"jetblue hasn't said that all you can jet is not going to happen and they've already given a couple of honorary passes away, so i'm expecting all you can jet. soon."
"how will you find out about it?"
"well, last year cap'n happy was the guy who told me about it in the first place and i had a bunch of friends following the trip along on my 'blog, so i'll bet you everything i own that when all you can jet starts, i won't find out about it by myself first ... i'll be told."
two days later, on august 17, whammo.
i wake up at 09:30 and my accomplice has already sent the big news to my cell phone three hours earlier ... AYCJ is back on. i get the newspaper, eat some cereal and my accomplice has sends me a second TXT message: "we need to talk about AYCJ."
okay, fine.
i review some of my finances, call a business partner of mine, mull a few ideas we've been talking about and as soon as i hang up, i have an incoming call. it's my accomplice. "ALL YOU CAN JET! ALL YOU CAN JET! ALL YOU CAN JET! WE NEED TO BUY IT NOW OR IT WILL SELL OUT,"
jesus. just settle down already. "the pass hasn't even been for sale half a day yet. it's not going to sell out in a day."
"but what if ..."
"but what if the vikings suddenly emerge from their graves and start killing everyone?"
i wasn't 100% sure i was going to go again, but even if nothing else makes sense, my accomplice is wound so tight there's no way i can say "no."
things are mildly different this year.
there are two flavors of passes; one for $700 that is all you can jet (the "working stiffs pass"), the other for $500 that is all you can jet WITHOUT flying on friday or sunday (the "cheapie pass"). it's an interesting play because at $700, the pass is actually $100 more expensive than last year, but at $500 it's $100 less.
the pass is also one day shorter, running from 9/7 to 10/6 this year when it was 9/8 to 10/8 last.
what's interesting is the mainstream press -- which is getting less informative almost by the day -- has failed to mention both these details. in fact the one article that i have seen mentioning the increase has said that at $100 more the pass is actually a better deal than last year because the price of travel has risen more than enough to offset it.
intentionally, or unintentionally, the pricing they're doing this year is a stroke of marketing genius.
working around fridays and sundays isn't that big of a deal -- in fact i like the idea of restriction having to work around -- it makes me feel "tricky." the side-effect, though, is it may well make travel on saturdays much weirder than usual ... saturday is traditionally the s-l-o-w airport day, but if you're bookended by not being able to fly on fridays and sundays -- along with the working stiffs who slack and fly on saturday -- the situation may be different.
14:00 rolls around and the instigator sends me an email ... he assumes that i already know, but wants to be sure i'm aware that the AYCJ pass is on sale.
14:30 i buy a pass for myself and my accomplice (the accomplice's credit card is at some kind of ceiling).
15:00 cap'n happy writes me to make sure i know the pass is on sale.
which means all my intelligent agents are all doing their job.
as expected, passes sell out a few days before end of sale. the slow, dim and uncertain all miss out and, as expected, whine. of course this year the naysayers and bad-newsers are disappointed because, in fact, AYCJ was a huge success last year.
even though we can start booking flights on 8/23, we wait for four days before we grind through it. the booking process is different -- all online versus the super-great agent that we used last year ... but that's not the delay ... the delay is due to having to be in the right state of mind ... you have to think "travel, serious and fun" all at the same time, and it takes mental stamina.
when we finally sit down it takes two and a half hours to figure out what we want.
we have a few pivotal spots. my brother and i are going to fly fish in WY over the weekend of 9/12. there's a film festival in austin from 9/21-28. we'll try to return to bogota, and see if my accomplice can actually manage to walk down the stairs without falling this time. and we want to end in new england for fall color -- something i've never done, and we skipped last year.
we churn and churn. there's some strangeness in travel because the long night hops can only be done from west to east. a resulting side-effect is that you can sometimes travel one-way (say LAS -> CUN) but not in reverse (CUN -> LAS). then too we have the self-imposed artificial restriction of the cheapie ticket in that we can't travel on fridays.
we come up with the list and it's good:
LAS -> BUF (drive around lake ontario)
BUF -> DEN (fly fish WY)
DEN -> IAD (pals -- layover for the CUN jump)
IAD -> BOG (bogota -- hopefully without the blood this time)
BOG -> MSY (i'm going to memphis, dammit. i don't care if JB doesn't fly there)
MSY -> JFK (special 24 hours enterprises event with special K)
JFK -> AUS (film festival [and bats!])
AUS -> PWM (fall color)
PWM -> CUN (mexican pyramids)
but wait ... we can't fly CUN -> LAS directly; so we tack on a final night in BOS specifically for steamed cheeseburgers and candle pin bowling ... and hey, since our first flight is a red-eye anyway, we can tack LGB (roscoe's chicken and waffles) and the bay area (our old pals) to the start with no disadvantage.
so add
LAS -> SFO; SJC -> BUF
CUN -> BOS
packing is easy. so easy, in fact, that i don't actually pack until 02:00 on the day we're leaving ... it takes 15 minutes.
my packing list is nearly identical to last year, which is to say nearly identical to any trip i have of five days or more: three long sleeve shirts, one sweatshirt, one (reversible) t-shirt, two pair of pants, five pair of underwear, five pair of socks, a track suit, wide-brimmed hat, pair of binoculars, whiplock, bandana. i'm also bringing the travel towel from the guy i met last year.
i also shaved off my beard
i have a small change in that i'm exercising more now, so i pack travel shorts that can also be used as a swimsuit. i'd like to take my running shoes, but they're a little too nice for day-to-day wear, so i'm taking my glow-in-the-darks from last year, along with my kangaroo leather hiking shoes.
my eagle creek travel bag had developed a tear along the outer seam (should've taken a picture of it, but didn't), so a fortnight before the start of AYCJ i sent it back to them with exacting details of what i needed and when. two business days before our departure it was returned, complete and correct -- a relief to see it on time and a bit of a surprise that they didn't replace it (i'm glad they didn't, i really like that bag).
one weirdness is having to leave a house for a month ... since moving, i'm now a home owner (which, by the way, is a complete crock ... americans [and me] have been duped into thinking this is important) ... and it's one thing to leave your world behind when an apartment full of people are (unintentionally) watching over it, it's quite another when you're leaving everything in an american city with the largest unemployment statistics.
morning calls soon. i'm ready, but my mood is a bit off ... and i'm not sure why.
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