A Clipper card VTA tag-in is not a single ride, but two hours of travel. So today I tried to make the most of the tag. Setting my watch to a 2-hour countdown, I tagged into the system, boarded light rail, and rode two stops south to that same 7-Eleven that sold me expired milk. As I expected, they had no interest in making good the bad milk, but I didn't have a lot of options, so I bought more, checking this time to confirm that the expiration date is well into the future. I then went back to the hotel and put the milk into the fridge.
Trip 3 was north two stops to First & Trimble, where there is a Bank of America branch. There, I bought another roll of quarters in case I want to do more laundry during the rest of this trip. Across the street from the bank was a Starbucks, where I used some of the starts I earned during the Winnipeg trip to buy a coffee. Then I bought an shrimp biryani take-out to have later for dinner. This took a while to cook, but I still had more than twenty minutes left on the Clipper tag when I walked to Component station for the fourth and final trip back to the the hotel.
The "stranded" value on the card I originally reported lost hasn't yet shown up on the new card. I have a feeling that despite what the Clipper agent told me, they've mailed a new card to Fernley, so for the rest of this trip, I'll have to keep going back to the VTA vending machine to put more value on the card I bought a few days ago, especially for the trip up to to the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco on Monday, for which I'll need two VTA fares, a Caltrain trip San Jose-San Francisco, and two Muni fares.
This afternoon after work, I went to the 7-Eleven to get some milk. There being enough room for it in the hotel's mini-fridge, and with me being here for a week-plus still, I figured that I'd get two gallons. It seemed slightly wasteful to use a $2.50 light rail fare to just go two stops up and back, but it's hot out there, and I didn't want to milk to get warm.
I got back to the hotel and poured myself a glass of milk: Bleargh! Sour. I couldn't think that the milk could have gone bad in that short of a time, so I had a look at the container. Groan. The milk was more than a week past it's sell-by date! Fortunately, the second gallon was safe and not sour, but bad job by me to not check the date on the container before buying it.
For getting around on light rail, Caltrain, and buses in the Bay Area, I have a Clipper Card, which is a stored-value card that auto-reloads from one of my credit cards when necessary. While I had not used it for a while, it worked just fine when I got here. So yesterday, I used it to right light rail to get some groceries, as there is very little within walking distance of my hotel.
When I got back to my hotel room, I reached for where I thought my Clipper card was. Nothing. I reckoned that I must have dropped the card while on the train. Trying to find it would be difficult. So I logged into the Clipper Card system online and reported the card lost. $3 fee to freeze the balance.
I unloaded my groceries. Guess what I found at the bottom of the bag? That's right, my Clipper card. I must have dropped it into the bag when I though I was putting it in the pocked of my shirt.
I logged back into Clipper, but could find no way to reactivate the card. I called Clipper customer service, and after wading through their menus, reached a human being who told me that once a card is deactivated, it can never be reactivated. (Too bad; I'd had that card for many years, and it's inadvertently traveled around the world with me.) However, they were able to stop the system from trying to mail me a new card back in Fernley, and said that if I got a new card, they could transfer the balance to it. Well, I could do that, as there are VTA fare vending machines that will sell you a Clipper card across the street in the light rail station.
Walking over to the station, I bought a new card ($3 fee), went back to the room, and called Clipper customer service again. They said that they could transfer the $70 balance for yet another $3 fee, and that it will take between 2 and 5 days for the balance to appear. I hope it's back on the card by Monday when I'm going to San Francisco! However, even if it is not, I can add money to the card at VTA fare machines.
So I'm more or less okay other than being out $9 in service charges, and it could have been worse, with an unusable card being sent back to Fernley. I wish I'd tried checking my bag before rushing to deactivate my card.
Thanks to a very helpful member of the 3Below Theatre group, I got a couple of pictures of my turn on stage. As a special favor, they provided me with a couple of screen captures from their archival footage of the performance.
One of the things about going through the musical number was that I was close enough to Shannon and Stephen that I heard them singing directly, not via the theatre's speakers. Now I think I've hear Shannon before at close range (probably in "Who's Holiday"), but not Stephen. It was a novel experience.
If you haven't yet figured it out, I'm a frustrated wannabe actor at times. The closest I've gotten previously was a minor part in a play in my second year of high school. The older I get, the less inhibited I am. But I'm terrible at memorizing lines, which is why hosting game shows is much easier for me. And between that and the times I've been on stage for Worldcon and Westercon, I think I've gotten better at performing.
It's been more than 24 hours since I left the final performance of Thanks for Playing the Game Show Show yesterday evening. I'm still smiling thinking about it. The crazy thing is just how fast my turn on stage seemed to go. I know objectively from watching the previous shows that it's around five minutes, but it subjectively felt more like thirty seconds. I hope that Shannon Guggenheim and San Jose Playhouse won't mind me quoting a couple of lines from a number earlier in the play that sort of touches on how I felt:
Just being here, I'm on Cloud Nine The Game Show life, well that's my line!
The reason I was down here in San Jose this weekend was to attend the final three performances of the 2023 production of Thanks for Playing the Game Show Show, the musical about the game show scandals of the 1950s and the rebirth of game shows in the 1960s. Long-time readers will remember me waxing lyrical (ahem) about the original production a decade ago at the RetroDome. Since then, the RetroDome moved to the 3Below Theatre in downtown San Jose and their theatrical productions are under the San Jose Playhouse name, but it's the same people. They reworked Game Show Show and remounted a production this summer. I was afraid I'd miss all of the shows because of the Winnipeg trip, but was able to come see their final three performances: two yesterday and one today. And today, the final performance, was going to be the day I was on stage.
I did not take any pictures during the show (except a couple at the very end which I'll talk about in a minute), so I can't show you the set configuration during Act I when I was on stage.
Here's the set-up for my turn on stage: the sponsor of game show "The Secret Square" has ordered the producer/host of the show, Bill Todson (Stephen Guggenheim), to get rid of unattractive contestants and bring an attractive looking guy (that turns out to be me in this case) on the show and make sure he wins, in order to get better ratings and thus better sales for the sponsor's products. So at the right point in the action, associate producer Frankie Marks (Shannon Guggenheim), who has no idea of the nefarious goings on, comes out to where I was sitting and where I'd been spotlighted as the next new contestant. She asked quietly (they might have muted her mic; I don't know) if the step onto the runway was okay. It was. I'd already checked during the intermission of yesterday's show. So now I was on stage. The action proceeded with the leads turning me over to Jack Parker (Nicholas Tabora), the in-show director, who took me back stage to "prep" me.
Once back stage, he very briefly briefed me on what was to happen. I reassured him that I'd seen the production before so I had pretty good idea what was supposed to happen and how I was supposed to react. I also said, "I saw this show seven times during the first run," so he got the idea. He asked me, "Is back stage what you thought it would be like?" I told him that it was, and that I've been back stage at various theatrical-type productions before. (I was thinking of Worldcon major events.)
I wish there had been time to take a picture back stage, but there was only a couple of minutes while we waited for the intervening scene to play out, and then we re-entered for my "stage prep." They put me behind the contestant podium and Todson and Marks explained how we'd do some light banter during the actual show and suggested I say something. I'd already seen others semi-freeze up at this point, so I confidently looked toward the camera and said, "I'm Kevin Standlee, I'm 57 years old, and I live in Fernley, Nevada!" They praised me, and then a musical number ("I've Got a Secret") broke out around me.
As I'd been instructed and as I expected, I let them walk me through the number while they sang and I followed their lead. I also tried to give the right sort of reactions to they way they addressed me. The woman sitting next to me in the audience (who had seen many of the shows; her daughter was a member of the cast) told me that I did just fine.
The number ended, Frankie Marks exited, and Bill Todson moved in for the big moment.
Because of how the show worked, I was never an actual contestant in that I never participated in either of the games that happened in the musical. The Big Scandal broke in the next scene, the original Secret Square went off the air as game shows perished in a cloud of scandal and the intermission happened. But that's okay. In fact it was more than okay.
While I didn't originally expect to be in the I've-Got-a-Secret position (I thought I was going to be in the Act II "New Secret Square" game, using Match Game mechanics, which I obviously know like the back of my hand), whoever decided to put me in this spot made the right decision. I knew what my role was and for having had no actual rehearsal other than thinking it through while sitting in the audience during Act I, I think I did pretty well. I just wish that I could see how I looked!
Then it was time to go. After using the bathroom, though, my left leg (which continues to trouble me; I started chiropractic work on the pinched nerve last week and will resume treatment once I get home) cramped, and I had to hobble back into the lobby and sit for a few minutes to unkink it. I'm sure glad that did not happen while I was on stage! I waved goodbye for the final time and headed out.
I limped over to The City Fish a few blocks from 3Below and bought a lot bigger meal than I probably should have done, but I'd not eaten since breakfast and was very hungry. I was fortunate that an LRV was pulling up just as I got to the station, and about twenty minutes later, I was back at the Holiday Inn Express. I tore into my meal, then called Lisa to enthuse about the shows and to thank her for encouraging me to come and see them.
I had an absolutely wonderful time as I have always had at any of the 3Below/San Jose Playhouse/RetroDome productions. And I'm once again grateful to whoever decided to push me out of my comfort zone. I hope my contribution to the final performance looked as good to the audience as it felt for me. It was a blast!
I saw a lot of people moving out this morning, and figured that there was no harm in asking if there were any single-king rooms available. Indeed there were! They issued me a new room, and even better, it was just a few steps away. They gave me new keys and I spent a while moving from the 09 to the 06 room. It would have gone faster, but after the first load of stuff (I didn't fully pack up, figuring that I could just shuttle stuff across the hall), I left the new room keys in the room itself and had to go get a new set.
I now have a lot more usable space, arranged how I like it, and the only price was a bit of time shifting rooms on a morning where I had time to do so.
My flight from Reno to San Jose has a scheduled duration of 1 hour, and was originally scheduled to depart RNO at 7:15 PM. Lisa drove me to Reno, and we got there more than two hours before the scheduled flight time. I guess I'd arrived at a lull in traffic, because I checked in for my Southwest Airlines flight almost instantly, had no difficulty checking a bag, and went through Terrorization with no issues. I was expecting to take a long time, because I'm carrying three computers, but they told me I did not have to take them out. Have the rules changed?
My back hurts a lot right now, and carrying that heavy computer bag was not fun. So I was happy to find an abandoned Smarte Carte just past Terrorization. I took it and put my computer bag on it. Based on how long I ended up being in the airport, I am really glad I got that cart.
Even when I checked in, I saw that my flight was delayed by an hour. What with having not soaked up a bunch of time on check-in and Terrorization, I had lots of time to kill, so I bought a 20-minute session in one of the massage chairs that dot the airport. That was pretty good. I could use more of it.
My flight got later. I got dinner. I told them to not hurry, while I started reading Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition, which I bought at the museum in Churchill.
While I was eating dinner, my flight continued to be delayed. Despite dawdling over my food, I did eventually leave, and to kill more time, I walked all the way down through Concourse C and then back to B where Southwest is located. I waited until the last flight scheduled before mine at B5 left for Oakland, then settled down to charge my phone and continued reading.
I'm not completely sure what was causing the delays, but I assume that the first thing was that the tropical storm hitting the west coast of Mexico and the southwestern USA was messing up flights in Southern California and Las Vegas. (The Governor of Nevada called out the National Guard for expected issues in southern Nevada. But possibly the President's trip to Reno-Tahoe caused more issues: he arrived this afternoon, and while I didn't see the Presidential plane from the terminal, I wasn't looking. The arrival of the President closed local airspace and caused massive traffic jams in the area.
It got so late that they started turning off the slot machines, on account of the attendant had to go home, and usually all of the evening's flights are complete by that late. This was okay for me, though, because it meant I could sit in the much more comfortable slot machine chairs while I continued to wait.
Eventually our inbound plane finally arrived. Southwest turned it as fast as they could. When I got on board, I went to the back of the plane, where I got a row to myself and plenty of overhead space for my computer. My 7:15 flight left at 10 PM.
The flight was very bumpy, presumably due to the unsettled weather from that storm. I certainly don't blame the Southwest crew for not attempting a beverage service for the very short flight (40 minutes in the air).
My checked bag was in the first few off the belt, and I headed off to the courtesy shuttles area. Unfortunately, the Holiday Inn Express shuttle stops at 10 PM. Instead of the free shuttle, it was a $25 Lyft ride. At least I didn't have to wait long.
The hotel is a pretty standard HIX. I was unable to get the double-queen room changed to a single-king. Thanks to them being full and the length of my planned stay, there were no upgrades for me this trip.
What with all of the delays, it was too late to order pizza, and I really didn't feel like trying to go find something at this hour. I got a microwave meal from the hotel's lobby shop.
I'm having bad luck with hotel hot tubs this summer. Unfortunately, this HIX doesn't have a hot tub. I was looking forward to using it multiple times on this trip.
Fortunately, I don't have an early morning commitment on Saturday, so once I get this post finished, I can get some sleep and need not set an alarm, although if I somehow sleep past 10 AM, I'll miss the included breakfast.
With the road tires settled, we went to take the RV for a short drive to make sure everything else worked. Unfortunately, after sitting for several months, the battery was dead. While I went to a chiropractor appointment, Lisa jump-started the RV from her pickup, let it charge up for a bit, and made sure its air conditioning seemed to work, and drove it around the block.
We needed to get groceries for Lisa as I'll be away for the next two weeks, so we though we'd drive the RV given that its AC works. Except that when I started it up, I realized that the driver's side mirror needed adjusting. I tried to roll down the window. Nothing. The power window didn't work. While investigating this, we ended up rolling down the passenger side window. In this case, both the up and down buttons rolled the window down and nothing rolled it up. So we shut things down again and Lisa went to work on the passenger side door. While Lisa worked on this, a thunderstorm rolled in, which make the temperatures much cooler, but also started getting things wet and harder to handle.
After Lisa removed the paneling from the door, she was able to access the window mechanism, but not to get the power window to move up. She was able to force the window back up and jam it into place temporarily so that we could secure the RV again, but this is only a quick patch and once again we'll have to put off a fix until I get back from the Bay Area.
We continued with the process of replacing the tires on the Rolling Stone today as Lisa's stamina and my time to shuttle tires and wheels between our house and the nearby tire shop allowed.
The high temperature in the shade today in Fernley was 35°C, but there was not much shade around the RV, and I'm sure the effective temperature in the blazing sun was at least 40°C. This is why Lisa had to take long breaks after each bout with a tire: heat exhaustion was a real threat today.
Tomorrow morning I will shuttle the last wheel and new tire to the shop for mounting and balancing. After reviewing all of the tires, we've decided that for now we'll just keep the existing spare; however, despite it having nearly no mileage on it, we should probably replace it as well, and thus I'll probably order a fifth General Tire Grabber from TireRack soon.
nauseated
annoyed
happy
sore
tired