For the love of ivy....

So after the blessing and the festivities, we went back home to Ray Ray.  It wasn't until he was let outside that the excitement that we'd missed out on became apparent.  Seems like the recent snow and wear and tear had caused the ivy arbor to collapse:

So we spent the morning turning the ivy into a pile of lumber and a giant ivy snowball:

And then my cell phone scrambled its memory (as near as I can tell, while sending this last picture), deleted all the photos, my sent box, phone book, and a number of other settings....

Things you don't want your GPS to be telling you

I-25 runs north and south.  Traveling West on I-25 is not an option... not a safe option, at any rate.

I wish I had a picture...

I just picked up a contractor pack of molding for the basement.  Picture in your mind a tootsie roll: candy on one end and a long stick coming out.   That's kind of what the 12 foot long molding looked like coming out of the back of a Smart car.

In the blink of an eye

Have you ever been tired to the point that you blink & your eyes are a bit slow in opening.... and you see things?

I've had two such experiences in the past week.  #1 was while I was sitting in a session in the Orlando Temple.  I blinked and before my eyes opened, I saw Jack-Jack climbing around the altar.  It was a bit disconcerting.

Not quite as startling as my flight out of Orlando.  I was sitting next to a total stranger.  During an eyeblink, I forgot that Susie wasn't sitting next to me.  As my eyes opened it took a moment or two to figure out what was wrong with my wife... why she was looking so strange.  Fortunately I figured it out before I said (or did) anything embarrassing.  I'm sure the guy sitting next to me appreciated it.

Day 3/4/5

Ok, so it's a bit of a blur... but we've spent more time with a real estate agent than with Mickey.  We've left town with offers on two different homes in FL (with right of refusal at the point where the offer is accepted, which may be 3 months away, as we're looking at a short sale).

We'll be looking for visitors at our Florida home as soon as we close... and it's about 15 minutes away from Disney.

Day 2

We started off our day in the park with a wardrobe malfunction.  I was just buying my ticket and I reached to put my wallet in my pocket and heard a rip.  The pocket ripped.  Not wanting to spend the day walking around the park with my underwear showing, I went to customer service to see if I could get some duct tape or a sewing kit.  Instead, they found a pair of sweat pants... looked a bit like pajama bottoms, but we were able to have a fun day in the park.

Day 1

It's been eventful.

A full flight, so we had to gate check our luggage, with a connection to the final destination.

We collected both our bags... except for one.  It wasn't on the flight.  I've never had the experience of lost baggage before. 

My impression is that the Baggage Service procedures are designed around stonewalling:

1. The notice on the lost baggage report form has a clause, which when translated to English says we're going to wait for several days to see if the bag shows up on its own before we do anything else.
2. Once the bag was found according the airline web site, we were given a 4 hour window during which we would be contacted to arrange delivery. We were finally contacted a half hour after that window, which was the first time we had a clue as to which state / country the bag was in. 
3. When we were contacted, we were given an hour and a half delivery window.
4. Two calls to the baggage service office, and just shy of two hours outside of the delivery window, there was a knock at the door.  The bag had arrived.

So what part of customer service does baggage service not understand?

1. Don't blow smoke. I'm not the center of the universe.  You're not going to do everything humanly possible to resolve my problem.  Give me a reasonable, thoughtful answer that provides reasonable expectations.
2. Don't quote unreasonable times (or times you can't meet). If I'd have been told that the bag would be delivered by 10:30 pm, I may not have been happy, but I wouldn't have wasted brain cells when it wasn't here.
3. Give me details. I've not been given a report as to what happened, but I can read the baggage tag: There's a rush tag with the rebooked flight and a TSA sticker on the luggage tag. The TSA sticker tells me that the bag needed to be rescreened, therefore someone at the hub airport missed the final destination and sent the bag with all the other gate checked bags to the luggage carousel.  Things like that happen.  Let me know what's happened and we can get on with life.

I know... my expectations are unreasonable.Next rant will be the motel room. Or maybe the car rental company...  Ranting aside, it's still good to be here.