Inland Empire
Started: 2006-08-17 20:17:40
Submitted: 2006-08-17 21:07:36
Visibility: World-readable
Next week I get another free trip to Los Angeles. And I even get to visit the Inland Empire.
After returning from Oklahoma! early Tuesday morning, two things happened in southern California requesting my attention: my favorite customer called to request my presence on-site in the middle of next week, and my grandfather died in Loma Linda*. (My mother's father has been in various care facilities in Loma Linda for several years; Kiesa and I visited him (and spent most of the time talking to my aunt) last summer when we were in Riverside for Tristan's wedding.) I managed to combine the trips, which means the customer pays for my plane ticket. (I double-checked with my project manager to make sure I wasn't going to cause any problems.) I fly into ONT on Sunday morning, stick around with my family until Monday evening, rent a (customer-funded) car, drive out of the smog to LAX, and show up at the customer's site on Tuesday morning. I'll be there until Wednesday evening, when I fly back out of LAX. (I think this is the first trip I've been on when I flew in and out of different airports. Flying into Ontario gets me closer to where I want to be on Sunday and Monday, but it also means I don't get to fly on United flight 247, which uses an airplane I've never flown on before: A 767-300.)
[* Loma Linda: n. The promised land; the land flowing with milk, honey, and smog. ]
On Thursday, I meet the people renting my parents' house in Longmont. Wait, you ask. My parents have a house in Longmont? And they're renting it out? And I'm meeting them? My mother doesn't want to abandon the greater Boulder housing market (which may or may not make sense, but maybe I'm just paranoid about bubbles), and it's been entirely too long since they had multiple houses. Since I'm on the ground in the greater Longmont area, I'm going to give a shot at managing the rental property. Last week I went to the walk-through with the seller and scribbled down plenty of useful notes on how everything is supposed to work.
So it's fair to say that my summer isn't getting any less complicated. Just when I thought I was going to have time to go out and hike an exciting mountain or two or three.
