So, almost everything put away that can be put away, one last batch of clothes in the laundry, and the apartment passed muster with the apartment management. Â Boarding passes printed for DCA and DFW, have to pack some things and repack others. Â So, a quick bite while the clothes tumble and then it’s nap time for a couple of hours. Â Ah, who am I kidding, there’s no way I’ll be able to sleep, I’m too hyped up! (which, if you know me, doesn’t appear much different from when I’m calm, but trust me, there’s adrenaline flowing!)
Zen Pencils Mascot
Oh, boy, it’s getting down to the wire, one more (partial) day of work, then I do the final prep work for the trip. Â One last go-around with laundry, packing up the laptop and a hard drive, assorted re-arrangements for the oddments and fripperies that I’ll be taking (cables, batteries, toothbrush, cash, books, etc), and then a short nap. Â The plan is to stay awake from midnight or so until I head to the airport at 4:00 AM. Â Fortunately I’m only about a 10 minute cab ride from Reagan National, and once safely ensconced in my (first class! Â woot!) seat on the plane I can grab an hour or so further nap en route to Dallas.
Had a bit of a scare this past couple of days, with the pain in my poor, poor tooth getting worse and worse. Fortunately I called the dentist this afternoon after struggling with lunch, and he told me to come in right away, from the symptoms he said he needed to carve away more of the tooth. Apparently I’ve been hitting the tooth whenever I chew, especially at night when I grind my teeth, and so the tooth socket wasn’t getting a chance to heal. In fact what I was doing was, in his words, “like running on a sprained ankle.” I have to admit I was skeptical, since I couldn’t feel the contact, but after just a few seconds of examination he figured out how much to whittle down, and while he was at it he touched up a problem with the bite on one of my new crowns.
He also surprisingly said that acetaminophen works better than ibuprofen or the other NSAIDs for post-dental work pain, in fact he said that they can actually slow the healing. Well, you don’t have to tell me more than once (especially when pain is involved) I walked right out and down to the grocery store in the strip mall and bought me some extra strength generic acetaminophen. Now, over 5 hours since he worked on me, and after two of the pain pills, I’m not wincing with every jaw closing, and it might even be getting better (finally!) Thank you, Dr. Dan Babiec!
So, I just have to focus on the last-minute little things like finishing up my apartment clean-up, telling the bank to let me use my ATM card in Japan, find out just how much or how little the insurance with my company will cover (I bought traveller’s insurance, for, well, insurance!) I’ve been packing clothes away, figuring out how much to take. I was a bit taken aback when I found that it was taking more room than the last time I went for a month, and I finally realized that packing 6 days worth of fall/winter clothes takes up a whole lot more room than 5 days of summer clothes! (I said I get it, I didn’t say I was fast!) So, I will probably add a gym bag of stuff along with my suitcase/backpack combo, and split the clothes between them in case one gets lost or left behind in transit. All the delicate/valuable stuff goes with me in my new camera/laptop backpack!
I was pleasantly surprised to see quite a few trees in this area turning colors, including some very bright yellow maples. Even better, there were two trees in the plaza at work that were just starting to turn orange and yellow, and to top it off, the color is on the sunset side of the trees! Naturally I didn’t have any camera better than my iPhone so I missed the brilliant colors set off beautifully by the setting sun, but I plan to have at least my small camera tomorrow at the same time!
I’ll get you my pretties!
I’m hoping this means that the trees in Tokyo and parts north will be coming into color about now, too, since they’re at about the same latitude, and we have roughly the same climate. But, being the downsider that I am, I’m prepared to make the most of the trip, even if it’s too late or too early for the colors.
Well, I tried to insert a countdown widget in one of these posts, but for some reason it just didn’t work out right. So, I put one in the sidebar, counting down the hours to 6 AM Saturday the 20th when the plane takes off! Now, doing the math, 161 hours minus 56 hours for sleep, minus 40 hours for work, minus 3 hours commuting time to and from work…
Well, I’ve now (finally) been hit with the pre-trip jitters, and it’s not fun! It was okay when I had 3 months to go, then two, even one month was not bad, but now that it’s less than two weeks to go, it’s “done got real”!
Only 35 days till I leave for Japan! I’m making some final plans, getting things lined up and ready to go. There’s a lot more information available online for trip planning in Japan than there was, even in 2010, especially in the area of figuring out costs. With the exchange rate hovering at about 77 yen/dollar (effectively 70 yen, depending on where you exchange it), it’s going to be more important than ever to save money. (Continue reading “Nerdtour 2012: T-minus 35 days and counting, some thoughts…”
