Always check your tickets

So I'm in a Field Biology class this semester...which isn't technically "required" for my major, but the thing is, this semester, the "field trip" they take happens to be to Hawai'i. Oh, yeah.

Actually, Jerry's been trying to get me to go to Hawaii for about 12 years now, to which my standard reply was "HECK NO!" For starters, I get motion sickness if I turn my head and shut my eyes at the same time. YES, I get motion sickness when I'm driving. So to get to Hawaii, you generally go by plane. Not a good thing, although with the motion sickness patch, I can actually pass for human, and not some slime-spewing green alien from planet Brippywa. Once you're in Hawaii, you can do many activities, scads of which require you to be on a boat or in the ocean. Boats=worse than planes, and due to a tangle with a kid-eating patch of seaweed at Samish Island Reunion when I was 7 or 8 or 9, and I came about 30 seconds from dying, the ocean is a no-go, as well.

But hey, it's for credit, and my financial aid pays for it! So I'm there! It's actually a combined Geology/Biology class, so we'll be doing other fun things like playing with lava and hiking up Volcanoes. I am actually planning on TRYING to snorkel with the rest of the class, but since I can't even make myself wade in at 1000 springs, I'm not really sure I'll be able to. I find I can be in the water much more easily if I have something covering my feet, so I'll take some neoprene booties and hope for the best. We'll also be doing other fun things like torturing our professor with the cricket phobia. Yes. Cricket phobia.

At any rate! On to checking your tickets, which is the whole point of this entry!

At first, the class fee was going to be 1000, which covered *everything* - airfare, lodging, and a couple meals a day. Of course, when airfare started to rise, that got nixed in a hurry, so then the class fee was $250, and we just have to get our little behinds to Hilo by 5pm on May 12. Suckers! I got my tickets for $748. IN YOUR FACE! I'm in under $1000! HAH!

Ack, I'm getting distracted again. On to the Tickets thing. My original itinerary follows:

May 12:
Delta 3733 TWF to SLC 6:40-7:40am
Delta 3837 SLC to OAK 8:20-9:16am
ATA 4625 OAK to HNL 11:00am-1:25pm
Aloha Airlines 238 HNL to ITO 2:50-3:41pm

Note the ample layover times. Nice and long, for ease of finding the next gate, but not terrible.

Then, in class last Monday, everyone was talking about how the airlines had changed various flight times, and had even CANCELLED some of their flights. There was no notice given; someone had simply thought to check their flight, and warned everyone else.

So, I check my itinerary. It had changed to this:

May 12:
Delta 3733 TWF to SLC 6:40-7:40am
Delta 3987 SLC to OAK 8:46-9:40am
ATA 4625 OAK to HNL 9:45am-12:10pm
Aloha Airlines 238 HNL to ITO 2:15-3:06pm

Oops. I don't think I can make it with a 5 minute layover in Oakland.

So I called cheaptickets.com. 1 hour later, I finally get someone WITHOUT an indecipherable accent, and she gets on the phone with Delta, only to find that there are no other flights available on the 12th. Uh oh. Another hour passes before we have the whole thing straightened out. I had to plug in my phone!

Now, I had been kicking myself that I didn't book a day or two before or after I was required to be there, so I could go see Pearl Harbor. Once I thought of it, my tickets were already purchased, and it would have cost me $250 to change them. You see where I'm going with this?

Yes, now I'm flying in on the 11th, staying overnight in Honolulu, seeing Pearl Harbor and Waikiki Beach, then catching my original flight from Honolulu to Hilo on the 12th. AND, since they were the ones that changed my flight, it was FREE!

Of course, now I have to get a hotel, and that's not cheap in Honolulu!

When Nolan's not sleepy.

In our new house, we've converted the basement to a media room. We spend a lot of time down there once we put Nolan to bed. Gotta watch the shows! Survivor, the Unit, Jericho...you know, that really important stuff.

Apparently, he wasn't tired to night, because I had to put him back in bed several times. First, he wanted "Mo Mo Mo Mo" (More milk in his bottle) Then he wanted "Toon-Toons" (Cartoons) After that he just wanted to run around.

The last time was the kicker. We heard him get out of bed, and the pitter patter of little feet. Then more pitter patter, which stopped at the top of the stairs. It was Jerry's turn to put him back in bed, so he got up and went over to the stairs. Jerry stopped at the bottom of the stairs and started laughing. He told me to come over, and I looked up the stairs to find a COMPLETELY NAKED BABY! He had this big cheshire cat grin on his face like he did something so wonderful.

Apparently that satisfied him, beacause he went right to bed after we got him a new diaper and jammies back on.

Yup, Them're Alligators

Alligators, in Idaho. Go figure.

Don't worry, they live in a hot spring surrounded by chain link, and can't live if they aren't in that warm environment. (Whew!)

More Geocaching!

This is a picture of the cache called "Steelhead View". It's a puzzle cache, so you have to figure out the clues before you can actually get the correct coordinates to the hiding spot. It's named Steelhead view because it is across the river from the Niagara Springs Steelhead Hatchery.

Here's Jerry at our second try for "Niharts Fountain of Youth." Our GPS's were telling us where it was, but we didn't believe them. Silly us. We finally found it just where it was supposed to be. Where it's supposed to be is NOT where Jerry's looking in this picture!

What's the Poopy Tractor Doing in the Sink?

That's the question for the day. Yes, there's a poopy tractor in my kitchen sink.

Nolan generally plays pretty well by himself. The only time you have to really worry is when it gets quiet. Today I realized it had gotten quiet when Nolan was playing in his room. Normally, his room is pretty noisy, because he has a hardwood floor and lots of plastic toy tools.

I ventured into his room to see a totally naked toddler with his diaper on the floor very carefully open and balanced. He was just as very carefully picking poop pellets out of his diaper and packing them into the bucket of his front-end-loader toy tractor. I managed to get there AFTER the bucket was full, and he'd started on the radiator.

Everyone should have to try to remove poop from the nooks and crannies of a plastic tractor radiator while your little boy screams BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN! Thank goodness for "Choc-choc" to distract him...Said tractor is waiting patiently for the dishwasher's sanitize cycle.