JD Checks In After A Loooooong Time

So it appears YB beat me to posting tonight.  I saw she was writing and I remarked, "I guess you beat me to it."  "Well, write something," she replied to me.  So we have two posts tonight.

I had fully intended on writing at least one more in the "Things I've Learned This Summer" series but freelance started up and I've been working my pitootee off, thank the Lord.  October is a little slower at the moment so my plan is to get some work done on the house.  It needs to be painted, insulated and electric upgraded.  Two out of three isn't bad and we aren't popping breakers so we'll wait on the third till next year probably.

What a whirlwind September has been.  I've been to DC, Charlottesville, some high school in small town New Jersey (an hour east of Philadelphia) and two other games in Norfolk.  On top of that we've had special programming at work and our annual stage performance/production celebrating the Jewish New Year.  I don't think there was one more thing that could have fit into the schedule.

Speaking of New Jersey, it's story time.  I was working a soccer game at UVA in Charlottesville on the 13th when I got my crew sheet for the NJ game on the 15th, a Saturday.  It was a high school football game I had been booked on about a month and a half earlier.  The plan was to fly to Philadelphia early Saturday morning, get a rental car, drive an hour east to the high school and arrive around 11am, an hour before the crew call (when we're supposed to show up) at noon for a 6pm game.  After the game I would drive halfway back to Philadelphia where I would overnight in a hotel, flying back home Sunday morning and going straight to work from the airport for the stage production (I had to be there...company policy).  That was the plan at least.  The crew sheet arrived in my inbox (it has who is working and when they are supposed to show up), I opened it, and, lo and behold, the call time I was given was wrong.  Not just a little wrong, extremely wrong.  The call time was actually the game time and the real call time was 6am.  Here I am working a game in Charlottesville finding out that my non-refundable flight/car/hotel cannot be used and, at the moment, there is nothing I can do about it.  I wait till my dinner break to break out my phone.  My first call is to cheaptickets.com where my flight and car booked through.  I explain my situation to the nice Indian lady on the other end of phone who I can't understand most of the time.  She refunds my car and credits my airfare for a year on USAirways because I will now be driving to and from NJ (five hours with no stops each way).  It was either that or pay $1500 for changing my return flight to Saturday night instead of Sunday morning on top of the $250 change ticket fee.  I can live with that.  YB and I will use it for Christmas travel.  No Buffalo for us this year!  My next call is to Hotels.com where my room is booked through because I'm a CB and like accumulating the tenth night freebies (four more nights and YB and I will have a free weekend getaway somewhere).  I explain my situation to the nice Spanish/Mexican guy on the other end of the phone who I can understand even less than the nice Indian woman.  For about $20 more I change my reservation to Friday night instead of Saturday night.  At this point it's about 4pm.  I call YB to explain the whole mess and we decide to make a road trip out of it.  Now remember, all this is happening while I'm in Charlottesville, three hours from home.  I still have to get home.

I rode to Charlottesville with the guy who directed the game.  We arrive back in Hampton Roads at 12:30 Friday morning.  He drops me off at work where I left my truck because I let a coworker borrow it to haul some gear for Sunday's hoopla.  My truck is there, but my keys are not where I told him to leave them.  I start searching the building.  1am comes and goes.  I call my coworker.  No answer.  I call YB.  No answer.  I call my coworker again.  No answer.  I call YB once more.  No answer.  At 2am I sack out on a couch in we at work call The Ready Room.  It's a room for the crew to hang out in until their next production.  I got somewhere between two and three hours of sleep before the first crew member showed up.  YB calls me not long after that worried sick and wondering if I was in an accident.  Her phone was on vibrate because it gets emails at all hours of the night and wakes people up.  She says she'll bring me some toiletries so I can shower and a change of clothes.  I am extremely grateful.  Then my coworker calls me.  "Where you at?"  "I'm sleeping on a couch in the ready room." "Oh man, your keys are in my pocket!  I'm so sorry!!!"  I then work till noon when YB meets me at work, we get some food, drive to NJ, get there around dinner, have some dinner, and finally get to bed before tackling the rest of the weekend.

Alright.  My stream of consciousness just ran out.  Will post again soon!