Italy, April 2004
Preparations, Washington DC
By late February most of the details of my trip had been laid out and confirmed.
The critical decisions of travel dates, hotels, and the like were all made.
This process had begun a few months earlier with my hearing hints that I might be chosen to attend the GEBCO conference.
I spent a lot of time learning what I could about GEBCO from slides of previous conference presentations
and from reading The History of GEBCO, 1903–2003.
Just in case you are still wondering… no, GEBCO is not an auto insurer, it's the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans.
GEBCO has an interesting history.
Birthed out of the “labyrinthine machinery of international co-operation” (as one person put it),
it owes much to the generosity of and interest from His Serene Highness Prince Albert I of Monaco.
I found the labyrinthine machinery to be strong and well, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Plans are only plans.
Circumstances arise to challenge even the best laid ones.
Four days before I was to depart hints of a problem began to appear.
My apartment complex stuck a notice under my door concerning some work on the ceilings of all the units.
Being busy with other things and thinking this was something I could easily manage or have postponned,
I put off thinking about this for a couple of days.
Two days before I was to depart everything fell to pieces.
The day began well.
As I lay comfortably in bed, the radio was proclaiming it to be a warm sunny day
and I was looking forward to a nice bicycle commute to work.
On my way to the kitchen I paused to add a little air to the rear tire of my bike.
Having attached the valve, I pushed down the the handle only to hear the air exiting from the bottom of the pump without making it to my tire.
After quickly removing the pump, fearing that I would lose the pressure I already had, I decided the tire was still adequately inflated.
It was only a small bump in what I still anticipated being a great day on two wheels.
Then I stepped into the kitchen.
Sometime during the night the sink had backed up and overflowed onto the floor.
This has happened before and been temporarily fixed before.
Usually the water I put in my sink drains away without any problem.
The problem comes when too many people upstairs send their water down all at once.
So I fear that sometimes when I complain about my sink
a person comes to check it out, runs water out of my faucet, watches the water drain away, shakes his head and goes away.
Past experience has given me reason to believe this happens.
I decided to stay home to make sure the seriousness of the issue was effectively communicated
before I left town.
While home I decided to inquire about the ceiling work.
It turned out that I could not simply have the work in my apartment delayed,
but I needed to prepare my place for this work before I left town.
So I had to find time to clear my floors of anything which might be an obstruction to this work and
make sure items could be moved if necessary.
Unfortunately I was running at an all time high for messiness and there was much to do.
Sometime during the day my cable modem internet connection stopped working.
Because there were still three days left to the sumo tournament
and my fantasy sumo predictions were going to demand some significant time on-line,
I decided to get this problem fixed as soon as possible rather than wait until I returned from my trip.
A call to the cable company gave me only one option for getting it fixed before my trip
and that was sometime between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. the next day.
I had to take another day off work.
So because (1) I needed some paperwork from the office before I left town and
(2) could use the internet connection at work to research that night's sumo predictions,
I went to spend a few evening hours at work.
Unfortunately there was another more serious problem awaiting me there.
Just that day, more than a month after the trip was authorized,
it was determined that actually the trip was not properly authorized.
I could not get my airline tickets until this problem was sorted out.
After sending some emails and gathering a small collection of phone numbers,
I returned home to clean up some more of my apartment's clutter and prepare
for what I hoped would be my last full day before flying to Italy.
The next day the sink guy returned to do a more thorough job,
the cable guy came to resolve my problem,
phone calls and some internet time got me my airline tickets,
and I got better prepared to leave my apartment in a ceiling-workable state.
So the day after that I made it to the airport feeling happy to have all my problems resolved,
but… I should have considered it as preparation for what was to come.
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