{"id":936,"date":"2005-05-19T13:04:34","date_gmt":"2005-05-19T04:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/05\/19\/last-minute-check-up\/"},"modified":"2005-07-12T20:05:45","modified_gmt":"2005-07-12T11:05:45","slug":"last-minute-check-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/05\/19\/last-minute-check-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Last minute check-up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Against all odd, I&#8217;m done packing and still have 30 minutes to go catch the Narita express.<\/p>\n<p>I could just go now and insure that I am actually <em>early<\/em> to catch a plane once in my life, but why bother. <\/p>\n<p>Actually, when taking a flight out of peak-season, it&#8217;s always a better strategy to show up fashionably late for check-in. This may sound like dubious advice, coming from the guy who <a href=\"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/10\/05\/planes-for-dummies\/\">missed a few planes<\/a> in recent years, but on the other hand, I have also boarded hundreds of flights without hassles. Check-in employees are way less stressed once the rush is over, it&#8217;s easy to make small talk and get whatever you want, whether it&#8217;s a potential upgrade, or just a seat on an empty row (there&#8217;s always one or two fully empty rows on off-peak flights, and getting them at the end of check-in means you stand good chance they&#8217;ll remain so).<\/p>\n<p>So instead, I&#8217;m running a last-minute assessment of current situation, before moving on for the month.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Neighbourhood cats<\/strong> seem a bit worried to lose both their main source for food distribution and access to the dry shelter of my room, which I understand can suck, especially when monsoon season is geared to start in a week or two. They have been following the packing process closely and, as I speak, there&#8217;s a fair chance I might be about to smuggle unwittingly some of Tokyo&#8217;s finest stray cat on the European continent. I guess it&#8217;ll be the surprise on arrival.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Herb garden<\/strong> is going through another rough phase: while the <a href=\"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/05\/03\/de-rebus-naturae\/\">cat problem<\/a> has been successfully dealt with, my once flamboyant arugula is suddenly showing signs of decay. Simultaneously, I couldn&#8217;t help but notice that caterpillars in the vicinity seemed particularly healthy and well fed. If the situation hasn&#8217;t somehow stabilized by the time of my return, I am afraid we will have to consider chemical warfare. Napalm or agent orange are the two top options at the moment.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Underwears<\/strong> are packed. I had a strange dream last night that essentially involved forgetting to pack my undies. My subconscious really has fucked-up priorities. The socks supply dearly needs replenishing (single socks have been disappearing at an alarming rate lately: I suspect the cats. Wouldn&#8217;t put it past these thieving bastards). Good thing, you don&#8217;t have to remove your freaking shoes to eat in a restaurant where I&#8217;m heading.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Passports<\/strong> are packed in separate places, and color-coded, which will avoid repeating embarrassing mistakes and having to spend unnecessary time with an immigration officer convinced he has caught Al Qaida&#8217;s number 4.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ok, see you on the other side!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Against all odd, I&#8217;m done packing and still have 30 minutes to go catch the Narita express. I could just go now and insure that I am actually early to catch a plane once in my life, but why bother. Actually, when taking a flight out of peak-season, it&#8217;s always a better strategy to show [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travels","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}