Nov 26 - what a day

It's hard to know where to start !

Let's start with the minus side, since some of this was cancelled out by end of day (warning, spoiler :).

I decided to call Key West Sunrise Suites and Key West Ambassador to double check room availability before going live.  I'd had semi-commitment from both of them that presuming I checked, I'd have roughly enough rooms available (20-25 each) -- this being for the Sunshine 1200k, of course.

KW Ambassador -- well, I told you that the rooms weren't guaranteed; will see what I can do for you; wedding booked in the last few days; perhaps 10 rooms ... continued to talk to her ... exploring options ... and she basically hung up on me, saying that someone was waiting for her at the front desk.  PO'd or what !!

KW Sunrise -- different woman than I'd met in person -- don't know if we have any rooms; new management; 25 out of our 32 rooms ... yadda, yadda ... promised to have manager call me; he was in a meeting.  So in spite of them saying that they would match prior commitments, no ?

Ok, I'm in a panic.  What do I do now ?

Start calling around -- Marriott, Westin, got some nice people but no commitments to even get back to me same day (today is Thanksgiving).  Kept researching options in KW ... left a couple of messages with no callbacks.

Mid afternoon, after taking a break to do some home-work, called the Crowne Plaza, got their national service, no problem, blocked 25 rooms, went with rider book and pay, vs me pay.  It's time for me to get out of the hotel business !  Booking deadline is April 22, much much better.  Price is higher but I'm not paying the price, the riders are.

A little later, Sunrise calls me back.  Ok, they've got the rooms, new/higher price.  Ok, don't care at this point.  Negotiate it down a little, basically in line with the Crowne.  Booking deadline is March 15 or thereabouts, rider-book-and-pay.  Ok, works for me.

Marriott responds; they've got four properties; no go in one (only King beds), checking with other properties including the one in reno about to open, which has lots of double/double rooms (sounds like Tim Horton's !!).

Westin responds -- no block but discount, ok, another option for riders.

KW Ambassador says that they might get back to me on Friday about the 10 rooms.  I haven't responded to them yet but you can bet that they don't have my business -- with them it was always about limitations, not here's-what-I-can-do-for-you-but-here's-the-price.  I'll politely decline, since I'm Canadian, but I'd like to tell them where they can put their rooms ... whoops.

The KW Ambassador lady had promised me that she'd keep an eye on things because I'd told her that if there was any doubt arising around the rooms, I'd put up a deposit.  She completely ignored her commitment.

Ok, that's enough ranting.

I changed the website to reflect the new arrangement; worked with CCN to update the registration website, wrote an update to the "interested list" etc etc.

Mid day I went out and worked on the fountain.  The pump had broken.  It's now been replaced but I don't know if the caulking has dried yet so I haven't turned it on.  I'll do that on Sunday.

I heard back from The City of NSB, they have re-done my property taxes to include the homestead exemption.  They likely found that their rejection letter had never gotten to me.  They'll be processing a refund for last year as well.   All good on that front.

The barbecue works fine.  I turned it on and flame was a little low but kept getting higher until it was at its usual blast furnace.  I can only figure that there was something going on with the regulator going into the house or perhaps the street pressure / flow.  Don't know.

Yes, it was a busy day.

I made Easter Bread (sorry Sue) to take to Hamid and Shab -- heading to South Florida today (Miami Beach).  We'll have that in a cooler along with our wine, Sandy's juice, etc.  David and Kim found that drinks in the bars down there cost as much as the room ... well, not quite but shocking.  We'll have a drink in the room.

Sandy did a curry chicken stir fry.  It was great.

I just sent an "I give up" note to Performance Bike.  I was ordering something.  It was charging me $9 shipping plus $12 overweight, for 7-10 day delivery.  Ok.  I switched to their Team shipping (2 day) since I'm a member and so shipping went from $9 to $18-9=9.  Ok, good.  Overweight went to $22.  Give me a break.  I considered that but went ahead and tried to update the credit card info and use my existing points.  I did that more than three times but it kept reverting to the original, losing the input.  Arggh.  I then reconsidered the total shipping cost and changed it to deliver-to-store, which is supposed to be free.  The shipping charge went to $77.  What the heck ???!!

No wonder Amazon does so well.  Click, click, done.

 Onward.  Let's go see what the beautiful people do in South Beach.