Tag Archives: travel

A Perfect Storm

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Why I’ve been neglecting this blog.

I don’t have much time to write this — and that’s the reason I haven’t been writing more regularly. I like to compose at least 5 blog posts a week, yet this is only my third in just over a week. The last post — a video — doesn’t really count, since I didn’t write anything.

So why the neglect? As I mentioned above: time.

Every once in a while, life throws a perfect storm at us. You know what I mean — it’s a period of time when everything seems to go crazy at once.

In my case, it was the following, which have all occurred since July 29:

  • Completion of the annual revision of one of my books (ongoing throughout this period).
  • Reposition my helicopter from Quincy, WA to Seattle, WA.
  • Reposition my camper from Quincy, WA to Page, AZ.
  • Brief 3-day catchup period at home in Wickenburg, AZ.
  • Distribute the animals among multiple boarding facilities.
  • Trip to Seattle, WA.
  • Reposition helicopter from Seattle, WA to Page, AZ.
  • Set up housekeeping in my camper in Page, AZ.
  • Entertain an overnight guest in a very tiny camper.
  • Deal with FAA, airport manager, and local tour operators in Page regarding tour, photo flight, and charter work in Page, AZ (ongoing).
  • Provide moral support for my sister, who has been laid off from her banking job.
  • Three photo flights from Page to Monument Valley.
  • Start of new book with August deadline.
  • Three trips to medical facilities in an attempt to diagnose some severe back pain.

It’s this last thing that’s really gummed up the works. I did something to my back while I was home and the pain became unbearable after the commercial flight to Seattle the next day. I was in an urgent care clinic there where I got prescriptions for drugs I couldn’t take because I had to fly. The pain has varied from annoying but bearable to absolutely crippling every day since then, with one day so bad I was in the hospital emergency room. It hurt to sit and since I need to sit to write, I couldn’t work on the new book — let alone write blog entries.

Miraz hit the nail on the head in her Twitter comment to me, when she said, “Pain is so time consuming and draining.” Wow. I’d never really thought of it like that — probably because I’ve never been in such severe pain for so long.

So now I’m behind in just about everything, racing against the clock to finish a book that’s due tomorrow. (It ain’t gonna happen.) The pain is under control — yesterday was the first day that it was tolerable throughout the day — and physical therapy starts on Monday.

Please bear with me. I do have lots to write about. When I get this book off my plate and catch up on my FAA stuff, I’ll be back with some interesting (I hope) new content here.

Hotwire Loses a Customer

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Mike finally wises up.

My husband, Mike, is always looking for a travel deal. While there’s nothing wrong with that, what he usually winds up with is a prepaid travel deal with restrictions and other strings attached that make the trip a little less pleasant.

Hotels Deals?

His use of Hotwire, for example, has screwed us up more than once. He often uses it to book hotels. He claims he gets a better deal. What he usually gets, however, is a substandard room in the least desirable part of the hotel that doesn’t match his requests. I’m talking about the third-floor room in a high-rise that overlooks the air conditioning units on the roof of the hotel’s conference center. Or the one across the hall from the ice machine or elevator bank or housekeeping storage closet.

The request thing really bugs me. Hotwire — and most of those special deal booking services — include a field in the reservation form where you can enter requests, such as “quiet room” or “upper floor.” It usually also includes form fields for bed size (i.e., King, 2 Queens, etc.). The trouble is, the hotels either don’t see or don’t get these requests. While we’ve never been stuck in a smoking room after requesting nonsmoking, we seldom get our requested bed size (a single King or Queen). And the other requests regarding room type are usually ignored.

So what is your special deal getting you? Certainly not what you wanted.

And what kind of a deal is that?

While it really doesn’t matter on a one-night stay, getting a less-than-satisfactory room on a multi-night stay can really ruin the trip, especially if it’s supposed to be for pleasure.

The hotels, in the meantime, don’t give a shit about you. In their eyes, you’re paying $99 for a $199 room — or whatever your special deal is — and you’re at the very bottom of their list for service. They don’t care about you. They don’t want your kind in their hotel. The very fact that they have to take in Hotwire guests cheapens their establishment, in their eyes. So when you realize that your vacation is about to be ruined by your room’s view of the garbage dumpsters rather than the mountains or ocean on the other side of the building, and ask to get a different room, they respond that the hotel is full. They’re not even willing to do a deal with you for an upgrade. I think it’s because you pay Hotwire for the room — not the hotel itself — and making a change is likely to start an accounting nightmare for whoever’s at the desk.

This happened to us twice on trips Mike booked for the two of us. After the second time, I made him promise he’d never book a hotel through Hotwire for a trip I was going on with him. But Mike continues to use Hotwire for his solo trips, and for the trips he takes with his family members. Whatever.

Rental Car Reservations?

Well, Mike got bit bad by Hotwire this week. He’s flying to Seattle to visit me out in central Washington. I told him to fly into Wenatchee, which is 30 miles from where I was staying, but he was too cheap to pay the extra $220 airfare from Seattle to Wenatchee. He expected me to drive the 300 round trip miles twice to pick him up in Seattle and then take him back. When I explained that wasn’t happening in my 10 miles per gallon truck, he decided to rent a car. I had no problem with that because I figured that whatever he rented would be more comfortable and fuel-efficient than my 1994 Ford F150 redneck truck.

Now, I’ve rented cars too many times to count over the past 20 or so years. I don’t like doing it. There are too many different prices and options and add-on fees. I’ve found that the very best way to get a good deal is to check the Web sites or call the toll-free numbers for the top 3-5 car rental places that serve the market you’re going to and get quotes. Have your AAA or AOPA or whatever discount code ready. Unless you’re traveling with a lot of people, always ask for the smallest, cheapest car. Nine times out of 10, you’ll get upgraded for free. (I’ve been upgraded to convertibles, minivans, SUVs, and even sports cars.) The trick is to compare apples to apples to make sure each quote is for the complete and total amount. When you find the best price, book it through the car rental agency. They usually just ask for a name and phone number; they seldom ask for a credit card. You write down the confirmation number and present it at the rental counter when you arrive.

But Mike reserved through Hotwire. And not only did they charge him over $350 up front for the entire rental, but the “reservation” was non-refundable. So when I picked up a contract in the Chelan, WA area and needed my truck (and its miserable fuel transfer system) up there with me, he was unable to cancel the car reservation and make the plane reservation (as I’d originally requested — and yes, that’s an “I told you so”). As a result, he’s paying $350 to rent a car to drive himself from Seattle to Quincy and back again. For the rest of his stay, the car will be parked in front of my camper at the Quincy Golf Course.

After battling with a “supervisor” at Hotwire and the rental car agency and getting nowhere, he admitted that he’d learned his lesson: He will never book anything with Hotwire again.

The Moral of this Story

I guess the thing that bugs me most about this affair is the fact that you can really get screwed just trying to save a few bucks. And while it’s nice to save money when you can, there comes a point when saving $20 or $50 on a 10-day car rental isn’t worth the restrictions and headaches that go along with the savings. In this case, by booking his car rental through Hotwire a few days in advance of the trip, he forfeited all of his travel flexibility.

Moments ago, with 10 minutes of work, without any discount codes, I found a suitable car rental through Enterprise for $373.56 — less than $25 more. Is it worth $25 — less than 7% of the purchase price — to pay for something in advance without any chance of refund?

To add insult to injury, our financial situation does not make it vital to save the $25. It’s not like we’re broke. But that’s part of the big picture. And sometimes, for some people, it’s tough to see the forest for the trees.

Offline Again

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An update to a recent post.

Less than 12 hours after the unhappy Internet guy set me up with service in my camper at the golf course (as reported here), that service was disabled.

By the irrigation guy.

Here’s the strange but true story.

Since the Golf Course folks were paying for the Internet installation, it made sense for them to have an Internet connection at at least one of their computers. For simplicity’s sake, they decided to use the computer closest to the router. Although it looked like a regular desktop PC, it was actually a PC dedicated to the operation of the golf course’s irrigation system. A complex Toro software/hardware system enabled the golf course staff to activate any of its sprinklers by radio from anywhere on the course.

Wireless AntennaThe PC in question was connected to a simple antenna on the roof that was about 18 inches from the antenna the Internet guy installed. You can just about see it in this picture; It’s the white pole behind the pizza box antenna.

Well, as soon as the Internet was connected to that computer, the otherwise bored golf course employees decided it was time to go surfing. I don’t even think the Internet guy was gone before Explorer was launched and at least one employee was checking out YouTube.

I knew this was going on, but it didn’t really register that it could be a problem. I was oblivious, just happy to have my connection.

Around 9 PM, there was a knock on my trailer door. It was still light out — the sun doesn’t set until about 9 here this time of year — but I was in my pajamas, lounging in bed with a book. I threw on a pair of shorts and came to the door. It was the irrigation guy. I’ll call him Carl, even though that’s not his name.

“The Internet guy screwed up my computer,” he fumed. “I can’t get the sprinklers to come on. It’s all screwed up.” I could tell he was pretty angry. “Do you have his phone number?”

I handed over Pete’s card. He stormed away with it.

I didn’t think anything more about it.

Until the next day. My Internet connection still worked for a while, but the signal wasn’t very strong. Some rain on the camper sent me to the airport to pull the helicopter out, just in case I had to fly. When I returned at about 9 AM to keep myself busy until I got a launch call, the Internet was down. In fact, my computer couldn’t even find the wireless network.

I went into the golf course office. The router was gone. I later found it in a pile of wires and cables and transformer boxes on another desk.

I asked the guy at the desk what had happened.

“Carl couldn’t get the Internet guy on the phone and his sprinklers weren’t working. So he called his daughter out here and they disconnected the Internet.”

I later found Carl. He was still fuming. “That computer is for the irrigation system only,” he said. “If you touch anything on it, the system goes down. They shouldn’t have put the Internet on it. The Internet guy didn’t call and I had to do something so we disconnected it. I had to do a restore from last Tuesday. I think I got it working again.

I should clarify here. The only way “the Internet” was connected to his computer was via a single Ethernet cable from the router. That’s it. The computer was not doing anything to keep the Internet connection alive — although for all I know, Pete may have used its browser to configure the router the previous day. All Carl had to do was disconnect that Ethernet cable. But he’d pulled it all out.

All except the power to the Internet antenna.

I discovered this on Monday when I attempted to reconnect everything — except the irrigation computer, of course. I had Pete on the phone and he gave me a physical description of the box between the antenna and the router. Carl hadn’t disconnected it, so the antenna was still powered and operating.

I got the system all back up and running, then asked Carl to test his system. He went outside with a radio and tried it. “It won’t work,” he said.

I powered down the router and asked him to try it again. It still wouldn’t work, even though it was basically the same as it had been all weekend when it did work.

I unplugged the little box and asked him to try again. He said it still wouldn’t work. But now nothing was connected. When I pointed that out, he looked at his radio and said, “Well, maybe the radio isn’t charged up. It’s acting like it’s not charged.”

Patience, Maria. Patience.

“How about if you charge it all up and we try again later?” I suggested. “Maybe after lunch?”

He agreed. He put the radio in its charging station and I left everything unplugged.

Later, he came by my camper. “The antenna is too close,” he told me. “I called the irrigation support people and they told me the Internet antenna was conflicting with my system.”

I’d already explored this possibility with Pete. He didn’t think it was likely, but since we didn’t know the frequency of the irrigation system’s radio, we couldn’t be sure. Carl didn’t know the frequency.

After he’d driven off to look at something out on the golf course, I slipped into the office. A mousepad provided by Toro listed support phone numbers. I dialed one of them. Moments later, I was explaining the situation to a support guy. I asked him the frequency of the radio system. He said it was in the “400 range.” I had no idea what that meant, but figured Pete would. I asked him if he’d ever heard of the system conflicting with an Internet setup. He said he hadn’t. I also discovered, during the phone call, that Carl had not called their support number since the beginning of June. So that means that either Carl was lying or someone else had told him the two systems would conflict. Sheesh.

I spoke to Pete. We agreed that there was no conflict. But he promised to come by on Tuesday (today) to move the antenna farther down the roofline.

With luck, I’ll have my network backup by this afternoon.

Online Again

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I finally get a reliable Internet connection.

AirPort SignalI’ve been trying, since arriving here in Quincy, WA, to get a reliable Internet connection. Today I succeeded. Sort of.

I’m camped out in an RV park at the Quincy Golf Course. The golf course has just changed ownership and the new owners — the Port of Quincy — are trying hard to get the place up and running for the summer. They’re doing a damn good job. But they didn’t have Internet and they had too many other things to think about before adding it.

One of the people who works there, Matt, lives about four houses down the road. I could see his network from my computer, but it was secured. He kindly gave me the password. For the next week or so, I could connect during the day and take care of file transfers, Daily Show Downloads, blog posts, and e-mail. But when my next door neighbor returned around 5 PM each evening and parked his truck in front of his camper, my connection was cut off.

I could use my Treo and did so when there was no other choice. It uses Bluetooth with a Verizon service called BroadbandAccess Connect — which is also known as Dial Up Networking (DUN). (I wrote about DUN here in an article titled “Setting Up Your Mac to Use a Smartphone’s Internet Connection.”) I pay $15/month for this service and it’s worth it. It’s the only cellphone based Internet service I know that doesn’t have a bandwidth cap. I don’t like to use it because (1) it’s not terribly fast — perhaps 256-512 kbps and (2) when I get an incoming call, not only does it disconnect me, but my Mac always seems to need restarting before it will connect again.

I researched other options. All wireless options had a bandwidth cap that was far lower than I needed. (5 GB a month? Are they kidding?) Other ISPs who worked in remote areas — I’m in the middle of farmland 5 miles outside of town, for heaven’s sake! — didn’t serve this area. But there was one ISP who did serve this area.

I contacted them shortly after arriving, when I realized that the borrowed access wasn’t going to serve my needs. It’s obviously a small company. I spoke to two different people. I won’t use real names; let’s just call them Don and Pete. Don was evidently in charge of sales and was anxious to make a deal — even for a period as short as two months. Pete was the technical guy who did the installations and evidently had no desire to come to Quincy. Pete made a lot of excuses. It kept getting put off. Then I got Don on the phone again and made a deal with him. I was willing to pay $220 for two months of broadband access. (I really need access to get my writing work done.)

Pete came out to check my site. The service they offer is the same type I have at home. They mount an antenna in a high place and point it at their antenna within visual range. Then they attach a router to the local antenna and I’m in business.

Pete seemed pissed and was not very friendly. He went through the motions of pointing the antenna at one of two sites. But he was standing on the ground and he wasn’t trying very hard. He said there was no signal. He couldn’t help me.

I wasn’t about to give up. It had taken two weeks to get him there and I wasn’t going to let him leave. I suggested putting it on the golf course’s clubhouse building, which was 100 or so feet away. I talked to the golf course manager and he said okay. He also said that they also wanted Internet service, so they’d pay for the installation. All I had to do was pay for access for the two months I wanted it.

Pete didn’t seem happy about this. He said he’d come back in “a day or two” to do the installation.

Of course, he didn’t come the next day.

Wireless AntennaHe came today and did the job. He put the antenna on the roof of the building and set up the router in the golf course club house office. He connected one of the golf course computers via Ethernet. Then he came to my trailer and fetched the MAC addresses for the three laptops I have with me. (I really am serious about getting some work done.) He programmed them into the router so no one else could get access without paying for it. After a few false starts, we got all three of my laptops to connect, although my old 12″ PowerBook doesn’t pick up the signal as well as my MacBook Pro and Dell Latitude. I joked with him about living in a trailer with three laptops. He didn’t laugh. He still wasn’t happy. I wonder if that guy is ever happy.

Then he tried to collect $220 from me.

I told him the golf course people said they’d pay for installation. He got Don on the phone. I talked to him. He was very agreeable. When we hung up, I wrote a check for $70 for the next two months of access. I should be gone by then.

After he hurried off to be cranky elsewhere, I discovered the shortcomings of my connection. First of all, it drifts and sometimes drops — although it’s been pretty good for the past few hours. Second, they must have a port blocked because I had to reconfigure Mail to use a different port to send e-mail. (Read more about this solution here.) And third, because I’m sharing the connection with the golf course people, if they do some heavy surfing, my connection slows down.

But overall, it works well enough. And the price was less than I was willing to pay.

June 24, 2008 Update:
Read how this situation changed the very next day.