Our life

So for the past few weeks, C and I have been looking forward to our upcoming trip to San Antonio *. Flights and hotel booked, itinerary mostly planned, bags mostly packed, time off work, and mom notified. Looks like it’s a go. This will be our last “hurrah” just her and I for quite some time, so we’re really looking forward to it.

Last night, about 8 or so, I hopped on the airlines website to see if I could sneak in a pre-checkin. I know they allow it at 24 hours (thanks Doc!), and we don’t leave til Thursday afternoon, but I figured I’d try early. I get logged in and plug in the right info in the right boxes:

Your flight departs more than 24 hours from now.
You may check in for your flight between 24 hours and 60 minutes prior to departure time.

No biggie. I glance back at the confirmation email (this is the first time I’ve looked at it) to see if there are any other options. Nope, doesn’t appear to be. Looks like I’ll have to wait until the 24 hours start. Double-checking the flight time, I see we’re set for the afternoon on Thusday, May 8th. Oh good.

This is the point in the movies where you see the expression of the lead actor change from indifference to utter panic. The music does that “dropping” sound (say “Booooooooo” through your nose) and the camera zooms in. Our hotel and plans are set to begin this Thursday, May 1st. Shit.

So I call the airline. I honestly don’t know if it was my fault or theirs. Rather than be angry, I accept responsibility for not knowing, and put the blame on nobody. I’m calm and jovial, apologetic and charming. My compliments and understanding are working on the nice lady with the reservations center. She plugs the correct info into the boxes on her screen, responds with “hmms” and “wells”, puts me on hold, checks this and that, then comes back on. It appears that, since we used C’s miles to save more than half the original fare, we’ll have to go through the Miles folks. She’s apologetic and thanks me for being so calm as she sends me over to those fine folks.

As a guy answers the phone there, I knew my charm would probably have very little effect on the guy. Crap. So I try the good ol’ boy mentality. Joking and laughing, still apologetic, still not assuming responsibility nor assigning it. He works up some options and numbers. Back and forth. “that might work”. “no, that won’t work”. “Good lord man, that’s too early.” *chuckles on both ends*. We finally work something out. Later flight that we hoped for on the departure, and a full day later on the return. Ah well. I thank the guy repeatedly and hang up to call the hotel.

We need to extend our stay over Monday night. Figure there won’t be an issue. After all, its just Monday the 5th of May in San Antonio. What reason would a hotel with direct access to the Riverwalk have to be sold out on the 5th of May in a city with a latino name? (did you hear that music again?).

After a few minutes, the realization of that date sets in as I hear “I’m sorry, we’re booked solid that night. But our other property has availability”. I thank her and resign to finding something nice for that last night there. If we’re moving hotels, it might as well be worth our while. I talk it over with C. We’re undecided and its late (a little after 10 at this point). I suggest she sleeps on it, and I’ll at least lock in the room at the other property.

I call them back and get a different lady this time. She plugs the correct info into the right boxes, and finds that our room is infact available. I promptly lock the room down, chat a bit, thank her profusely, and hang up as I finally exhale.

Marching to bed at 1030, I swear I hear the music that’s played at the end of the sports movie where the injured kid gets up and limps the winning touchdown into the end zone.

Speaking of triumphant sports stories… Ultimate Sportsmanship

* to all would be badguys: we’re in a small town where everyone knows everyone. Plus, our attack cat will be there. You’ll have better luck in the city. But if you do stop in, could you please clean my office? I’ve been meaning to do that. I’ll leave a $10 on the desk for ya.

I looked around real quick to see if I could find out what to do to make a new header image for the Kubrick theme here (the corners are a bit of a bitch).

A quick google search  brought up a link on the wordpress site itself.  I thought “well, that’s convenient”.  So I followed the link.  That page didn’t directly list the link, but yielded another link in the “related posts” area.  That link brought me to another site.  That site finally listed the link I was looking for.

So, I had to see 3 mostly unrelated pages to get the final page with the content I originally searched for.  Why do bloggers and websites in general do this?  Link to a link of a link?  I see it in little blogs, all the way up to Lifehacker, Wired, and Digg.  Link to a link of a link.

Why don’t we just link the final content?  I can understand if you have to see Joe Somebody’s scathing commentary of the subject.  But linking to only increase page hits?  Come on internets!

(btw, here’s the final link to the header image generator:  http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/blogheader.php )

According to the little floating thingy on my iGoogle page, we are 29 weeks pregnant with 75 days left to go.

75 days…. 10.5 weeks. 1800 hours. Wow.

It was hard to believe, back when C told me in November, that I will be a daddy soon. While the reality sinks in more and more as her belly grows, its still unbelievable. We are creating life.

If our child is a girl (as we’re not finding out til the day!), then I hope she has her mother’s looks.

If our child is a boy, I still hope he has his mother’s looks. Just a more manly version of them of course. She’s the beauty. I’m the geek.

Either way, we want our baby to be healthy and happy. (As I typed that statement, I wondered if there are parents out there who have wished otherwise?)

In a few days, we take off for San Antonio for a relaxing weekend. After that, I have no weekends that I’m not busy. But I’ll be damned if I’m painting or building or sanding something while our baby is in his or her crib.

I’ll post some pics once I get things done. This will be my additional inspiration.

Last week, my wife’s boss sent me the following link: Matt Logelin

To paraphrase the site as best I can, while still enticing you to read it over: Matt celebrated the birth of his daughter with the death of his wife… 27 hours later. And yet, he keeps a positive attitude as best he can. If his site doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, perhaps you’re dehydrated.

In all seriousness, his reality is my greatest fear. You see, my lovely wife “C” is pregnant with our first child. While I firmly believe in fate, and feel that everything will be a-okay, I still have those fears that every father and mother have. Without C, I wouldn’t be me.

And that would just plain suck.