Thursday, August 5, 2010
Rental Car Frustration. Again.
When we went to Pennsylvania a couple weeks ago, I had just recently gotten my Kansas driver's license. Most states nowadays print you the real card right there while you wait. But not Kansas. They gave me a piece of paper that was the size of a receipt with my DL number, info, and picture on it. Talk about old-fashioned. It didn't help that the picture was 3 times the size it is on the card. Anyway, they told me my real card would come in the mail in 2-3 weeks and that this paper one was perfectly valid and would be accepted if I got pulled over (which thankfully didn't happen). Well, we left on a Friday for Pennsylvania and the card hadn't arrived yet. So, I brought my passport to get through airport security because I figured they wouldn't appreciate the paper license ID in Kansas City and they'd really put up a fuss in Philly. With the passport, of course, I made it through. Once in Philly, we took the customary rental car facility shuttle to Alamo and I got in line to pick up our car. I approached the counter and the CSR and I began finalizing my rental. All went well, until...she asked for my driver's license. I handed her my perfectly valid paper license. She looked at it, looked at me (I matched the picture!), then informed me she couldn't accept it. I was furious. Absolutely furious. Thankfully, my colleague was able to rent the car so we were able to continue our trip. Alamo wouldn't let me pay for the rental, though, even when we returned the car. That was even more infuriating because I'd received an advance from the grant for the amount of the rental and I would therefore owe them money. It's just not fun coming home from one of these trips and having to write a check to the people who usually owe you money. To top off the whole thing, I checked my mail on Monday afternoon and there was my new license in card form. Aaaggghhh!!!
Moved In
Moving is NOT fun. Yes the all-caps was necessary to convey my dislike. Though I am glad to escape my loud neighbors and their vuvuzela.
The new roomie and I are getting settled in our new apartment, slowly but surely. I really enjoyed seeing my family when they came out to help me. I don't get to see my brother very often now. (I can't believe he graduates from Emory University next spring!) I didn't like all the hard labor and unpacking I had to do while they were here, but it was good to be around them.
I now have a garage (!) for storage and/or my car. I can't believe my car might get to live in the garage this coming winter. No scraping! Today's project has been to get everything together that's going to be stored in the garage so that I can continue unpacking my room. It's a little wild right now. I can get to the bed, the bathroom, the computer, and the closet, though I have to move stuff around each time. Hopefully soon there will be less clutter.
The new roomie and I are getting settled in our new apartment, slowly but surely. I really enjoyed seeing my family when they came out to help me. I don't get to see my brother very often now. (I can't believe he graduates from Emory University next spring!) I didn't like all the hard labor and unpacking I had to do while they were here, but it was good to be around them.
I now have a garage (!) for storage and/or my car. I can't believe my car might get to live in the garage this coming winter. No scraping! Today's project has been to get everything together that's going to be stored in the garage so that I can continue unpacking my room. It's a little wild right now. I can get to the bed, the bathroom, the computer, and the closet, though I have to move stuff around each time. Hopefully soon there will be less clutter.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Moving. Again.
Surely sometime soon there will be a year during which I will not move more than once. Maybe not even at all.
One good thing is that I am getting out of the apartment that I don't really like and, more importantly, away from my loud and rude neighbors. It'll be nice to live around people who don't insist on throwing massive parties during which their guests have screaming lovers' spats on the landing outside my door or ring my doorbell during the wee hours of the morning. The goal is to not feel like I live in a frat house. Another great benefit of the new place is that I'll save a good chunk of money on rent and utilities each month since I'll be living with a roommate. Maybe I'll be able to upgrade my TV viewing experience by retiring the 6-year-old cheap off-brand old-fashioned CRT screen from Walmart and replacing it with a flat screen of some sort.
I've spent today packing, but I've hit a brick wall at the moment and cannot bring myself to tape up another box. I'm worried I might just fall asleep here at the computer! Most likely dinner will help me get my second wind. It's nice to go through my things and get rid of what I don't need anymore, but I do hate trying to wrestle non-box-shaped stuff into boxes. It would be somewhat easier if I wasn't the sole person responsible for finding boxes, buying packing tape, and packing up every single possession, especially when I'm the one who also has to pay for the rental truck and the carpet cleaners and then fight to get my security deposit back after cleaning the apartment to better-than-new condition.
One good thing is that I am getting out of the apartment that I don't really like and, more importantly, away from my loud and rude neighbors. It'll be nice to live around people who don't insist on throwing massive parties during which their guests have screaming lovers' spats on the landing outside my door or ring my doorbell during the wee hours of the morning. The goal is to not feel like I live in a frat house. Another great benefit of the new place is that I'll save a good chunk of money on rent and utilities each month since I'll be living with a roommate. Maybe I'll be able to upgrade my TV viewing experience by retiring the 6-year-old cheap off-brand old-fashioned CRT screen from Walmart and replacing it with a flat screen of some sort.
I've spent today packing, but I've hit a brick wall at the moment and cannot bring myself to tape up another box. I'm worried I might just fall asleep here at the computer! Most likely dinner will help me get my second wind. It's nice to go through my things and get rid of what I don't need anymore, but I do hate trying to wrestle non-box-shaped stuff into boxes. It would be somewhat easier if I wasn't the sole person responsible for finding boxes, buying packing tape, and packing up every single possession, especially when I'm the one who also has to pay for the rental truck and the carpet cleaners and then fight to get my security deposit back after cleaning the apartment to better-than-new condition.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Jam-packed June
June has been a pretty busy month so far. I've been to Miami for an entire weekend and Albany, NY, last Saturday. On Friday I leave for Ohio. Since there are only two of us doing all the traveling, we're gone nearly every weekend. The good news is that I'm close to a free flight on Southwest! Thankfully there haven't been anymore scary incidents like in Boston and the last two trips have been quite smooth. Unfortunately, things don't really calm down much in July, but I do have the weekend of the 4th off.
We hired two new GRAs in May, and one started work yesterday. She has a great attitude, and we're certainly looking forward to handing her some of the travel responsibilities. She'll come with us this weekend to observe and get a feel for what we do on the home visits. All this week she'll be practicing the standardized tests we give the kids. The other GRA will start when she gets here in August, and we have high hopes for her as well. With two new GRAs plus our hourly coders, we're gonna have a full house come fall!
We hired two new GRAs in May, and one started work yesterday. She has a great attitude, and we're certainly looking forward to handing her some of the travel responsibilities. She'll come with us this weekend to observe and get a feel for what we do on the home visits. All this week she'll be practicing the standardized tests we give the kids. The other GRA will start when she gets here in August, and we have high hopes for her as well. With two new GRAs plus our hourly coders, we're gonna have a full house come fall!
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Boston - City of Potential Disaster??
Our trip to Boston, MA, at the end of last week nearly ended in disaster several times. Upon arrival at Logan International, we proceeded to the rental car facility. Once there, I signed the required paperwork, we chose our vehicle, plugged our hotel in the GPS, and left, glad we weren't quite exhausted and that we would get to sleep in a bit the next day. Little did we know how much we would need it!
Just past the tollbooth on I-90 we entered the tunnel under Boston Harbor. I drove through the first of what would be many stretches of road where four lanes became two without any warning. Thankfully this time there weren't any other cars on the highway. At one of the merging areas in the tunnel, I looked to my right to check for incoming cars. As I did so, we heard a rushing/sucking noise. In horror I watched the passenger door of our Hyundai Santa Fe swing open! My colleague, sitting in that passenger seat, immediately grabbed the door and hauled it back toward the body of the vehicle as I avoided the incoming car (which almost got a windshield full of door) and steadied the car. The door opening while driving is frightening and startling, but it was even more so in this case because the doors were LOCKED just before this happened!
I searched for the next exit, which of course did not appear for another few miles and a second tollbooth. My heart racing, I drove as carefully as I could to a well-lit (it was fully dark now) area I could temporarily park. My poor colleague held onto the door for dear life. Once safely parked, we jumped out and opened and closed all the doors. Turns out the passenger door sounded different while slamming. How did we not notice this at the rental car facility? We climbed back in and drove back to the rental car facility. Since we certainly didn't trust the latch on the door anymore, my colleague held on tight the whole way back. I began to chatter, of course, so I'm sure we made quite a pair. To top it off, as I waited for an opening large enough for the Santa Fe to squeeze through, the car behind me thought it would be helpful to lay on the horn and not stop till I moved. Did the driver really want me to mow down two cars just to get out of the way. Interestingly, that car followed us onto the interstate, so I'm not sure what the driver was so upset about.
Once back at the rental facility, we proceeded straight to the counter (there was no line) and began to explain what happened. Most of the clerks were talking with one another, but one promptly helped us. One of the nearby ladies overheard us saying something about the door, and apparently she misheard because she shrieked "the door flew off??". We laughed and said, "no, it just opened." Still, it was pretty scary. The clerk upgraded me at no charge and told me to go pick out a full-size SUV/crossover. I chose a Dodge Journey, and thankfully that was the end of the car malfunctions.
We successfully made it to our hotel this time, had a good night's sleep, and even had time for breakfast in the morning. The visit with the family went very smoothly and was shorter than usual, which is always nice but was especially so this time. We were worried that since the mom asked us to reschedule for later in the day after we'd bought plane tickets we wouldn't make it back to Logan International in time to return the car, check a bag, and make the flight.
Driving back into Boston was an experience. I had planned on traffic for rush hour and Memorial Day, but what I didn't plan on was the Boston Celtics and Orlando Magic having Game 6 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals in Boston that evening. So there was lots of traffic. I steeled myself for angry drivers and honking. For once I was glad I wasn't driving a stick shift - the stop-and-go traffic would have been even worse then. At one point as I made my way through a left turn onto the road I would follow for a while, I noticed that there were a total of four lanes merging. There were only two lanes ahead, though. How all of us managed to make it from four to two lanes without any dings, dents, or scratches, I have no idea.
This pattern continued for the rest of the drive to the airport. What should have taken about 50 minutes ended up taking about 2.5 hours. I narrowly missed being sideswiped, T-boned, and rear-ended about a dozen times within about 3 miles. We did get to see the land-water "duck" tour buses, which was interesting. Picture a colorful Noah's Ark cruising down a 6-lane arterial. I was surprised, but throughout all this my colleague and I were not stressing in the least bit about our flight. We'd realized about an hour ago that we'd miss it and that rushing wouldn't help us at all.
We successfully returned the car, hopped on the shuttle, and took our place in what seemed an especially long line. Now we knew we'd never make our flight. We were worried about covering the change fees and the price difference between our current tickets and those of whatever flight we would get on. We were also interested to overhear other customers talking about their direct flight to Kansas City. Why hadn't we been able to get that one?? (the same thing happened when we left Kansas City - there was a direct flight to Boston, but it was delayed). As we neared the counter, one of the clerks asked if anyone in line was confirmed on the 5:45 to Milwaukee, so we made our way forward - interestingly no one in line at any time seemed to be angry at the delay at any point. Turns out the airline's computer system was down. They were doubling checking passengers against printed lists and hand-writing tickets!
Between this technological trouble and the bad weather in Pennsylvania, all the flights were messed up. We ended up waiting 3 hours for our '5:45' flight to take off. Guess we didn't miss it after all. There were 2 other flights scheduled to go to Milwaukee and/or Kansas City between 5:45 and 8ish. All three flights finally left in succession between 8:30 and 9pm. Thankfully Boston Logan has free wifi! Of course with the computers down the seat assignments were out of whack as well, but everyone was especially cooperative. Once settled on the plane, we had a rather bumpy flight to Milwaukee. We deplaned at Milwaukee only to discover that, yes, our plane was the one continuing on to Kansas City. So we stood in line for boarding passes (because Boston certainly didn't have them!) and reboarded the plane. The flight to Kansas City was equally bumpy, so I decided I didn't particularly like our pilot that evening, even though he took the time to explain to us what was going on with the delay. As we deplaned in Kansas City, we were handed vouchers for $100 off our next flight. We were worried about missing our flight, which would have been our fault, and here we ended up making the flight and getting vouchers because it was their fault!
Hopefully our trip to Miami in a week or two won't be so eventful. We'll try to avoid dengue fever.
Just past the tollbooth on I-90 we entered the tunnel under Boston Harbor. I drove through the first of what would be many stretches of road where four lanes became two without any warning. Thankfully this time there weren't any other cars on the highway. At one of the merging areas in the tunnel, I looked to my right to check for incoming cars. As I did so, we heard a rushing/sucking noise. In horror I watched the passenger door of our Hyundai Santa Fe swing open! My colleague, sitting in that passenger seat, immediately grabbed the door and hauled it back toward the body of the vehicle as I avoided the incoming car (which almost got a windshield full of door) and steadied the car. The door opening while driving is frightening and startling, but it was even more so in this case because the doors were LOCKED just before this happened!
I searched for the next exit, which of course did not appear for another few miles and a second tollbooth. My heart racing, I drove as carefully as I could to a well-lit (it was fully dark now) area I could temporarily park. My poor colleague held onto the door for dear life. Once safely parked, we jumped out and opened and closed all the doors. Turns out the passenger door sounded different while slamming. How did we not notice this at the rental car facility? We climbed back in and drove back to the rental car facility. Since we certainly didn't trust the latch on the door anymore, my colleague held on tight the whole way back. I began to chatter, of course, so I'm sure we made quite a pair. To top it off, as I waited for an opening large enough for the Santa Fe to squeeze through, the car behind me thought it would be helpful to lay on the horn and not stop till I moved. Did the driver really want me to mow down two cars just to get out of the way. Interestingly, that car followed us onto the interstate, so I'm not sure what the driver was so upset about.
Once back at the rental facility, we proceeded straight to the counter (there was no line) and began to explain what happened. Most of the clerks were talking with one another, but one promptly helped us. One of the nearby ladies overheard us saying something about the door, and apparently she misheard because she shrieked "the door flew off??". We laughed and said, "no, it just opened." Still, it was pretty scary. The clerk upgraded me at no charge and told me to go pick out a full-size SUV/crossover. I chose a Dodge Journey, and thankfully that was the end of the car malfunctions.
We successfully made it to our hotel this time, had a good night's sleep, and even had time for breakfast in the morning. The visit with the family went very smoothly and was shorter than usual, which is always nice but was especially so this time. We were worried that since the mom asked us to reschedule for later in the day after we'd bought plane tickets we wouldn't make it back to Logan International in time to return the car, check a bag, and make the flight.
Driving back into Boston was an experience. I had planned on traffic for rush hour and Memorial Day, but what I didn't plan on was the Boston Celtics and Orlando Magic having Game 6 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals in Boston that evening. So there was lots of traffic. I steeled myself for angry drivers and honking. For once I was glad I wasn't driving a stick shift - the stop-and-go traffic would have been even worse then. At one point as I made my way through a left turn onto the road I would follow for a while, I noticed that there were a total of four lanes merging. There were only two lanes ahead, though. How all of us managed to make it from four to two lanes without any dings, dents, or scratches, I have no idea.
This pattern continued for the rest of the drive to the airport. What should have taken about 50 minutes ended up taking about 2.5 hours. I narrowly missed being sideswiped, T-boned, and rear-ended about a dozen times within about 3 miles. We did get to see the land-water "duck" tour buses, which was interesting. Picture a colorful Noah's Ark cruising down a 6-lane arterial. I was surprised, but throughout all this my colleague and I were not stressing in the least bit about our flight. We'd realized about an hour ago that we'd miss it and that rushing wouldn't help us at all.
We successfully returned the car, hopped on the shuttle, and took our place in what seemed an especially long line. Now we knew we'd never make our flight. We were worried about covering the change fees and the price difference between our current tickets and those of whatever flight we would get on. We were also interested to overhear other customers talking about their direct flight to Kansas City. Why hadn't we been able to get that one?? (the same thing happened when we left Kansas City - there was a direct flight to Boston, but it was delayed). As we neared the counter, one of the clerks asked if anyone in line was confirmed on the 5:45 to Milwaukee, so we made our way forward - interestingly no one in line at any time seemed to be angry at the delay at any point. Turns out the airline's computer system was down. They were doubling checking passengers against printed lists and hand-writing tickets!
Between this technological trouble and the bad weather in Pennsylvania, all the flights were messed up. We ended up waiting 3 hours for our '5:45' flight to take off. Guess we didn't miss it after all. There were 2 other flights scheduled to go to Milwaukee and/or Kansas City between 5:45 and 8ish. All three flights finally left in succession between 8:30 and 9pm. Thankfully Boston Logan has free wifi! Of course with the computers down the seat assignments were out of whack as well, but everyone was especially cooperative. Once settled on the plane, we had a rather bumpy flight to Milwaukee. We deplaned at Milwaukee only to discover that, yes, our plane was the one continuing on to Kansas City. So we stood in line for boarding passes (because Boston certainly didn't have them!) and reboarded the plane. The flight to Kansas City was equally bumpy, so I decided I didn't particularly like our pilot that evening, even though he took the time to explain to us what was going on with the delay. As we deplaned in Kansas City, we were handed vouchers for $100 off our next flight. We were worried about missing our flight, which would have been our fault, and here we ended up making the flight and getting vouchers because it was their fault!
Hopefully our trip to Miami in a week or two won't be so eventful. We'll try to avoid dengue fever.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
