31-March-2007 : Planning For Things To Go Wrong, A Humourous Look At The Past Day
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31-March-2007 : Planning For Things To Go Wrong, A Humourous Look At The Past Day
Well I arrived in my hotel on the out skirts of San Francisco International Airports (SFO) around 11:PM PST (2:AM EST for my body clock) last night, I did the usual things. I plugged in my chargers, checked my next day’s itinerary, and in my final planning I padded in extra time in the morning. This time padding was really for traffic delays, because there was no way to plan for the double delay I faced this morning on my way to photograph a wedding.
I was supposed to be in Walnut Creek, Calif, at 10:AM so I left my hotel room a little after 8:AM to head back to SFO and the rental car center to pick up my rental car. The shuttle for my hotel is scheduled to run about every 15 minutes so I went to the lobby and inquired when the next shuttle was and was met with this answer “Sometime after 2:00 in the afternoon.” I stood stumped and repeated my question and got the exact same answer. It turns out the hotel’s shuttle bus was involved in an accident that morning and would be out of service until sometime after 2:PM!!
OK, this is irritating, but not a problem, I called a cab and a few minutes later, and $20 lighter, I was at SFO’s rental car facility. As I entered the complex I was promptly met by a Police Officer who asked me if I heard the fire alarms and he pushed me out. In all honestly I didn’t hear the alarms and airports always have false alarms. I was a tad taken back when two engines and a ladder all showed up (standard response to this building) but with the crews dressed in full turnout gear , air masks on, carrying portable fire extinguishers. It turned out that a rental car was on fire in the rental car center. This further delayed me an additional 20 minutes
Had I not padded my time, as I always do, I would have been very late for my bride’s prep photos. Instead I was only 10 minutes late (due to the traffic I had padded my time for) and when I arrived I found my bride on the steps reading the paper, seems as if no one was awake but her in the house, so I had time to kill upon arrival.
While I was terribly stressed this morning, looking back at my time allowance planning while on the road , I am now finding this whole situation funny. Seriously what are the odds of your hotel shuttle bus being in an accident and there being a car fire in the car rental facility in the span of 30 minutes when you are in a hurry?
Below are two photos shot from the balcony of my hotel this morning…..who needs an alarm clock when you are facing Tandem Arrivals from commercial airplanes?
…………………….what’s with the landscape shot of San Francisco after midnight? (shot shortly after midnight on April 1), well I flew into SFO and I knew I was flying home out of Oakland (OAK), however I forgot this while leaving the wedding and was headed back to SFO! Once I remembered where I was heading (unfortunately after I paid the toll) I drove around a bit looking for a nice photo and I came up with this shot of the San Francisco skyline.
-Click On The Photos Below To Enlarge The Images-
