donforrester1947 posted: " Despite my daughter's encouragement to make changes in my travel practices – Strike that. Let me start again. Despite my daughter's insistence that I make changes, I'm finding that it is easier said than done. She has volunteered to make flight" Carpe Diem
Despite my daughter's encouragement to make changes in my travel practices – Strike that. Let me start again. Despite my daughter's insistence that I make changes, I'm finding that it is easier said than done. She has volunteered to make flight reservations for me.
Actually, she's insisting that I allow her to make plane reservations for me. She operates on the notion that time is money. Did I mention that she has never worked for a nonprofit corporation? I generally select the lowest fare I can find that potentially puts me where I need to be in a timely fashion.
Sometime ago, I flew from San Antonio to Orlando, on to Cincinnati and on to Reagan National in Washington without ever getting off the plane. Eight plus hours later, I felt rode hard and put up wet. Long story short, it was not a good feeling! I promised myself that I would never do that again.
I set my alarm for 3:00 this morning and was wide awake at 2:00. Did I mention the General doesn't think I get enough sleep? At 2:20, I was still awake and fearful that if I didn't get up, I would oversleep. Why take the risk of oversleeping?
In the space of the twenty minutes that I was awake before getting out of bed, it occurred to me that I probably needed to shine my shoes. Why not? I had plenty of time. I've lived long enough to know that a clean car drives better than a dirty one. I also feel better about my appearance if my shoes are shined. It was something I learned in childhood.
Speaking of clean cars, the Miata has been in the vault since I had it detailed a couple of weeks ago. Crazy as it may sound, I almost took the truck this morning because I didn't want to get the Miata dirty. The ease of parking the Miata in garage parking at the airport won out over my desire to keep the Miata in showroom condition.
Speaking of cars, I received a letter emailed to me at the end of the week from the car rental agency I used this past April. Two weeks or so ago, I received a request for payment for more than $4,000 for damage to a car they credited to me. I never even opened the door of the car they assert that I damaged. I discovered the damage in the parking lot when I walked around the car to look for door dings. I requested another car.
Fortunately, I found the receipt emailed to me when I turned in the vehicle that I had driven. It showed the mileage driven and the license plate number for the vehicle. It did not provide the make and model number.
At the beginning of last week, I received a call from someone with the car rental agency investigating the issue. The fellow wasn't interested in talking about the paperwork I submitted for the car I turned in. He wanted to talk about the damaged vehicle. He said he needed to do more investigation with folks working in the location where I rented the car.
I didn't have a good feel that this was going to get resolved without attorneys. That, too, made me a little crazy. I didn't need the headache or the expense.
The emailed letter I discovered over the weekend officially closed the claim. The car rental agency thanked me for being a loyal customer and because I disputed the claim, they were choosing to absorb the cost of repair. The claim was now officially closed.
What? I'm reluctant to believe their absorbing the cost of the repair was tied to my being a loyal customer. It was tied directly to my substantiating through the receipt that they had made a mistake. Perhaps it was too much to expect, but an acknowledgement it was their mistake would have been nice.
I left the house at 3:30 this morning and drove halfway to the San Antonio with the top down on the Miata. It was cool, but okay. The later in the morning it became, the cooler the weather. At 43 degrees, it seemed appropriate to do it differently. I drove the rest of the way with the top up.
I'm currently on a plane headed to Washington. It raised my anxiety a little when I went to my departing gate to board the plane at 5:15 this morning and discovered the flight is headed to Orlando. From there, I change planes and fly to D.C. I arrive at 1:00 p.m. My daughter isn't going to be happy with me.
This picture of William from 2007 surfaced on my phone this morning. It made me feel good.
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