Yesterday's whirlwind...

Sleeping in yesterday did no good, as my "internal" clock got me up at pretty much the same time at which I'd been rising during the week. I don't really recall what I did between then and 10:30 am... I seem to recall something about coffee, and showing Lee how to open the gas cap door, seeing as how the "nominal" method doesn't work (one of two defects found thus far in the car).

At 10:30, I decided to look at my flight schedule, confident I still had a couple of hours to kill before falling into formation in front of the America West ticket counter at IAH. I was wrong. My flight was at 2 pm. If we backtrack one-and-a-half hours to allow for the Benihana-style security formalities, and tack on the hour that it takes, normally, to go from Pearland, to the rental car office, to the terminal, I had exactly one hour to get all my stuff together, pack it, take a shower, say my goodbyes, and leave.

I left the house about 15 minutes late, but as it turned out, traffic was light and I made it to the airport in about 50 minutes.

I know this is going to be hard to believe, but that program that "randomnly" picks people to be searched at the gate picked me again, and also sent my checked luggage to the x-ray. Thus far, over the course of four flights, I've been selected for gate searches three times, and had my baggage selected to be hand-searched once and x-rayed once. How lucky can a guy get?

I finally got back to Durango at the appointed time of 8:30 pm, or thereabouts. Galina was waiting for me and we went directly home. Once there, we talked for a while, had a glass of wine each, and went to bed.

* * *By most accounts, today is supposed to be the busiest mailing day of the year.

We are ready. :^)

Cheers...

About that 'We are ready' crack...

People started lining up outside our door early, and from the time the store opened until closing, I don't think the line for service ever dried up. On the whole, the day can only be described in two words: In. Credible.

It got so weird, I was not able to come anywhere close enough to a computer to do a report. (So I did both reports just now, to have the decks clear for tomorrow's onslaught.) Basically, Galina and I covered the front while Drew and Brady operated two computers in parallel, processing UPS packages. Galina swears that this year's traffic is significantly lighter than last year's, but I'm not so sure. We only had one processing station last year, and were not able to keep up with the flow, forcing us to "triage" packages on the basis of distance-to-be-traveled. Today, we were barely able to keep up today with two stations.

Anyway, regardless of today's traffic, I get the feeling that many still feel they have "sufficient" time to get mail off in time for Christmas. (One wrench in the works is the fact that UPS is not delivering on Tuesday, the 24th.) I'm sure we'll be seeing these folks over the next couple of days, and they'll have to make some hard choices.

More later, if I'm conscious.

Cheers...