Getting to Costa Rica
The stories from Costa Rica are on the YogaSlackers Blog (1 and 2). Getting there was another deal altogether:
The long story short, I am a moron, Jay Freeman (saurik) is a saint, United Airlines is incompetent, and Frontier Airlines is friendly and flexible.
Me, Chelsea and Jason are trying to get to Costa Rica, to do a former adventure race. Our plan was to fly out of SFO (because it was the cheapest), and cross Costa Rica coast-to-coast under human power, hang out for a week or two, and jet back home if we could muster the initiative. All was going according to plan until I realized that I had left my passport in Santa Barbara. I frantically called everybody I knew who I work with, eat with, and hang out with, coming up with a few leads: some craigslist folks who are happy to get the passport up here after my flight leaves, and Anna (yes, she is a plan in and of herself), who will try to arrange for a counter-to-counter transfer at SBA airport.
I had heard about the counter-to-counter transfer (which sounds wonderful) from Jay Freeman (saurik), the brilliant software man behind Cydia, the jailbroken iPhone "app store". Well, it turns out that Jay has just as much drive, initiative, and stick-to-it-ness outside of the computer world as inside it. Before I can say cat-in-a-hat, Jay has initiated himself as a "known shipper" with United Airlines, and is now driving to LAX (3 hours with traffic) to ship a forgotten passport to me, so it'll make it here in time for me to get on my 8:16 flight. He makes it to LAX, with time to spare, and gets the passport to the SPD desk at LAX (that's what they use to ship kidneys, I later found out), with 1:15 until the last flight that can get me the documents in time. I've sent all of my checked luggage with Chelsea and Jason, and I'm waiting until 8:05, when they tell me that my passport didn't make the flight. I was simultaneously heartbroken and outraged at all of this wasted good-will and elbow grease. Too late, and I waited for my passport to arrive on the next flight, which it did (though delayed an additional hour). I rescheduled my flight to Costa Rica to leave at 11AM the next morning (thanks Frontier!), and rode the BART back to Chris & Karla's place in Oakland. Rang their doorbell, and passed out on their guest bed…
Got on the plane the next morning, had a long layover in Denver, and made it to Costa Rica with my tail between my legs.