run to the room and grab dealer room items for the noon opening... or so I thought. The dealer room in fact, was to open at 15:00 - the oddest hours I have ever heard of. 15:00-20:00 was the opening time for today. YUCK!
It did give us plenty of time to set up, there was absolutely no rush. Unfortunately, I was dead tired by this stage, and Kaa also was suffering massively from fatigue - he had worked the swing shift, and not slept either, in preparation for his trip. We both zombied it through the day, not being very productive. It was very poor planning on my part, not having everything printed a full day earlier. This contributed to my poor sales figures, and the table was kind of a mess. I had no signage for pricing, or the toys, so a lot of opportunities were lost. And because of the late closing hour, I did not have enough evening left to do what I needed either. I wanted to print the Heathen City book o' pr0n, but did not have time. When we got back from Chipotle and Staples (rut, I know), and I set up the printer, I was horrified to find out that the HP 1215 does not work with a mac! F***! Kaa does use a PC, but I did not want to hijack his laptop, nor ask him to print a hundred sheets. So, I asked him to work with it to print a few of his own pieces, while I caught up on work a bit.
The printer also did a rather poor job of highlights with color, so everything was coming out kind of flat. This was a big disappointment. We gave up at midnight, and went to sleep. No energy for the dance, no energy for anything. Sleep was very much needed for both of us, we slept soundly and completely until 8:30am. After a very relaxing shower, we had breakfast of cereal and soy milk, and headed back down to the dealers room.
Convention day 2: Saturday. Dealer hours today? 10-20:00 NOOOO! That is too long to enjoy. There was internet service, but barely. I bumbled through the day, not getting much done except for treading water. I had a steady lamination business, and it was very good that I had the new 12 inch wide machine. More than 60% of my jobs were oversized, they would not have fit in the old 4 inch wide machine. Business was again very sluggish overall, partly for my poor organization, partly for my lack of printed matter, and most importantly, because the economy is sucking right now. Too many are worried about tomorrow to spend today. By mid day, I had finally gotten the two part scan of Lagarto's Lamination art from Kaa the way I wanted it, and I had him print out my fliers on green card stock. I took them to the artist alley to distribute. Kaa was mostly bored on Saturday, my fault entirely, I was too busy with my own stupid projects to organize sketchbooks for him. Heathen City was not selling very well either, which added to my frustration. Glowstics, pins and other small items were steady sellers, so was the Kaa cd and a few of his prints.
Fussing over the art auction, I was disappointed to see very few bids on most of the show. My entries were doing minimum bids only, save for 2 of them. My nervousness deepened seeing this, but there was not a lot I could do about it. We closed the table at 20:00, and tried to hook up with Depony for dinner, but he was busy with the pawpet show. Kaa and I had not eaten much all day, so we went to Buca de Bepo and had a nice relaxing meal. The portion sizes were massive, the new "american restaurant format". Their "small" was enough food for 4 of my normal portions. Wow, not a bad deal for the price, but "why?" It made plenty of extra meals for me, at least.
Kaa and I donned our fursuits, and began to prowl. Croc and gator went to the dance, got some attention from photographers and drunk women, and found their way to the headless lounge. Kaa was not able to be in suit with head on for more then about half an hour at a time, and the dance floor was quite warm. It was still a lot of fun, and both of us danced again for at least an hour, with a few breaks outside for a cool-off in the chicago wind and cold.
We went back to the room around 2:30am, later then usual for us, but ok given the excellent sleep we had before. I am not quite sure what time it was when I woke up, but our activities did not disturb our room-mates (much), and a lot more sleep was had afterward.
Convention day 3: Sunday. New hours - 11-15:00. WTF? ok, short and sweet. Finally, the dealer table was in order, and we had a good day. No, it was an excellent day. Kaa was taking sketchbooks, and I managed to clean up all the mess behind the table. I managed Kaa's time, so he would not be overwhelmed with commissions, and he was really enjoying the work. Kaa cranked out 3 super awesome pieces, and was also working on a piece for me, a pose of croc and gator in an embrace. I had a Luci snap a photo of us in the pose I wanted, so Kaa would have a reference. It was about 50% finished the last I saw it. Lamination business was quite good on Sunday, more giant con-badges to do. I met with Gideon, and worked out a plan to work with him on the flip-book of moods, for Furry Weekend Atlanta.
Book sales were not so hot, only 18 from my table, and another 10 from FurPlanet, but that is somewhat to be expected, as the interested wane or have already purchased. It doesn't help that the russians finally got a scanned copy up - arrrrr...G! Kaa sold 10 of his cds, and everyone who bought one got a super bonus - a hand drawn sketchie and signature, right on the liner notes! BONUS :)
Dealer room hours were a short 4 hours, and at 3pm, we broke down and headed back to the room. We had just enough time to box up the laser printer, find the receipt, head to the office supply store, and get it returned, along with the unopened spindles of cds/dvds, and extra toner cartridges I thought I needed. Well, because that printer did not work with my Macintosh, and because the colors were so flat, we decided it would not work very well for us. Back at the hotel, plans were made to visit RAM, the beer-barn micro brewery with an excuse for food. It was me, Kaa, Lucifur, and Caladon. In the lobby, RedFox found us, and tagged along too. Dinner was interesting, there were some bartending mistakes which led to a bit of drama, but they were worked out and by the end, everything was pretty good. I had a veggie stir fry, the only thing on the menu that was not fried or contained meat. Fried is fine for me, but they used only one fryer for EVERYTHING, so yeah, forget about that.
After dinner, it was the last of the fursuiting, in the dead dog dance. No dance floor or special lighting, but a decent crowd, and some huge balloons to kick about. Luci was also snapping pics with his nice canon 50D, bounce flash so it still looks like a dance... and I got some nice images form him with the Darth Vader suit, and also with Mr.Lean and Kaa. We worked up a good sweat with the dance, chilled for a bit in the headless lounge, and roamed the halls getting photos with drunk people.
At around midnight, I knew I did not have the energy to pack everything, so after some sorting I gave up and went to bed. I had a very nice snuggle with Kaa, and set a wake up call for 8am. I bought my 2 other roommates breakfast so they would give us some privacy, and after, proceeded to stuff and sort and painstaikingly puzzle the luggage. I ended up with 4 boxes not coming with me, to be set aside or shipped. I had to remove the remaining foam blocks from the ballistic pelican cases to make space and eliminate weight. I also shoved the 2 gallons of hot sauce in the fursuit luggage, as it was bulked up but not heavy. I tried to reach Akita to ask about him shuttling boxes, but his phone went straight to voice mail. Time was running very short, but things went neatly into all the cases. I knew the car would be too full for an extra passenger, but I tried anyway. In the lobby, I was able to find Akita just at the right time, he was also loading his truck. I gave him the 4 boxes to drop with Hiway, and jammed the Caliber with cases. We got out of the hotel with barely enough time to spare, certainly not enough to have found a post office for shipping anything!
I got my cases dropped at O'Hare, and paid the $150 for the 70 pound extra case. I had to remove 10 pounds of stuff from each of the huge ones, they were both over. The fursuit case was 58lbs, but chock full with volume. I added a few things to my carryon load (bad idea), and left the 10 pounds of 11x17 lamination film with Kaa to put in his bag. He only had 45 pounds before that went in, so there was plenty of room. While I was inside fussing with my luggage, the police hassled Kaa and said move it or we tow it, so he drove around. But my phone was on the window as a nav system, and he had a bit of a panic attack when he tried to call me. I was waiting patiently when he returned, in tears, worried out of his skull that something terrible could have happened, or that I would be mad he was not there. I fully knew what needed to happen as soon as I saw the car was gone, and I gave him pets and reassuring words that he had been an enormous help, and that it was sweet he was so concerned for ME. I took over the wheel, and drove him to the bus/shuttle area, where I got him on a van headed to Midway airport. I just did not have enough time to drive him there, get back, dispose of the rental car, and still make my flight time.
After dropping him off and saying final goodbyes, I hunted for a fuel station. There were NONE to be found anywhere convenient. I whipped out tomtom AGAIN, and found one 3 miles away! Was a good find, thouigh, only 1.99 per gallon - dollar wanted 6.99 per gallon if it was not full. Um, yeah, I think I will fill it myself, as**oles! I had a bit of trouble finding the rental car row, because when I put in the point for gps return, I did it from the parking lot, where tomtom barfs and says "no route found". I made a mistake when I moved the point, putting it on the interstate instead of rental car road, and had to drive a couple miles extra because of that. But check in was super fast, shuttle van was already waiting. No extra charges, thank you dollar!
On the van back to the airport, I jettisoned some trash, consolidated the boxes and other stuff I removed from my checked bag, and then stuffed it all in my backpack. The pelican hand luggage was stuffed to capacity, and super heavy. My backpack was the same situation, and I also had the art tube, giant winter coat, plus a small bag with food stuff. Wow, I was overloaded. When I went to the security line, they said "um, no", and walked me back to the ticket counter. The airport was pretty quiet at that time, and we were very close to boarding time cutoff. I was severely lucky that continental is easy to deal with. They forced me to check the pelican case, though they did not charge me after I whimpered that I had already spent 150 eXTRA for the third piece. They took my bag with all the cameras and other expensive stuff, checked it. 55 pounds, and no wheels, and barely bigger than a rolling carry on bag. I was actually relieved they did, I did NOT want to carry that thing around. Chalk up another reason why I really like flying with continental airlines! Their counter staff is awesome, and flight crews equally so.
Now back through security with my much lighter load, I had to run for the gate. I heard my name over the loudspeaker "last call". I arrived and was the last one on the plane, they shut the door right after I boarded. squeak! The changeover in Houston had a 2.5 hour dead spot, so I got on the phone with Hyper. He blasted me for not having any time in the morning to talk with him, but I explained the crazy day, and we worked out a lot of other issues. After that call, he apparently had some very insightful conversations with other people, and it gave him a lot of perspective on our relationship. This was all a very good thing, and it led us to have a nice meeting when he picked me up at Schiphol. My flight from Houston to Amsterdam was uneventful. No passenger in the middle seat, but I did not have the whole row to myself. I was able to sleep for about 4 of the 9 flight hours.
Schiphol, I love you. No customs agents, no trouble with my 4 giant plastic cases, plus backpack and coat and extra little bag of stuff. That luggage cart was carrying nearly 300 pounds of crap! I rolled it all the way out to the passenger pickup area, and had to avoid some giant hole the crews had dug in both sidewalks. Hyper arrived about 15 minutes later, and I was on my way home. We had a huge conversation in the car, where we both re-dedicated ourselves to each other. There were tears, it was a very good talk. Sleep that night was very enjoyable, and quite deep.
Convention day zero, Thursday: We checked in to the hotel, and required two full cart trips, plus all we could carry as rolling luggage, even with Raptor Red's help too. Wow, a lot of stuff. Yes, that Dodge Caliber was full. I parked it out of the way, and went in to sort. Cal and I went out to Chipotle (do you see a pattern here?), and then to Staples office supply, for me to get the color laser printer. We also stopped at Target for some other items, and then back to the hotel. It was about 19:30 when I finally made it down to the art show setup, where I volunteered to build the panels. I did not leave there until after 11, when the art show lead determined enough was done for the night, and they all wanted to quit working on it. I reserved my panel space, which is sort of unprecedented, as it is "first come, first placed", but I was given this privilege for my trouble. I feared I would not have time to place the canvas pieces until later in the morning, since I needed to drive to Midway Airport in the morning. I realized friday morning commuter rush would suck horribly, so leaving at 8:30 was not advisable. I had red in my bed, so that was additional motivation to sleep in.
Even with a warm raptor in bed with me, I could not sleep to save my life. 2+ hours of tossing and turning later (in small part because of Cal's sleep apnea rip snorting), I gave up and opened my laptop to work on the bid sheets for the art pieces. Luci in the other bed was apparently also awake and unable to sleep, and when we started talking, it pissed off Cal a bit. He kicked us out because HE was able to sleep quite soundly ;) I can't fault him at all for that, if I wanted sleep, and was being kept up by chatty folk, I would kick them out too!
I went down to find out if the business center was available for printing my sheets, and was told by lobby staff that the business center did not in fact open until after 7am. I did not feel like making a lot of noise installing a laser printer in the room, of course that would have been easier, but I knew the noise would be bad. So, I just sat on the lobby sofa and chatted with Luci while I formatted the 13 bid sheets and also the master bid record.
When I was there, a fursuiter with no room to go to was wandering around, I encouraged him to sit at least, and relax. Sleeping in the lobby is a no-no if you are a single transient person, but in a group, no staff gives a shi* about it :) He was a cute husky in need of a place to go, but our room was no option, it had sleeping people already, and who knows what kinds of problems strays can cause. He managed to stay completely in character for an entire two hours, until someone came up and asked to try on his head. This struck me as quite odd, both inappropriate and a bit weird, but the husky actually consented to the request. I guess he did need some air eventually.
7am came and went, I asked if I could access the business center. The supervisor told me that the business center had no pritner (what?), but that if I e-mailed him what I wanted to have printed, he could do it for me. Ok, odd and annoying, but workable. I sat back down and compressed all my files as PDF, shot off the e-mail, and when I checked in 3 minutes to see if he had received it, I was greeted with a stack of printed sheets. Efficient, even if not convenient.
I went back to the room, crawled in bed exhausted, and set a wake up call for an hour later. As much as I tried, I still could not sleep. I knew that would mess me up later in the day, but there was nothing I could do about it. At least my raptor provided plenty of comfort. It was a very relaxing morning.
Convention day 1: Friday. Deciding it was far better to enter the canvas early, and not chance bad traffic, I got Red and Luci to help me hang the pieces, and scooted out quickly after to Midway. The drive was speedy, no traffic congestion at 9:30 - and I figured I would only be a little bit late. It was very handy that Kaa's flight was late by nearly a half hour, and I was very glad I had already done the art show hanging. We got back to the hotel at 11:30am, just enough time to run to the room and grab dealer room items for the noon opening... or so I thought. The dealer room in fact, was to open at 15:00 - the oddest hours I have ever heard of. 15:00-20:00 was the opening time for today. YUCK!
It did give us plenty of time to set up, there was absolutely no rush. Unfortunately, I was dead tired by this stage, and Kaa also was suffering massively from fatigue - he had worked the swing shift, and not slept either, in preparation for his trip. We both zombied it through the day, not being very productive. It was very poor planning on my part, not having everything printed a full day earlier. This contributed to my poor sales figures, and the table was kind of a mess. I had no signage for pricing, or the toys, so a lot of opportunities were lost. And because of the late closing hour, I did not have enough evening left to do what I needed either. I wanted to print the Heathen City book o' pr0n, but did not have time. When we got back from Chipotle and Staples (rut, I know), and I set up the printer, I was horrified to find out that the HP 1215 does not work with a mac! F***! Kaa does use a PC, but I did not want to hijack his laptop, nor ask him to print a hundred sheets. So, I asked him to work with it to print a few of his own pieces, while I caught up on work a bit.
The printer also did a rather poor job of highlights with color, so everything was coming out kind of flat. This was a big disappointment. We gave up at midnight, and went to sleep. No energy for the dance, no energy for anything. Sleep was very much needed for both of us, we slept soundly and completely until 8:30am. After a very relaxing shower, we had breakfast of cereal and soy milk, and headed back down to the dealers room.
Convention day 2: Saturday. Dealer hours today? 10-20:00 NOOOO! That is too long to enjoy. There was internet service, but barely. I bumbled through the day, not getting much done except for treading water. I had a steady lamination business, and it was very good that I had the new 12 inch wide machine. More than 60% of my jobs were oversized, they would not have fit in the old 4 inch wide machine. Business was again very sluggish overall, partly for my poor organization, partly for my lack of printed matter, and most importantly, because the economy is sucking right now. Too many are worried about tomorrow to spend today. By mid day, I had finally gotten the two part scan of Lagarto's Lamination art from Kaa the way I wanted it, and I had him print out my fliers on green card stock. I took them to the artist alley to distribute. Kaa was mostly bored on Saturday, my fault entirely, I was too busy with my own stupid projects to organize sketchbooks for him. Heathen City was not selling very well either, which added to my frustration. Glowstics, pins and other small items were steady sellers, so was the Kaa cd and a few of his prints.
Fussing over the art auction, I was disappointed to see very few bids on most of the show. My entries were doing minimum bids only, save for 2 of them. My nervousness deepened seeing this, but there was not a lot I could do about it. We closed the table at 20:00, and tried to hook up with Depony for dinner, but he was busy with the pawpet show. Kaa and I had not eaten much all day, so we went to Buca de Bepo and had a nice relaxing meal. The portion sizes were massive, the new "american restaurant format". Their "small" was enough food for 4 of my normal portions. Wow, not a bad deal for the price, but "why?" It made plenty of extra meals for me, at least.
Kaa and I donned our fursuits, and began to prowl. Croc and gator went to the dance, got some attention from photographers and drunk women, and found their way to the headless lounge. Kaa was not able to be in suit with head on for more then about half an hour at a time, and the dance floor was quite warm. It was still a lot of fun, and both of us danced again for at least an hour, with a few breaks outside for a cool-off in the chicago wind and cold.
We went back to the room around 2:30am, later then usual for us, but ok given the excellent sleep we had before. I am not quite sure what time it was when I woke up, but our activities did not disturb our room-mates (much), and a lot more sleep was had afterward.
Convention day 3: Sunday. New hours - 11-15:00. WTF? ok, short and sweet. Finally, the dealer table was in order, and we had a good day. No, it was an excellent day. Kaa was taking sketchbooks, and I managed to clean up all the mess behind the table. I managed Kaa's time, so he would not be overwhelmed with commissions, and he was really enjoying the work. Kaa cranked out 3 super awesome pieces, and was also working on a piece for me, a pose of croc and gator in an embrace. I had a Luci snap a photo of us in the pose I wanted, so Kaa would have a reference. It was about 50% finished the last I saw it. Lamination business was quite good on Sunday, more giant con-badges to do. I met with Gideon, and worked out a plan to work with him on the flip-book of moods, for Furry Weekend Atlanta.
Book sales were not so hot, only 18 from my table, and another 10 from FurPlanet, but that is somewhat to be expected, as the interested wane or have already purchased. It doesn't help that the russians finally got a scanned copy up - arrrrr...G! Kaa sold 10 of his cds, and everyone who bought one got a super bonus - a hand drawn sketchie and signature, right on the liner notes! BONUS :)
Dealer room hours were a short 4 hours, and at 3pm, we broke down and headed back to the room. We had just enough time to box up the laser printer, find the receipt, head to the office supply store, and get it returned, along with the unopened spindles of cds/dvds, and extra toner cartridges I thought I needed. Well, because that printer did not work with my Macintosh, and because the colors were so flat, we decided it would not work very well for us. Back at the hotel, plans were made to visit RAM, the beer-barn micro brewery with an excuse for food. It was me, Kaa, Lucifur, and Caladon. In the lobby, RedFox found us, and tagged along too. Dinner was interesting, there were some bartending mistakes which led to a bit of drama, but they were worked out and by the end, everything was pretty good. I had a veggie stir fry, the only thing on the menu that was not fried or contained meat. Fried is fine for me, but they used only one fryer for EVERYTHING, so yeah, forget about that.
After dinner, it was the last of the fursuiting, in the dead dog dance. No dance floor or special lighting, but a decent crowd, and some huge balloons to kick about. Luci was also snapping pics with his nice canon 50D, bounce flash so it still looks like a dance... and I got some nice images form him with the Darth Vader suit, and also with Mr.Lean and Kaa. We worked up a good sweat with the dance, chilled for a bit in the headless lounge, and roamed the halls getting photos with drunk people.
At around midnight, I knew I did not have the energy to pack everything, so after some sorting I gave up and went to bed. I had a very nice snuggle with Kaa, and set a wake up call for 8am. I bought my 2 other roommates breakfast so they would give us some privacy, and after, proceeded to stuff and sort and painstaikingly puzzle the luggage. I ended up with 4 boxes not coming with me, to be set aside or shipped. I had to remove the remaining foam blocks from the ballistic pelican cases to make space and eliminate weight. I also shoved the 2 gallons of hot sauce in the fursuit luggage, as it was bulked up but not heavy. I tried to reach Akita to ask about him shuttling boxes, but his phone went straight to voice mail. Time was running very short, but things went neatly into all the cases. I knew the car would be too full for an extra passenger, but I tried anyway. In the lobby, I was able to find Akita just at the right time, he was also loading his truck. I gave him the 4 boxes to drop with Hiway, and jammed the Caliber with cases. We got out of the hotel with barely enough time to spare, certainly not enough to have found a post office for shipping anything!
I got my cases dropped at O'Hare, and paid the $150 for the 70 pound extra case. I had to remove 10 pounds of stuff from each of the huge ones, they were both over. The fursuit case was 58lbs, but chock full with volume. I added a few things to my carryon load (bad idea), and left the 10 pounds of 11x17 lamination film with Kaa to put in his bag. He only had 45 pounds before that went in, so there was plenty of room. While I was inside fussing with my luggage, the police hassled Kaa and said move it or we tow it, so he drove around. But my phone was on the window as a nav system, and he had a bit of a panic attack when he tried to call me. I was waiting patiently when he returned, in tears, worried out of his skull that something terrible could have happened, or that I would be mad he was not there. I fully knew what needed to happen as soon as I saw the car was gone, and I gave him pets and reassuring words that he had been an enormous help, and that it was sweet he was so concerned for ME. I took over the wheel, and drove him to the bus/shuttle area, where I got him on a van headed to Midway airport. I just did not have enough time to drive him there, get back, dispose of the rental car, and still make my flight time.
After dropping him off and saying final goodbyes, I hunted for a fuel station. There were NONE to be found anywhere convenient. I whipped out tomtom AGAIN, and found one 3 miles away! Was a good find, thouigh, only 1.99 per gallon - dollar wanted 6.99 per gallon if it was not full. Um, yeah, I think I will fill it myself, as**oles! I had a bit of trouble finding the rental car row, because when I put in the point for gps return, I did it from the parking lot, where tomtom barfs and says "no route found". I made a mistake when I moved the point, putting it on the interstate instead of rental car road, and had to drive a couple miles extra because of that. But check in was super fast, shuttle van was already waiting. No extra charges, thank you dollar!
On the van back to the airport, I jettisoned some trash, consolidated the boxes and other stuff I removed from my checked bag, and then stuffed it all in my backpack. The pelican hand luggage was stuffed to capacity, and super heavy. My backpack was the same situation, and I also had the art tube, giant winter coat, plus a small bag with food stuff. Wow, I was overloaded. When I went to the security line, they said "um, no", and walked me back to the ticket counter. The airport was pretty quiet at that time, and we were very close to boarding time cutoff. I was severely lucky that continental is easy to deal with. They forced me to check the pelican case, though they did not charge me after I whimpered that I had already spent 150 eXTRA for the third piece. They took my bag with all the cameras and other expensive stuff, checked it. 55 pounds, and no wheels, and barely bigger than a rolling carry on bag. I was actually relieved they did, I did NOT want to carry that thing around. Chalk up another reason why I really like flying with continental airlines! Their counter staff is awesome, and flight crews equally so.
Now back through security with my much lighter load, I had to run for the gate. I heard my name over the loudspeaker "last call". I arrived and was the last one on the plane, they shut the door right after I boarded. squeak! The changeover in Houston had a 2.5 hour dead spot, so I got on the phone with Hyper. He blasted me for not having any time in the morning to talk with him, but I explained the crazy day, and we worked out a lot of other issues. After that call, he apparently had some very insightful conversations with other people, and it gave him a lot of perspective on our relationship. This was all a very good thing, and it led us to have a nice meeting when he picked me up at Schiphol. My flight from Houston to Amsterdam was uneventful. No passenger in the middle seat, but I did not have the whole row to myself. I was able to sleep for about 4 of the 9 flight hours.
Schiphol, I love you. No customs agents, no trouble with my 4 giant plastic cases, plus backpack and coat and extra little bag of stuff. That luggage cart was carrying nearly 300 pounds of crap! I rolled it all the way out to the passenger pickup area, and had to avoid some giant hole the crews had dug in both sidewalks. Hyper arrived about 15 minutes later, and I was on my way home. We had a huge conversation in the car, where we both re-dedicated ourselves to each other. There were tears, it was a very good talk. Sleep that night was very enjoyable, and quite deep.
Some day you should regail us with tales of living in amsterdam!
Thanks for your comments too, I am glad someone found my long winded prose interesting :)