San Jose, USA - Reentry & Murphy's Law, 1st World Style

And I thought that my swollen, sore, and blotchy body parts from poisonous centipedes, "super mosquitos", and UBOs (Unidentified Biting Objects), were the extent of my troubles... Wrong!

It's been a rough reentry!

There's nothing like struggling alone with awkward heavy baggage after 30 hours of straight international travel (heavily trafficked streets, steep stairs, escalators, crowded elevators, 2 planes, incomplete in-flight movies, convoluted airport transit procedures, and then thankfully a ride from my kind friend Elida to her home in Venice California). She, Curtis, and I, had a chill fun couple of days, while I acclimated and caught up on email and posting pet/house sitting ads in SF. I wish I could have stayed longer, but couldn't afford to change my flight from LAX to SFO.

The last leg of my journey to the Bay Area, was rougher.

My LAX baggage security search and laptop dusting set the tone. I had 10 more hours of struggling alone with awkward heavy baggage (shuttle, plane, stairs, escalators, elevators, Bart, Caltrain), only to arrive at a dimly lit desolate cold train station with no signs of humanity other than young loiterers with nothing better to do but kick things in the parking lot. LAX>SFO flight delays, and an awkwardly timed Caltrain schedule, booted my arrival to my San Jose destination (John's comfortable couch) from a reasonable evening hour into the chilly wee hours of the next morning. All the train station cab drivers had gone home. And unfortunately, my cell phone number had been mistakenly reassigned, so I had no way to phone a cab. Murphy's law was in full swing. I lowered my expectations that life would get easier moving back to a first world country. I mustered all the gumption I could, declared outloud "I've been through worse!" and awkwardly rolled and waddled my way to a distant main intersection. Bags fell every few yards. I hoped I was being perceived as a comical figure, rather than a vulnerable slow target for harrassment. I was more frightened of these aimless volatile San Jose youth, than I was of most any usually purposeful strangers abroad. People in SE Asia almost always seem to have a destination, or are comfortably in repose and unthreateningly socializing over chess, coffee, cigarettes, or song. Eventually, an empty cab picked me up. It was 2am when I finally plopped into the comfortable couch I'd been dreaming about for weeks.

After a couple days of jet lag haze, power bars, and left overs... I emerged from John's townhouse. I fortified myself with a lovely mexican restaurant meal, and rolled up my sleeves and tackled phase 2 of rentry...

The troubles continued, as only a first world nation can muster...

I'll get to the crux, so as not to bore you with overly detailed rants about the failure of the only 2 services I was counting on while I was away. My main concerns were that I'd have my old cell phone number, and all my stored worldly possessions, to come home to. Unfortunately, AT&T wireless botched the former, and my bank's online autopayments ceased halfway through my trip thus endangering the latter!

Eventually, it became apparent that it would be a long uphill (and likely unsuccessful) battle to reinstate my old cell phone number, since they'd already assigned it to someone else. My solution was to move on. I signed up with another cell service, so I'll do my best to contact everyone about my new phone number when the new phone arrives. I'll have to put aside a day to pick it up from my San Francisco PO box (I'm in San Jose for a little while, until the pet sitting kicks in and/or I restablish myself back in SF).

Fortunately, my storage space landlord took a laid back approach and "didn't take any action" (as he put it), figuring I was out of town and it was mearly an oversight. I was incredibly grateful for his flexibility, though come to think of it, if I were in his shoes, moving densely packed storage via awkward narrow access would be my last resort solution as well! And as anyone who's generously helped me move my stuff can attest to... I have a LOT of stuff!

Even though I've done without my cell and most of my material possessions for several months now, I wanted to hit the ground running and reestablish my life in the non-vagabond mode. My livelihood, social network, and roof over my head (I'm currently couch surfing), requires that people get ahold of me easily and visa versa. This is especially important since I'm homeless without a landline phone for the immediate future... and I have a lot of duckies to line up. Walking several blocks during a San Jose heat wave to use expensive disfunctional payphones is not how I want to get things done.

Hence, the significance of losing the old cell number. To make matters worse, lots of people still haven't completely transitioned to using my new email address... which I was forced to change during the trip because the old ones were so deluged by junkmail. Which reminds me that I need to change my tburkes.com domain... oh... and I need to mail my laptop and digital camera for repairs (hopefully under warranty)...

...oiy... the To Do list is getting longer!

This elicits dejavu regarding typically faulty beaurocratic services... ATT in particular...

...welcome back to your old life!

Despite the trouble, I AM glad to be back, and look forward to getting together with friends. I'll be in San Jose until further notice, but it wouldn't take much to convince me to make a day trip to SF for some good socializing and a home cooked meal (hint... hint!)

;)

I check my gmail email regularly!