Threes and Fours

It started innocently enough last week as I booked a trip to Prince George for work. The site appointment was for Wed., March 7th.  Easy .

However, I was a bit fatigued from the previous weekend spent in Winnipeg for a family gathering. It was one of those "Go to the airport immediately after work; in fact, leave early from work to make the flight" combined with "Grab the last flight back from the 'Peg to be home by 10-ish on Sunday night", with a late season Vancouver snow storm thrown in. Simply the three little words "Vancouver snow storm" should lead you in the direction I'm heading with this. In essence, after a flight-delayed home arrival of Sunday midnight, I wasn't up to the task of booking a flight Monday morning.

I entered the relevant online air travel data, received the email confirmation and tackled my next task; the rental vehicle. I've noticed over the years that I seem to have a rather strange ability in that as I review a document, small details register in my mind. Sometimes that's a helpful skill and it has prevented errors in the past. But this time, I only noticed the error on the back end; after hitting the all-important "Enter" key, thus sealing my fate. As I entered the data to reserve a rental vehicle in Prince George my proof-reading mind flagged March 7th. "That's correct" I thought, immediately followed by, "But didn't I just enter March 5th for something?" Doh!

I pulled up the Air Canada email confirmation already knowing what was coming. Yup, Air Canada was booked for March 5th as I was reserving a vehicle for the real date of March 7th. I honestly felt that a clone of myself must have booked that flight. At that point there was nothing to be done but to contact Air Canada and change the flight. I guessed threre'd be a fee involved; probably $70 I thought (although I don't know why the sum of 70 bucks should have popped into my head). With the smaller airlines I've flown in the last couple of years they don't even charge a change fee. But of course, not Air Canada. To add insult to injury, the fee ended up being $210! Fortunately the job budget can cover it. This is the most expensive booking mistake I've made yet, even eclipsing the hotel I mis-booked in Grande Prairie a few years ago, only realizing my mistake when I received the email from the hotel asking "How was your stay?" two days before I was due in town.

Disaster #2 occurred yesterday after a local site visit. I copied the day's photos onto my computer's Desktop and then continued on to other tasks, sub-consciously confident, as I've done this task many, many times before. Later I returned to this job data to copy and re-size the photos for insertion into my report. But do you think I could find them? Not a chance. I opened and closed every folder I could think of in the off-line directories I had access to for about 20 minutes. To make matters worse, again remembering a sub-set of the copying task that had me being (over) confident I could Cut and Paste the photos directly to my laptop rather than the slightly more onerous version of this task involving Copying and Pasting the photos, then Deleting them later. As I sat before my laptop, literally feeling numb in dis-belief at the irony of such a debacle, I was evaluating my options which seemed to have been whittled down to one; contact the site rep to arrange a return to site to do the 2-hour review all over again because I was literally in possession of zero photographic data for my report.

"OK", I said to myself, "Just breathe. There is probably an escape route here somewhere". This train of thought may have been in response to a book I'm currently reading about Houdini. What would Houdini do? He wouldn't just give up. He wouldn't have gotten anywhere in his chosen profession by giving up. It's not like I'm constrained in a strait-jacket inside a quadruple-locked trunk sitting at the bottom of a water chamber...in a burning auditorium. Don't panic. Hmm...I must have named the file. And if so, what would I have named it? I'd likely have included the file number. Just type the file number into the Search box and see if anything positive happens. Bingo! (an ancient exclamation term if ever there was one; I'll update it later). Turns out I'd created a new photo folder within a different job file. Disaster #2 averted.

That brings me to today. I got up extra early (4:45 a.m.) to allow for finding the new long (and short) term parking lot at VYR. The old "Value" lot adjacent to the terminals was de-commissioned at the end of February. The new one is a few kilometers east, incorporating a two-stop Skytrain ride to the airport. I arrived in plenty of time, and since I'd printed my boarding pass at home and didn't have any bags to check, I went straight to the security line. And guess what? There was no line! That has simply never happened to me before. I should have known it was too good to be true because, as is usual, my suitcase got flagged for extra screening because I carry my tool vest with me to sites and it contains small tools. I've learned the hard way over the years (i.e., confiscated tools) what sizes and types of tools are acceptable. I was confidant that all would be approved with a short inspection. However, the agent opened a pocket I hadn't checked last night (I almost never use that pocket because I have to remove the vest to access it; it's on the back panel). He retrieved a small pry bar that I've been searching for at home for weeks now. It was another of those moments when I wondered which of the cloned Me's had put it there. It took me all morning today to remember that it was suggested by my manager that I bring a pry bar to a job site recently to check some particular condition, and apparently I completely forgot about it thereafter.

So that's three. Things happen in threes, right?

That brings me to the present. I'm scheduled to fly back to Vancouver tonight at 9:20. As I sit here this afternoon in the Prince George library I've decided to double-check the flight time. My internet search reveals two return flights: 5:30 and 9:20 pm. I could swear that when I booked this trip last week only 9:20 p.m. was posted as an option.

OK, that's four. Things happen in fours, right?