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petrea_mitchellAfter illness, an emergency, the SO being unable to make it, and other business failed to stop me travelling, what finally got me was a taxi not showing up.
The only non-sketchy airport shuttle service in the Portland area went out of business sometime in the last few years, and the SO is a night owl so not safe for early-morning trips to the airport. So my current options are getting on the light-rail line to the airport, which has to be prefaced with a one-mile walk to get to the bus to get to light rail if I'm dealing with more luggage than I can ride my bike with, or else setting up a taxi reservation. Having a particularly large bag with me to hold the gaming library, and having seen the taxi option work for the SO's last trip, I went with that.
And then right when the pickup was scheduled, we got a call from the designated taxi saying it would be another 25 minutes because the taxi was currently in downtown Portland. Figuring that was a an optimistic estimate, and extrapolating the increased travel time from leaving at least half an hour later as the morning rush hour picked up, that was going to be too late.
The SO happened to be up waiting with me at that point, and we tried a hybrid plan B: the SO took me to a major station that it isn't too hard to drive to, from which I could take the direct line to the airport. And it almost worked; I just missed the 45-minute cutoff for people with checked bags.
The original plan was to fly to Reno, enjoy a 3-hour layover, and then get on a bus to Tonopah. I got rebooked on the next available flight, which would arrive over an hour too late to make the connection.
So a matter of a few minutes turned into a 24-hour delay. I reported the situation to the Westercon mailing list, changed my bus reservation, and started looking at hotels near the Reno airport. Not long after, I heard from the con chair, who was putting the word out to other staff members who might be passing through Reno to see if any of them might be able to pick me up on the way.
That did not pan out, and I had figured it probably wouldn't, so I used part of my unexpected time at the airport to convert the gaming signup sheets into a format that could be printed from any modern computer, figuring I'd probably be asking someone already at the con to print them out for me. Once in Reno and at my hotel, no last-minute chance encounter with someone who happened to be travelling to Westercon from the Reno airport having occurred, I sent them to the head of programming, along with a separate note about them in case the e-mail with attachments got caught in a spam filter. Then a couple hours later I realized that what I really should do was send them to the staff mailing list, which would allow me to see whether they got though, plus it would let them get to whoever was still able to check their e-mail, which busy people like the head of programming might not be. Not my most organized moment, there.
Anyway, the signup sheets did get printed and I'm now at the Reno airport again, able to catch the bus and get to Tonopah this evening. The net effect is that there's no game library at the con today, and the Friday afternoon KeyForge session had to be cancelled. There is at least no effect on the two games being run by one of the guests of honor, since the signup sheets are in place and his first session isn't until Saturday afternoon. So it could be worse, but I have still caused a program item to be cancelled, and made extra work for multiple people, and I feel like I've let the whole convention down.
So, stuff happens, but the next reasonable question is what do I do to make sure this doesn't happen the next time I'm on a con staff? I have managed the early-morning hustle down to the bus stop before, but travelling with enough luggage for a full convention, probably the better solution is to order the taxi an hour earlier from now on.
The only non-sketchy airport shuttle service in the Portland area went out of business sometime in the last few years, and the SO is a night owl so not safe for early-morning trips to the airport. So my current options are getting on the light-rail line to the airport, which has to be prefaced with a one-mile walk to get to the bus to get to light rail if I'm dealing with more luggage than I can ride my bike with, or else setting up a taxi reservation. Having a particularly large bag with me to hold the gaming library, and having seen the taxi option work for the SO's last trip, I went with that.
And then right when the pickup was scheduled, we got a call from the designated taxi saying it would be another 25 minutes because the taxi was currently in downtown Portland. Figuring that was a an optimistic estimate, and extrapolating the increased travel time from leaving at least half an hour later as the morning rush hour picked up, that was going to be too late.
The SO happened to be up waiting with me at that point, and we tried a hybrid plan B: the SO took me to a major station that it isn't too hard to drive to, from which I could take the direct line to the airport. And it almost worked; I just missed the 45-minute cutoff for people with checked bags.
The original plan was to fly to Reno, enjoy a 3-hour layover, and then get on a bus to Tonopah. I got rebooked on the next available flight, which would arrive over an hour too late to make the connection.
So a matter of a few minutes turned into a 24-hour delay. I reported the situation to the Westercon mailing list, changed my bus reservation, and started looking at hotels near the Reno airport. Not long after, I heard from the con chair, who was putting the word out to other staff members who might be passing through Reno to see if any of them might be able to pick me up on the way.
That did not pan out, and I had figured it probably wouldn't, so I used part of my unexpected time at the airport to convert the gaming signup sheets into a format that could be printed from any modern computer, figuring I'd probably be asking someone already at the con to print them out for me. Once in Reno and at my hotel, no last-minute chance encounter with someone who happened to be travelling to Westercon from the Reno airport having occurred, I sent them to the head of programming, along with a separate note about them in case the e-mail with attachments got caught in a spam filter. Then a couple hours later I realized that what I really should do was send them to the staff mailing list, which would allow me to see whether they got though, plus it would let them get to whoever was still able to check their e-mail, which busy people like the head of programming might not be. Not my most organized moment, there.
Anyway, the signup sheets did get printed and I'm now at the Reno airport again, able to catch the bus and get to Tonopah this evening. The net effect is that there's no game library at the con today, and the Friday afternoon KeyForge session had to be cancelled. There is at least no effect on the two games being run by one of the guests of honor, since the signup sheets are in place and his first session isn't until Saturday afternoon. So it could be worse, but I have still caused a program item to be cancelled, and made extra work for multiple people, and I feel like I've let the whole convention down.
So, stuff happens, but the next reasonable question is what do I do to make sure this doesn't happen the next time I'm on a con staff? I have managed the early-morning hustle down to the bus stop before, but travelling with enough luggage for a full convention, probably the better solution is to order the taxi an hour earlier from now on.
