Ok, so after a long flight i got to San Francisco. My mom was down in the city so we met up and went over to the IMC and checked my email. Now, if you're going to visit somebody in San Francisco for only a day, i don't recommend you go where i went, the DMV to get my drivers license renewed, then to Fry's to stockup on a list of things i need to buy for folks back in Uruguay.
Got the license no problem, one thing done on the check list. Then at Fry's i realized i didn't know much about minidisc recorders and that Fry's despite being the size of several football fields didn't have a good selection. So i just bought a battery charger and a wireless hub/router.
We went up to my sister's house and got ben driving down to portland to reroute himself to her house. My mom had bought a pile of goodies to take along so she was trying to figure out what was needed and what was too much. I was so tired i couldn't even tell her what i wanted.
When Ben arrived we decided to crash in the bay area instead of pushing directly on to LA. We got up at 5am and got on the road. Made it to LA pretty fast and cut over to Ventura on the ocean. Ben, a college kid who was buming around the US on a summer trip had made his way out to Seattle then all the way down the coast without seeing the ocean. Somehow in Portland he was at a friend of a friend's house when M called him and he agreed drive a uhaul down to LA with the computers.
See, we've had a number of plans for how to get these computers to Cancun. First there was this guy J who said he could do it, he was going to be paid, but he flaked out and pulled himself in the Van out because he wanted to go to Burningman. Then J said he'd do at least the computers to LA part, but at the last minute he flaked on that too. So M found Ben to replace J and rented a uhaul to get the computers down to LA.
Once we got to LA we had this magic donation. D, a friend of Starhawk who's a pegan queer activist had a old Ford Explorer SUV which she wanted to donate. She'd put out the word about the donation awhile ago but nobody'd found a way of getting it down to Mexico. So when we started putting out feelers to find a backup when J flaked, Starhawk told us about the donated SUV and it all seemed to work out.
So, today we got up at 5am and were on the road heading to LA by a little after 6 and got to Ventura by noon. The SUV is in really nice condition, it's got pushing 300,000 miles on it, but everything looks really good. D who is donating it got it checked up at the dealership and they said it was god to go the other day. We went right over to the DMV and parked. Ben started moving the computers in to the SUV and D and I went in to change over the registration. I had to be the owner because you can't drive a car you don't own in to Mexico (except for specific rental agreements/company cars.) As with getting my license the day before, the California DMV is incredibly efficient. You go in, tell them what you want, they give you a letter/number and the paperwork you'll need to fill out. We barely got started with the paperwork before our number was called.
It just took a few minutes and one form and the ownership was transfered. That was it, facilito! We had the whole thing done. When we got back out to the cars we had another problem.
Fitting computers in the SUV.
It wasn't easy. A Ford Explorer isn't tiny, but it's not one of those giant monster SUV's. We have a LOT of computers, 25 of them, and monitors, keyboards, mice, power cables, network cables, hubs, etc... The computers are for the most part very small, a size of a big laptop, but we had a number towers too. As we started stacking things out on the parkinglot of the DMV i kept thinking. There is no way that we are going to be able to fit all this stuff in the SUV.
We progressed slowly. First stacking the bigger computers along the left, then putting in the box of keyboards, then the little computers, then starting with the monitors. After getting half a dozen monitors in we realized we were in trouble. It wasn't going to fit. So we pulled out the little computers, figuring that we can stuff them in places, and we pulled the monitor stands off all of the monitors putting them aside. If we needed we could just not take the monitor stands, they were non-essential.
We repacked different parts a number of times, putting all the cables, powerstrips, and computers in any crack which had space. Along the windows we put cardboard to keep any equipment from banging in to the glass. This has the added benefit that with the tinted glass windows keeps people from easily seeing that it's a van totally full of computers.
To my utter shock we fit everything in! The passenger has a huge pile of stuff between their legs, we have things falling out everywhere and if you open the driver's side back door our backpacks fall out on to the street. But it's all in there. There's no space really left.
We went back to D's and took showers, checked our email. Ben is rushing back to the east coast for school to start so he was looking at flights and bus routes on how to get back before monday's classes. I dropped people a note giving an update and printed out directions to our place to stay in Phoenix. We got directions for how to avoid the worst of LA rush hour traffic, to a health food store near bye, and we were off. Ben stocked up on a lot of stuff because he decided to take the bus from Phoenix to New York. As we were getting ready to go, Ben decides that he really wants to touch the ocean and see the beach, so we go back to the ocean near D's house. It wasn't the closest beach, but we knew how to get there reliably. I drop Ben off and find a parking place under an overpass. The sunset was very pretty and then we rushed back to the car and got our arranging of the overflowing car for the drive to Phoenix.
Posted by rabble at August 31, 2003 02:09 PM | TrackBack