gliding through the weekend

Back in the office... it was a glorious weekend. I enjoyed the textures and colors of early summer... even watching individual wind-blown sand grains making fractal micro-dunes at close range at Santa Cruz yesterday. Or frustrated 15" salmon, close enough to touch in a small stream nearby. Feeling loved and connected and lacking fearfulness. Grilling outside in the twilight, although I'm not really hungry. Hugs from my friends, sweeties and kids. Even watching bad 1950s SF movies Saturday night with patgreene until 2am... or having a shared common, sweaty purpose in moving friends yesterday.

Today... Pat made some of the coffee that tenacious_snail picked up for me in NYC last week. Strong stuff... one cup, and my hands are slightly shaking! Whew. Seeing Pascal at 10am and 3pm, trying to get Swales to commit to a meeting date, drafting a letter of intent to propose, and setting up various work and personal travel reservations are on my agenda today. As well as enjoying the intense colors and breezes outside... (grin).

call from the Mounties...

My, my... that was an unexpected call. A Constable Webb from the RCMP in Nunavut just called me and asked questions about an airline reservation I'd made last month on Canadian North from Edmonton to Cambridge Bay. I had just made a reservation, but not paid for or issued the ticket... had actually mostly forgotten about it.

Apparently there was some kind of database or other software bug in the airline's web reservations system (it's a small regional carrier and a contracted-out service), and somehow my reservation was charged to the territorial government of Nunavut. Go figure... eventually their accounting people noticed the invoice, flagged it as possible credit-card fraud, and handed it to the RCMP for investigation. Hence the phone call this morning, since the reservation had all of my contact information in it. I sent them a FAX with a copy of the airline reservation printout (showing no card number was entered, here) and my NASA travel orders for July. I suppose I should be worried, but somehow find it ironically funny...