Rolling In San D
It was to be a wonder to behold. We were going to meet up with our friends in San Diego. We had two rooms booked at a hotel, the plan was for us to get there first, maybe spend the day Friday at the Wild Animal Park, and then meet them either at the hotel or at the airport. Then, maybe the San Diego Zoo on Saturday, Seaport Village on Sunday, and we'd drive home Monday, mid-day, to make it home early, get some stuff done, and relax a little before my job jumped me again on Tuesday.
That was the plan.
Unfortunately, it's not how it worked out.
On Thursday night, my job interrupted my life until about 10 PM. And I still had to pack. The sad part? The team leads asked me to reopen a closed stream, to allow for some fixes, and then put the build up for testing. That was at 3 PM. I was set to leave at 4. I was more than a little annoyed, and decided not to hide it this time. I said, "Seriously? You want to start this now? We're all going to be up until midnight, again. The people you're asking me to add to the list of allowed people are known hazards to our stable code. I'm leaving for San Diego tomorrow morning, and I'll need some sleep beforehand, so, you know, this is quite possibly the most idiotic idea I've heard in a month. What do you all not understand about the concept of code freeze? Do it tomorrow, when everyone is fresh, and I'm safely away from here."
Nope, they insisted, and rather than just walking out like I should have, I helped, with horribly bad grace. I was annoyed, and I made sure everyone who had to call me, talk to me, whatever, knew it. At one point, I was IM'ing with one of said hazards, and he asked me for my phone number to call me. Would it have been easy to tell him over the IM? Sure. But I wasn't feeling helpful to people who just don't want to put in the effort, so I told him that my offsite contact number is on our contact list. And on Accenture's directory. And on the bottom of every e-mail I have ever sent to anyone on this project since the first day I arrived, so go. And. Find. It.
He did, he called, we chatted about how his code broke my build. Again. And how long it was going to take to fix it. Again.
At 10 PM, we sort of declared that we were done. All I had to say was, "Really? And it's not even midnight. For once." >>click<<
So, I packed, and we pushed back the plan to leave by a couple of hours. This meant that we were leaving town at the height of rush hour, instead of before, like I had originally wanted. This had dire consequences.
As we were passing under the last bridge before our exit, I noticed a van changing a tire off to the side of the road. I generally don't pay such things much attention, because they're not in front of me, and they're not moving. The driver ahead of me clearly didn't think as I do and had to come to a rapid stop. So, I stopped as well. Didn't hit the car in front of me . . . but the driver behind was much like the driver in front, and did hit me. I don't think I've ever been more pissed. I'm leaving on a vacation. I'm somewhat lacking sleep. I'm just coming off some major stress at work. I have my kids and my pregnant wife in the car. And yet again, some moron who isn't watching where the fuck they're going has hit our Magnum. This is 5 times now, and the third time when we're supposed to be on our way to California. Well, we called the police, and I sat my ass in the car fuming and imagning burying a tire iron in this (it turned out) woman's head. The police arrives, he takes the info, and he moves us off the freeway. Just in time as well. As the three of us were preparing to move, an SUV comes to a screeching, tire-smoking stop to avoid the stopped traffic in front of him (or her) because, like the two drivers I was sandwiched between, what was happening on the side of the road was apparently more important than what was happening in front of him. Morons!
We get checked out by emergency services, but, since the wife is pregnant, it's only prudent to go to the hospital to have the baby checked out. In order to do that, though, it's a three hour test to make sure no blood has mixed in, the placenta is intact, and so on. Even more pissed, me. Got the kids some lunch there at the hospital, which is not an experience I'd like to repeat (no kid control, no real easy layout, lots of "stations" to go to . . .). Left Ladybug with the leftovers, which was all I could manage, and I'm sorry that's all I could manage. Finally get released around Noon.
We make our way out of town, but the traffic is not exactly fun. By Noon on Friday, people leaving town for the weekend are, well, starting to leave town, whereas in the morning, even during rush hour, the roads are more clear. We're just getting past the traffic, and Lotus announces she has to go potty. I not proud to say that I was still upset about that, and pulled off with bad grace.
Let's just say that, as a whole, Friday was not my best day as a parent, a husband, or, really, a human.
Later, after I've settled, the kids have napped in the car, and I've been able to listen to 2 hours of easy going Donald Fagen, I manage to calm down to the point where I am sort of an average parent and husband. At this point, we're still in Arizona, and Lotus says, "Mommy, there's a lizard in the car."
"What?"
"A lizard, in the car, on Tesla's chair."
Ladybug checks it out in the rear view. "No, sweetie that's just a leaf, see it's . . . oh, it's moving, it is a lizard!"
So, we have a hitchhiker. I tried to catch and release it in Yuma, but no dice, it escaped my grip (thankfully with tail intact), and hid. We told Lotus not to mention any lizards at the California border check. She keeps mum, but with a huge grin on her face. As we get closer to San Diego, the lizard makes another appearance, again on Tesla's chair. She's asleep, thankfully, so she doesn't notice. I don't know whether she'd be afraid of it, or try to eat it, but I don't really want to find out.
As we pull up to the hotel, we make a discovery. It's the same one that Marriott sent us to after they screwed up our reservation back in 2006 when we went to Ladybug's cousin's wedding. How serendipitous. What's more, as we're pulling in, our friends arrive right behind us. Their flight was delayed, so, again, serendipity smiles upon us. I manage to catch the lizard, and it scurries into the undergrowth, probably to die, as the temperature was so much cooler. I'm sad about that, but at least it had more of a chance than starving to death, hermetically sealed in the car. We get checked in, and unpacked, and I rearrange our room for better access for the kids to play. I set up our little portable DVD player, after much trial and error with every connector cord I can find, and manage to put Winnie the Pooh on the bigger screen for Lotus and Portia to enjoy. Our friends note that the rooms are really big. Ladybug and I share a Look, because, frankly, the rooms, even though they are one bedroom suites, are cramped compared to what we get at our Hilton timeshare. Clearly, we're spoiled beyond salvation.
We order in from Papa John's that first night, because we're too out of it to manage the four kids at a restaurant. Otto and I go out to get some groceries at the local Von's, and we call it a night.
Next day, we get up, get our breakfast and go to the San Diego Zoo. I miss a turn and the GPS routes us around a bit before getting us to the Zoo. This will be important later. We take all the rides we can, and look at lots of various animals, and generally have a good time as a large family group. Lots of fun, as the San Diego Zoo is known to be. Tesla gets a panda toy, Lotus chooses a unicorn which we later discovers plays most of Somewhere Over The Rainbow in a register clearly meant to annoy any adult in a 4 mile radius. Unfortunately, we didn't discover that it made noise until it was too late. We make our way home in the afternoon, and decide to order in from Pick Up Stix and eat downstairs in the lounge. Pretty neat, really.
Sunday, we get ourselves up and out to Seaport Village, as planned. We take the Seal tour, always a blast. Lotus and Portia spend the time hiding under a blanket, playing hide and seek, so they miss some stuff, but they have a good time anyway. Tesla becomes very Mommy-attached and refuses to sit on Daddy. A little lunch, a little shopping, and back we go again to the hotel. We watch Chicken Run on the little DVD, and then I decide to take the kids swimming. Yes, in March. The pool is sort of heated, but the hot tub is preferred. Lotus and Tesla enjoy the warm little pool and then we go back up to get dinner together. We get some stuff in from Von's and have a little smörgåsbord in the room. We decide, since we were cheated out of our Friday, and the house is clean due to Ladybug's insomnia Thursday night, to stay Monday for a while and go to Legoland.
As we were driving up to Legoland, real life intruded. Work called. Someone forgot I was out. Again, I did little to hide my annoyance. Damn them. I have no plans for forgiveness. I've given over a lot of my life to this project lately. I get two days (really, four, considering the number of times I've been called on the weekend) off without calls, please, thank you.
We had written off Legoland the last time we were there, because it seemed a little too boring for the adults and not all that interesting to Lotus, who was almost three at the time. At the age of almost 5, though, she loved it. She drove the little cars all by herself, and enjoyed walking around looking at things. Telsa was annoyed, however, that at the age of almost 2, there was nothing she could do by herself like Big Sister did. In the end, it's not a total waste of time, like we had thought the first time. Well, as Ladybug had thought. I've got a serious Lego fetish, so I enjoyed it both times.
We drove home after that. It turns out, according to the GPS, that it was shorter to drive up to I-10, rather than back down to I-8, to get back to Phoenix. Otto was skeptical, though, because he said that it wasn't all that great at getting us to the Zoo. At that point, I was forced to admit that the roundabout route was caused by my incompetence, rather than the GPS's mistake.
As we were driving home, Telsa named her panda. She's never really given anything of her's a name before. Dolls are all called, "baby," dogs are all, "woofs" and so on. She christened her panda Hammo. I figured it's one of the lost Marx Brothers. She calls it Hammo when she drops it, and when we call it Hammo, she holds it up and roars at us. I really need to get it on video. It's too cute.
We got back late, and got the kids to bed. I was able to enjoy an evening watching TV with the wife in relative peace, no work calls, no kids, nothing to do around the house, really. It was, all in all, a fun weekend, and quite an adventure.
Maybe someday I'll be able to drive to California without someone trying to wreck my car and kill my family.
