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<\/a><\/p>\nTurns out I’m in Wave 1 – Bib # 184 for those of you wondering…<\/p>\n
What does that mean for start time purposes?\u00a0 Well, according to their FAQ:<\/p>\n I guess that means I start at 7:01 AM on Sunday the 19th.<\/p>\n 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…<\/p>\n $1,090 a night?!\u00a0 For a Knight’s Inn?!<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n Now, I’m cheap.\u00a0 Like Jack Benny cheap.\u00a0 And so I went and bought on Amazon an AirBNB gift card for the exact amount of the listing.\u00a0 That way I get 5% cashback on my Amazon card.\u00a0 It made sense to save some cents, yeah?\u00a0 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<\/a> processes the gift cards.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 This was unhelpful.\u00a0 It was frustrating, an infinite loop of madness with the same action hopefully resulting in a positive outcome.\u00a0 Ultimately I just asked for a refund but that’s going to take 3-5 business days.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 That’s not just Amazon… that’s probably 99.55% of the retailers in the world.<\/p>\n And I know what you’re thinking — how did I know they were Russian CSRs?\u00a0 Aren’t I being incredibly judgmental?\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n Long story short, I just paid the full amount for the AirBNB on my credit card.\u00a0 I opted AGAINST the “420 friendly” place, figuring I can deal with murder scenes but not marijuana smells.<\/p>\n The countdown is on…<\/p>\n So here’s a countdown to doom… er, um… destiny?\u00a0 Well, hopefully it’s a countdown to 7:01 AM on Sunday the 19th (Mountain Time).<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n