Sooooo..
I got a notice from the good folks at Pike’s Peak Marathon about my start time.
Turns out I’m in Wave 1 – Bib # 184 for those of you wondering…
What does that mean for start time purposes? Well, according to their FAQ:
I guess that means I start at 7:01 AM on Sunday the 19th.
The benefit of all this is that it prompted me to start printing out my travel plans. Turns out my AirBNB host cancelled on me a few weeks back and it must have been while I was traveling in Tanzania as I neglected to rebook. It’s been a mad dash scramble to find something that didn’t cost an arm and a leg…
$1,090 a night?! For a Knight’s Inn?!
Anyway, yes, yes, I could’ve done the $80 a night one but instead I went desperately scouring the AirBNB listings using their filters… which sadly do not feature a “there’s been a murder here so discounts apply” tick box. But even without that explicit search parameter, I was able to find a somewhat reasonably priced room in Colorado Springs, supposedly 7 miles from Manitou Springs and Pike’s Peak proper.
Now, I’m cheap. Like Jack Benny cheap. And so I went and bought on Amazon an AirBNB gift card for the exact amount of the listing. That way I get 5% cashback on my Amazon card. It made sense to save some cents, yeah? Except there’s apparently some weird technical issue at the moment and I can’t activate the card due to a server error on Amazon’s side or Activation Spot’s side or on whoever’s side processes the gift cards.
After 43 minutes with a couple of Russian Amazon Customer Service Reps, wherein I repeatedly kept trying to explain about the 502 error code I was getting from the server, they just kept resending me the gift card link. This was unhelpful. It was frustrating, an infinite loop of madness with the same action hopefully resulting in a positive outcome. Ultimately I just asked for a refund but that’s going to take 3-5 business days. Isn’t it astonishing that they can take the money FROM me so quickly… but they’re very, very slow to return the money TO me. That’s not just Amazon… that’s probably 99.55% of the retailers in the world.
And I know what you’re thinking — how did I know they were Russian CSRs? Aren’t I being incredibly judgmental? Well, one guy’s name was Vlad and he had an accent worthy of a 1950s Cold War espionage thriller… so unless they were just messing with me which is probably better than a 50/50 chance… I’m going with my gut and calling them Russian.
Long story short, I just paid the full amount for the AirBNB on my credit card. I opted AGAINST the “420 friendly” place, figuring I can deal with murder scenes but not marijuana smells.
The countdown is on…
So here’s a countdown to doom… er, um… destiny? Well, hopefully it’s a countdown to 7:01 AM on Sunday the 19th (Mountain Time).