It has been a pretty insane couple three weeks capped by needed to be at the airport (SFO) this morning. It was obviously dark out when my multiple alarms went off. I wasn’t taking any chances given the time frame and BARTs nasty tendency to toss in repairs and delays when they most effective on disrupting the most desperate passengers. Back to the critical point –
With my usual brilliance and nonchalance I had written down the time of my flight as 1038. This means on a Saturday morning catching the earliest BART from the local station figuring 60-90 minutes for BART depending on timing, whims, train changes and the gods of iron & steel. Not to mention enough drivers reporting for work. That first BART is also effectively an hour prior to any ability to take a bus to the Berkeley BART station.
Did I mention that Alex and I arrived home from the A’s Game (yes, they managed to lose this one as well) & fireworks close to 2300? He did a nice of job of driving us home (it is not like you have any particular need for car &/or driving in Chicago.). The plan was for him to drive with me to the BART this morning and then take the car home. Poor guy is also the only logical choice since he has a real, valid driver’s license. I still had some packing to do resulting in crashing about 0030.
Panic in the morning when I realized that the dent in my suitcase was now a hole. Repack everything into George’s. Drop off, BART, self-check in noting that Air Canada now wants $898 for a business class upgrade to Toronto (note – it was $119 on their website a few days ago) or $1089 the whole way through. I’m trying the Premium Economy since there wasn’t a way to book this as a round trip. The extra several thousand will more than pay for my photography trip to Lapland this winter.
Back to check-in. It was at the point where I was loading my boarding passes into Apple Wallet that the boarding time for AC 738 sunk through. 1055. Huh? Ok – double check everything. Yep – flight leaves at 1138 not 1038. Check again. Problem it turns out is my calendar app which is currently entering everything as if it is Mountain Time regardless of what I tell it. So 1138 on Mountain comes out 1038 Pacific Time.
The guilt settles in. I deprived all three of us of at least an hour of sleep. In fact, with the correct flight time which is an hour later – I could have caught the 0630 bus to the Berkeley BART and spared Alex and Dani from getting up at all. I am hoping they forgive me when they read this. In any case, the only thing I can do now is set alarms and drink a lot of coffee so I don’t miss my flight!
(FYI – SFO-Toronto-FRA-Venice….)
Damn calendar app