NEWS:

03.01.04 - Terrence Marks:

When it rains it pours. I've got so much written out now that if anything actually does happen to me in the first week of March. I'll have to wait until mid-April to actually write about it here. It's been the most dynamic and busiest part of my life in a long time; I'm barely keeping up with everything, newswise. I'm surprised that I have this much to write (and time to write it). There's all kinds of South Florida stuff I never wrote down, so I may go retro-news on you-all sometimes. No. Today's comic is not based on a true story. By now...hmm....hope you're enjoying You Say It First, which is conveniently located at http://www.soapylemon.com. This was written before we left and turned out to be entirely inaccurate - TM

03.03.04 - Terrence Marks:

So, you read the pre-recorded ramblings. Here's what really happened. We just got back online a few days ago. If we haven't e-mailed you back yet, well, we're working on it. We've got a week or two of backlog right now. Day 0 We spent most of Friday running around like crazy mice. Isabel was finally done with her computer so I could move it over - she had been borrowing a computer from my dad for the past two years. So I moved her hard drive into my computer and moved a spare hard drive (from a third computer) to my dad's. It took a bit of doing. Spent most of my day trying to install Windows XP on it. We're still getting 0x7B errors when we try to boot from Isabel's copy of Windows, but that has to wait until we have time to fix it from LA. But we were able to pack the computer finally. We had ten bags total, two of which could arguably be classed as "carry-on" and two more of which could even more arguably be considered our "bonus personal bag each". And six bags total of "I can't believe we still have this much stuff". We've mailed at least three dozen large boxes over and thrown out a good amount of our possessions. You don't realize how much you really have until you have to pay a dollar a pound to keep it. We went out to one final farewell dinner with my parents and Chuck and Dorothy (my aunt and uncle). This was the second or third farewell dinner we'd had. We took separate vehicles because they couldn't fit us and our luggage in the same car. We get to the airport and the skycap tells us "You know, America West only allows two pieces of checked luggage per person". And he tells us they charge between $50 and $80 for each piece over. So my dad gives me money to take care of this. The skycap lets us through if we don't tell anybody that it was him who did it. I quietly resolve to be nicer to the people around me from now on. So thank you, anonymous helpful skycap.

03.05.04 - Terrence Marks:

Day 0.5 I could go on about airplane boarding procedures. Or the three loud Israelis behind us who spent two hours arguing. Not arguing to prove they were right or to explain their viewpoint, but all three of them were arguing to prove the other two were wrong. It wasn't fun. But there's been too much else happening to me. We got to our stopover in Las Vegas. The flight was delayed an extra hour so we got to wait. Every other flight by America West that night seemed to be delayed also. I mean, we had to wait an hour but that's still better than the folks going to Chicago or Atlanta had. I was shopping for airlines based on price, not on-time percentages. I figured an extra hour would give us time to look around, shop, and such. That made sense except everything (except Taco Bell) closed within five minutes of us getting off the plane and that we had those four large bags to carry around. So we could only buy things if the other was willing to sit and watch the bags. And Isabel didn't want me out of her sight for any longer than I had to be. Yes, they do have slot machines in the airport. No, they have the lousiest payoff rates in the city. Y'see, every other casino has to compete for your attention and dollars. They want to keep you hanging on as long as they can and soak you for as much money as possible. The airport slots, well, you're going to be there until your plane arrives and nothing they do will change that. So I put in about $2.00 and get back fifty cents. Didn't even get the near wins that most slot machines give, you know, so you think you almost won and it makes you more likely to win next time. I got the "No, we're not even trying to make you think you're a winner. You're a loser. Your plane's a loser. Give me your quarters and maybe I'll let you pretend you like it." machines. There was one machine that kept winning throughout the night, perhaps as a siren singing its song to lure other fools to its waters. It would ding and you'd hear quarters rattling through it for a minute or two. My theory is that inside those things are a variety of chutes, flaps, and echo compartments designed to make the quarters rattle against each other as many times as they can so that when you win five dollars, you get forty dollars worth of clang out of it. I installed an SNES emulator on the laptop. I was playing ActRaiser. Isabel was playing the make-Terrence-look-at-me-every-three-minutes game. I lost. She won. Considering it was 4 AM in our native time zone and we had been awake and moving for the last 19 hours, I'm not holding it against her. We got to Los Angeles at about 3 AM and were greeted by her sister and brother-in-law. They had an Expedition. It fit all our luggage. Barely.