Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

There were no travel crises today with Team Kuma Bear (and Lisa) other than the neighboring hotel room included a baby that cried a lot, night and day, and another pair of rooms across the hall that seemed to contain several older children who spent the day running back and forth between the rooms yelling a lot. Fortunately, after Lisa came back from running errands and photographing trains during the day, the lack of noise suggested that the people involved had checked out. Working from a flyer in the hotel lobby, Lisa asked me to order her a pizza from a nearby place. It turns out that their version of a Chicago deep dish pizza makes Giordano's look like a thin-and-crispy pie, and it was much bigger than expected. Fortunately, her room has a refrigerator and there is a microwave oven available in the lobby, so she tells me she thinks she now has enough room to last for the rest of her stay.

Because next weekend I expect to be busy, I went to the Wigwam a second time this weekend, going in shortly after they opened at 6 AM and I was only the third customer of the day. It's much more pleasant then than when they are busy. Otherwise, I tried to relax today, because things are apt to get busier soon.

I started tidying up the living room in anticipation of Lisa being home on Thursday morning. I finally took the box of Westercon material back upstairs. It had been sitting in the living room since we came back from Salt Lake City.

Lisa and Chris left downtown Reykjavik around 12:30 local time there today, taking the bus to Keflavik Airport. According to Lisa, it took a very long time to get their boarding passes, and even though they were there as early as they were told to be, by the time they finally managed to get their passes and clear Terrorization and make it to their gate, they were already boarding the flight. Alas, it was a full flight as well.

I was following the progress of the flight on FlightAware, so I saw that they arrived at Chicago O'Hare Airport around 18:30 local there as scheduled. But I did not hear from Lisa until just before Midnight Chicago time! Apparently what happened was that Chris and Lisa got separated while making the enormous journey through O'Hare to Immigration, and the trek was physically difficult for Lisa, who ended up sitting down to rest a bit. Helpful airport people put her in a wheelchair and whisked her through everything. Then things got strange. They pulled not only Lisa's luggage, but Chris' as well, and he was still back waiting to get through Immigration. Lisa told them to leave Chris' luggage there for him to claim, but they ignored her, and she found herself groundside with all of the luggage, while Chris was still airside wondering where Lisa (and his luggage) was, and there was no way for them to communicate. Airports don't page people anymore, and nobody would go back and get Chris to get him out. Hours passed with no communication and nobody able to help either Lisa or Chris, until Chris eventually (I presume with some desperation) came groundside and found Lisa.

I, of course, was getting increasingly worried about where they were. They were able to take the Blue Line into downtown Chicago and finally made it to their hotel. Checking in there actually gave me the first sign of life from them, because Chase decided that trying to charge my credit card as I had arranged for Lisa's stay was suspicious and sent me a fraud alert. I told Chase to approve the charge and called the hotel, and as luck would have it, Lisa was within range of the front desk so we spoke briefly. She desperately needed some food and drink, not having had anything for many hours, so she said she would call me back.

After Lisa got her F&B and got back to the room, she was able to call me from the room. Unlike almost every hotel in which they stayed in Europe, this Chicago hotel hasn't pulled the phones out of the hotel rooms. She was able to use her telephone credit card to call me from the hotel after finding out from the hotel how to make a call to her calling card. (There wasn't anything on the phone about how to get an outside line, apparently.) Anyway, Lisa filled me in on the madness that went on today. It was very late, but she did ask me to call her back so we could make sure that worked. So a bit after midnight (22:00 my time), I tried to call the hotel, which I'd done a couple of times before. This time the phone just rang and rang and then hung up. I tried several times without success. I presume the hotel shuts down their front desk at Midnight local time. Unfortunately, there's no way for me to tell Lisa this.

Lisa won't even be able to see this on her computer, because while she had been able to connect to DreamWidth at all of the hotels in Europe and even on the ferry to Iceland and in Reykjavik, she can't make it work in Chicago. So from her point of view, I never called her back. She may figure out what happened, and if it's urgent, she should be able to call me using her phone calling card, which should still have minutes left on it, but I hate having made it seem like I left her out to dry. On the other hand, it not only is very late there, but she's been up since early in the morning, Iceland time, so perhaps catching up on sleep takes priority anyway and we'll get it sorted out tomorrow.

Frankly, it appears that much of the problems going on here are based on a societal assumption that every single Real Human Being has at least one mobile phone, and that people who do not have such things don't matter and can be ignored. Even though I have two phones (one personal, one work), I find this a highly annoying assumption.

This afternoon, I heard a quail calling with the distinctive "chi-ca-go" call that they used to call in their flock or attract a mate. I peeked through the front door and saw him perched on the rail of the fence.

( Photos Before he Noticed Me )

Right after I took the second photo, the quail realized I was there and left.

---

Meanwhile, in Europe, Lisa decided to go on to Oslo while Chris spends a couple of days in Gothenburg. Further complicating things was that the hotel in Gothenburg needed additional documentation of me authorizing the charge to my credit card, even though I'm the one who made the reservation and provided the credit card information in the first place. I filled out, signed, and returned the form to them, and shortly thereafter they called me and said that took care of what was necessary. Because it's going to be the same chain in Bergen, I sent them a similar form and they said that covered everything.

Turning my attention to the hotel in Oslo, I was fortunate to find that I could change the reservation there so that Lisa could check in today for three nights, as opposed to the original reservation, which was for a single night checking in two days from now. Making things even more complicated was that there did not seem to be any way to telephone the hotel — at least when I called what was supposed to be their number, it just rang forever. Also, the hotel doesn't have telephones in the rooms, so there is no way to contact her by telephone. I assume that more and more places assume that anyone without a mobile phone isn't worth considering. Anyway, I got it fixed for now. Lisa needs more time to rest on trips like these, so a series of one-night stops are very hard on her. Making everything work has been very tricky for me, but for the most part I've been able to make it happen.

Today was my last full day in the UK, and we started with a Castle, continued with a walk around Cardiff and lunch at Cardiff Bay, then ended with a train trip from Cardiff to London and then back out to Heathrow and a final night at a Holiday Inn on this trip.

( Castles, Trains, and Hotels )

Because I'm staying on points, there's no included breakfast, but I got stuff at Paddington to have in the room tomorrow morning, and I should have enough time to get breakfast at Heathrow as well. And as the hotel is on the other side of the road from where the bus dropped us this evening and there is a stop right in front of the hotel that is only one or two stops from Heathrow Central, it should not be difficult to get back over to the airport tomorrow to start the trip back to Nevada.

Tomorrow is likely to be a very long day, and I'm not sure when I'll get my next entry. With the long layover in Denver, I might check in there, but it might not be until I get to the hotel at Reno Airport late Sunday night.

It's been a great trip, but I think I'm ready to go home now.

[Backdated entry because I was too tire to write this at the time.]

On Wednesday, around 1:30 PM, we finished packing and set off for Loscon/Westercon. As usual, it took us quite a while to get out of Fernley, including having to loop back to the house after topping off the gas tank, but we then finally got going. Also as usual, our travel times are up to twice that of Google Maps, because we make a lot of rest stops and we don't drive at or above the speed limit most of time.



This is not the shortest route from Fernley to Bishop, but it is the one we prefer. As I said, we make a lot of rest breaks, including the one shown here at the El Capitan Casino in Hawthorne. Per our common practice when stopping to use the restrooms at a casino, Lisa put $1 into a slot machine, planning to either play it or make more than what we started with. With almost no money left, she hit a $3 jackpot, and we quit, then left for Bishop.

We got to Bishop around 6:30 PM. After checking in, we went to Von's grocery store for a few things for dinner. We tried to get to bed relatively early, because we had a long way to go the next day.

I moved my planned PTO day from Friday to today and headed up to San Francisco again. As it happens, from where I'm staying across from Karina Station on the VTA light rail system, the scheduled trip time to San Francisco is only one minute longer if I go north from Karina to Mountain View than if I go south to San Jose Diridon. In both cases, I end up catching express train 703 to San Francisco.

I got started slightly earlier than I actually needed to go, and consequently arrived at Mountain View earlier than planned. I figured that I had enough time to go get a coffee. I very nearly botched up my trip, though, by misreading the distance to the nearest place that was open. It was about twice as far as I thought, and consequently I was really worried I was going to miss that train to San Francisco. I made it, but with literally zero minutes to spare. That is, by the time I got back to Mountain View Station, the train was just pulling up to the stop, and that's bad because it meant I had to go around the gate (which you're not supposed to do) as the northbound platform is on the opposite side of the station from which I was coming. I made it, but just barely.

Similarly, when I got to San Francisco, I just barely made it to the Muni platform as the T train was rolling in. When I exited the station (I went the correct direction this time) at Union Square, the 38R was already pulling away. There was a regular 38 bus right behind it, which stops about every two blocks it seems, but I got out to the consulate nearly an hour before they opened.

( Early Bird Gets the Visa )

I did not have to rush to catch the train from Belmont, and the light rail from Mountain View left just as I boarded it. As with my last trip this way, I stopped at Fair Oaks and got some groceries (for what should be the last time on this long trip). I had to run to catch the next light rail train, but otherwise it was routine to change trains at Baypointe and return to the hotel, where I was happy to relax in the air conditioning.

So that was the second of the two things I came to the Bay Area to do. I'd leave tomorrow, but that would cost another day of PTO (which is running a little low), an early-departure fee, and a more expensive flight. I might as well use these final couple of hotel nights to take it relatively easy and relax before I fly home on Sunday morning. And there are IHG bonus points galore accruing to my account. Not enough, unfortunately, to stay at the Crowne Plaza Glasgow during the 2024 Worldcon on points. I have almost 200,000 points in my IHG account, but the Crowne Plaza is showing a staggering 95,000 points/night cost for the dates of the Worldcon. (By comparison, the HIX in which I'm staying would cost only 21K points for tomorrow night, and the Holiday Inn down the street is an even more affordable 18K points.) Oh, well, that's not surprising given that the IHG site currently is quoting US$673/night for that hotel. I hope the convention rate isn't that expensive!

My flight from Reno to San Jose has a scheduled duration of 1 hour, and was originally scheduled to depart RNO at 7:15 PM. Lisa drove me to Reno, and we got there more than two hours before the scheduled flight time. I guess I'd arrived at a lull in traffic, because I checked in for my Southwest Airlines flight almost instantly, had no difficulty checking a bag, and went through Terrorization with no issues. I was expecting to take a long time, because I'm carrying three computers, but they told me I did not have to take them out. Have the rules changed?

My back hurts a lot right now, and carrying that heavy computer bag was not fun. So I was happy to find an abandoned Smarte Carte just past Terrorization. I took it and put my computer bag on it. Based on how long I ended up being in the airport, I am really glad I got that cart.

Even when I checked in, I saw that my flight was delayed by an hour. What with having not soaked up a bunch of time on check-in and Terrorization, I had lots of time to kill, so I bought a 20-minute session in one of the massage chairs that dot the airport. That was pretty good. I could use more of it.

My flight got later. I got dinner. I told them to not hurry, while I started reading Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition, which I bought at the museum in Churchill.

While I was eating dinner, my flight continued to be delayed. Despite dawdling over my food, I did eventually leave, and to kill more time, I walked all the way down through Concourse C and then back to B where Southwest is located. I waited until the last flight scheduled before mine at B5 left for Oakland, then settled down to charge my phone and continued reading.

I'm not completely sure what was causing the delays, but I assume that the first thing was that the tropical storm hitting the west coast of Mexico and the southwestern USA was messing up flights in Southern California and Las Vegas. (The Governor of Nevada called out the National Guard for expected issues in southern Nevada. But possibly the President's trip to Reno-Tahoe caused more issues: he arrived this afternoon, and while I didn't see the Presidential plane from the terminal, I wasn't looking. The arrival of the President closed local airspace and caused massive traffic jams in the area.

It got so late that they started turning off the slot machines, on account of the attendant had to go home, and usually all of the evening's flights are complete by that late. This was okay for me, though, because it meant I could sit in the much more comfortable slot machine chairs while I continued to wait.

Eventually our inbound plane finally arrived. Southwest turned it as fast as they could. When I got on board, I went to the back of the plane, where I got a row to myself and plenty of overhead space for my computer. My 7:15 flight left at 10 PM.

The flight was very bumpy, presumably due to the unsettled weather from that storm. I certainly don't blame the Southwest crew for not attempting a beverage service for the very short flight (40 minutes in the air).

My checked bag was in the first few off the belt, and I headed off to the courtesy shuttles area. Unfortunately, the Holiday Inn Express shuttle stops at 10 PM. Instead of the free shuttle, it was a $25 Lyft ride. At least I didn't have to wait long.

The hotel is a pretty standard HIX. I was unable to get the double-queen room changed to a single-king. Thanks to them being full and the length of my planned stay, there were no upgrades for me this trip.

What with all of the delays, it was too late to order pizza, and I really didn't feel like trying to go find something at this hour. I got a microwave meal from the hotel's lobby shop.

I'm having bad luck with hotel hot tubs this summer. Unfortunately, this HIX doesn't have a hot tub. I was looking forward to using it multiple times on this trip.

Fortunately, I don't have an early morning commitment on Saturday, so once I get this post finished, I can get some sleep and need not set an alarm, although if I somehow sleep past 10 AM, I'll miss the included breakfast.

With all of the issues about the minivan and the stored boxes, and with us being so tired coming off the train, we slept in this morning. The good part about that was that we slept through the morning's rain that would have made repacking the Astro messy and difficult. The bad part was that we were behind schedule all day long. Also, last night, Lisa realized that she could not account for an expensive electronic part, that being the wireless microphone that she uses for recording video.

This morning, we went out to go through the van to see if we could find the microphone. That's when we discovered that we'd forgotten that the rear door leaks, and there was a bunch of water pooled on top of a Bankers' box in which we'd stored several computers. Fortunately, above the computers were plastic bags and extra shirts, and thus the computers stayed dry. (We ended up throwing the box away, but nothing in it took any harm.)

When we had everything packed, Lisa took the wheel and tried to start the van: nothing! However, the symptoms were the same as the failure at Idaho Falls, so she had the tools now to clean the battery terminals, and once again, things worked after doing that so there was only a minor delay.

Lisa thought that maybe we left the microphone at our friend's house, so instead of heading straight west to our intended destination of Regina, we headed south and checked: nothing. Also, the minivan has been making unwanted rattling sounds. We did find one loose connection (the engine air intake from the air filter hadn't been properly replaced), but that didn't fix it. Worse, we then had the Service Engine Soon light come on. Lisa poked around, but could find nothing wrong. We know how to read the codes, but it would require unloading almost everything in the van to get at the documentation that we have to do so. So we're crossing our fingers and continuing onward.

After many accumulated delays, we finally found ourselves on the Trans-Canada Highway, refueled at the Flying J on the edge of Winnipeg, and headed west. The air conditioning works, which makes the trip more pleasant, but to our annoyance, the fan comes and goes. Also, the van is not performing as it should, and thus we're keeping our speed to not more than about 100 kph, so we can't make the progress that we wanted.

At one point, we saw a familiar site from an unfamiliar angle as the TCH paralleled the main CN trans-continental main line.

( Hello, Old Friend )

As we continued west, Lisa continued to review where that microphone might have gone. When we stopped for lunch at the A&W in Portage la Prairie, she had a new look and discovered that she'd put it inside of another box when we were packing things to be stored in Winnipeg. That was a big relief, as the microphone is quite expensive and might be difficult to replace. Combined with the lunch (I think A&W tastes better in Canada than in the USA), we were in better spirits as we continued driving.

Despite the good news of finding the missing microphone, both Lisa and I were tired and as we neared Brandon around 5 PM, both of us were growing concerned that getting to Regina tonight would be dangerous for both of us. If we were going to make changes, it would have to be done very soon. We stopped at the Petro-Canada truck stop, swapped drivers so that I could call IHG, and, with the help of the clerk at the truck stop who pointed us toward the Brandon Holiday Inn Express, Lisa set off for that hotel while I saw about changing reservations.

Although we were technically past the time when we should have been able to change the reservation at Regina, the IHG agent was able to do the following:

1. Make a reservation at the Brandon Holiday Inn Express for tonight.
2. Change the reservation for Regina SK to arrive tomorrow night (this did cost $10 more, but did not mean forfeiting the entire reservation).
3. Change the reservation for Lethbridge AB to arrive one day later.

So this turned out to be our travel today:



That's less than half what we'd planned. In retrospect, it probably would have been better if we'd just stayed in Winnipeg today and slept most of the day. But we are where we are.

( Unexpected Rail Shot )

While moving in to the hotel, I realized that I'd lost my set of keys. Lisa has a set (she'd been driving most of the day anyway), and I have a spare set, but I did not losing keys. After moving in, we went back to the van and poked around, and to my relief, I found that I'd dropped them into one of the cup holders in the module between the front seats that Lisa built for us years ago. Then, as we headed back into the hotel, the front desk staff intercepted me and handed my my tote bag, which I'd left in the lobby when we checked in.

With all of the lost items found, I got my computer online and proceeded to rebook all of the rest of our hotel reservations for the remainder of the trip. With one exception, every change resulted in either no change to the cost or a reduction, particularly in overpriced Kalispell. On the other hand, for some reason, Elko got much more expensive; so much so that I changed from purchasing the night to using some of my IHG points. These changes used up the one slack day I had in my schedule, but I think it had to be done.

Now I need to get back into a semi-working schedule. I have to work some half-days the rest of this week and on Monday. At least tomorrow, we only have the second half of our originally scheduled first day's trip to complete. I hope Lisa, who is likely to do most of the driving, is able to get extra sleep while I'm working tomorrow morning. I also hope the minivan holds together.

We woke up a little earlier than expected this morning, which might suggest that we managed to catch up on sleep, although today's activities might have erased that.

Because we were up early, we took the opportunity to do another load of laundry. We also packed a few of the Tide pods to go with us to Churchill, in case either we or some of our friends traveling with us wanted to do laundry at the four-bedroom house we've rented for our stay there. It sounds extravagant, but the cost per person, split six ways, was less expensive than hotel rooms in Churchill, and gives us a full kitchen as well as a living room area and four bedrooms. Besides which, most of the hotel rooms in Churchill seem to be dedicated to tour groups.

( Train Stations and Hotels )

The walk to the train station is only about 1 km each way, but it was (by local standards) warm and (by our desert-accustomed standards) humid, and was a bit hard on Lisa. When we got back, I left Lisa to recover in the air-conditioned room and walked down to the auto repair shop to find out what the status of the minivan was.

( Looked Promising at the Time )

For this particular expedition, Lisa had loaned me one of her amateur radios. By a reciprocal agreement between the USA and Canada, our licenses were good in Canada as long as we followed certain rules. We were able to stay in touch with each other until after Central Park (about 1000 m from the Delta Hotel), after which I was no longer able to contact her, and even on the way back, I wasn't able to raise her until we were within eyeshot. However, that might have been a mistake on my radio handling.

By now it was well past lunchtime, so Lisa and I went to lunch with Chris Marble, once he was able to free himself up from the Office. We returned to Elephant & Castle, in some part because there were still things on the menu that Lisa wanted to try. We did not rush. There was still plenty of time to pack.

After lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon separating those things that needed to be stored in Winnipeg from those that were going to go with us to Churchill, plus a few things that we would leave behind or finish consuming. I went over to Rexall for a final container of milk. The price difference between a 1.5 and a 4 litre container of milk was such that it was more cost-effective to buy the larger container even if I only drank half of it.

At 5:20, having heard nothing from the mechanic, I called him, and received bad news. After he put the repaired pipes back into the unit and charged it up, the coolant all ran out again. There's another leak. He needs more time to find the additional leak or leaks. Well, we get back from Churchill on July 31, so I told him to keep working on it, leave me a message when he has more information (much of the train trip will be out of phone coverage), and we'll get it back from him next week.

It was time to activate Move-Out Plan B. Instead of packing all of our "stays in Winnipeg" stuff in the Astro and then parking the Astro at our friend's house, we needed to store the material itself at their house. They were willing to do so. I also had to change hotel reservations. Our original plan was to stay at the Holiday Inn Express Polo Park near the airport, using IHG points. Because we cannot be certain that our train will actually get back to Winnipeg on time at 16:45 (the shop closes at 18:00), we needed to stay downtown within walking distance of the shop. I canceled the Polo Park reservation and booked a room at the Holiday Inn Downtown, which coincidentally was the Pemmi-Con overflow hotel. (If it were not for all of our convention commitments, I probably would have stayed there for the IHG perks I get from being a Platinum member.) As it happens, I ended up with 2000 more points in my account than when I started, because of the difference in cost between the properties. The Downtown property is a mere 800 m from the auto shop.

Should we arrive on time, and assuming we've confirmed that the van is ready to be collected, we'll take a taxi straight to the shop, collect the van, drive to the hotel and check in, then go to our friend's house and rescue our considerable luggage. Otherwise, we'll just go to the hotel and deal with the van and the luggage the next morning. However in any event, my plan to do Day Jobbe work on that first morning is out the window, and I contacted my manager to tell him so.

Our friend (some of you reading this know who it is) phoned to tell me they were on their way to the hotel. I went downstairs and was able to get a cart. This was a near thing; the World Police & Fire Games are moving in to all of the downtown hotels and the lobby was very busy. There was a person checking in for a 14-night stay (as compared to the 7-night stay ending tonight for Lisa and me). He let me have his cart, and I hurried up to our room, where Lisa crammed all of the stay-in-Winnipeg stuff onto it. We then went back downstairs and managed to fit it in into our friend's vehicle. It was so much that Lisa had to stay behind, and we went to our friend's house.

( Luggage Games )

All six of us going to Churchill are now at either the Delta or Holiday Inn, and some of them went to dinner at the Elephant & Castle, but Lisa was tired and demurred. She and I ordered another pizza and watched a movie, and then she took a bath and went to sleep.

Train time is Noon on Tuesday. We'll aim to be early, even if it means waiting around the station for a while. We'd rather be early and have to wait than miss what is likely to be a once-in-a-lifetime train trip.

Lisa and I both went to bed early last night and woke up early as a consequence. That meant that when I went down to the breakfast buffet to bring Lisa and me trays of food, I was among the first people there. We did not rush, and we both had big breakfasts. I got a long shower and Lisa got another bath, and then we packed out of the hotel and checked out around 8:30 AM, which probably relieved the hotel, as I heard them say that they had lots of departures and arrival today. I did the driving, because while Lisa slept longer than I did, she did not sleep well and wasn't feeling all that great, whereas I appear to have recovered from the effects of the sedation yesterday.

We stopped briefly in Colfax where I got another coffee, and then at Donner Summit, where there's still quite of bit of snow on the ground at the eastbound rest area.

( But Not Very Pretty Snow )

Heading down from Truckee past the Agricultural Inspection Station (westbound only), I saw something that I have never seen before. I couldn't take a picture because there was almost no place I could have stopped to take it. The are was full of a greenish haze. We concluded that the pine trees had all released pollen at the same time, over a huge area, filling the air with their pollen. We should have put on our N95 masks back on, even inside the van, as both of us were coughing and hacking later in the day, Lisa worse than me.

We made no further stops, and got home before Noon. Yep, Roseville is a lot closer to Fernley than Palo Alto.