Just getting better... (not!)

I was trying to remember the brand of rental truck we rented when we emptied the Pearland house (U-Haul? Budget? Penske?), to no avail, and it's not exactly easy to put one's hands on receipts around here, so I just started to call around the area to see what was available.

(As a side note: it turns out you can insert coordinates along the lines of "29° 33.57 N 95° 19.90 W" into Google Earth and have the result make sense.)

So it turns out I can get a truck here in town for 7 days for a one-way long-distance trip. The price is... in line for such items. I figure to pick it up tomorrow, which ought to give me some up-front time loading it.

Except that, when I call and tell Galina about the truck, she tells me we really need to stay for Huntür's birthday party Sunday, so maybe I ought to pick up the truck on Friday?

When to pick up the truck aside, I'm thinking: there goes day two of our two-day margin.

And - pardon me for sounding like a broken record - we haven't even started packing yet.

As I've tried to explain: if we leave Monday, everything has to work flawlessly. There can be no unexpected delays. The same is pretty much true if we leave Sunday afternoon, after Huntür's party, because whatever daylight is left on Sunday probably won't make much of a difference (except perhaps, to force us to stay in a motel for an extra night... ).

More to the point, there will likely be no rest after the trip, as I'll pretty much have to start unloading the truck upon arrival in Webster, given my departure date.

The idea of extending the deadline of my translation has been broached with my client. I really need to start working on the move now, before it turns into a true Unitarian fire drill.

Cheers...

Worse than the worst...

My best client called around 6 hours ago, and as I picked up the phone and spied the Caller ID, I had my suspicions. Sure enough, I was being offered a nice, juicy radiogram for tomorrow, one very similar to radiograms I'd translated previously. Could I fit it in for tomorrow?

Sure, I said, thinking: "Radiograms 'R' Us."

I gotta stop doing that (accepting work when under pressure, not thinking crazy thoughts).

As it is, I just finished the thing, which weighs in at just short of 5000 words. I'll leave the review, etc. to tomorrow.

If today I can get another 1800 words down of the large assignment, I'll at least be back on track with 3500 words left for tomorrow, and a fighting chance to be able to have some significant amount of stuff packed for a departure this weekend.

(An alternative occurs to me: spread the remainder out over several days, for which I shall have to sleep on the pros and cons.)

I really don't want to extend the deadline on this item. The sooner I invoice it, the sooner I'll be paid (and the sooner it'll be out of my hair).

Cheers...