[Koha] Don't miss the trip of a lifetime KohaCon 2010!

[M. Brooke Helman]

Salvete!

      You might not have realised it, being neck deep in the hypnotising pages of your AACR2R, or perhaps your tawdry RDA, but

There's a Conference!

      and

It's happening where the tricksy Hobbitses live!

       Yeah, yeah, I know the lame yet understandable and valid excuses you're about to spout about it being very, very, very far indeed as well as quite expensive. But here's how I look at it. I am young right now at this very moment. Folks that I served committee with have since taken the West Road, so now is the best time to reward myself with the trip of a lifetime, seeing as how I have no terrible lower back pain, fake knees, heart conditions, et cetera. Also, Chris has hauled hisself to the US who knows how many times on our account, not to mention totally missed the millennial New Years programming Koha. Consider the same for Paul, and think about how bad the US will look if we don't play nicely with the other Koha kids that swim many miles of rough choppy dolphin infested current to come and visit us every time we put on a conference.

       If you know me at all, you know at least three things

1) I am painfully cheap. Some people think that it's frugal or Foolish, but I see it as cheap.
2) I am quite stubborn and will spend a very long time indeed handling a Reference question or researching summat.
3) I can be quite squirrelly and do not generally enjoy being pent up in confined spaces, such as airplanes, for prolonged periods of time.

       If I can get mahself to NZ, so can you. 

       Und nao, to ze point.

       I finally broke down this very morning and secured passage to NZ. While trying to figure out the cheapest/fastest/best way to get there, I learnt many things. I considered just about every option - private jet, freight on a steamer, becoming an air courier, upgrading my tickets, swimming from one island to the next, et cetera. Hopefully some of these are useful to other people that haven't yet booked their trip.

       
* You're prolly gonna have to fly through Los Angeles. (LAX) That said, it was very much worth flying cheaply from the right coast to the left coast. I had daydreams about taking Amtrak at one point, but I didn't want to super duper prolong the inevitable. So, went with Southwest from my backyard to LAX for $250 roundtrip. Be extra super duper careful when you break up travel to LA, as you're wrestling with the dreaded International Date Line, not to mention connecting flights. Large mice have been spotted in a neighbourhood known as Disneyland about a half hour to an hour south of the city, so mind your purse and any cheese you might have on your person. In theory, you could win a sky auction from LAX to WLG for about $900, but I've never done it myself before, and I didn't want to experiment this time round.

* Many places that fly to New Zealand also fly to Hawai'i and other island Nations, such as Fiji. This allows you to see sights or take a short holiday in non Hobbit populated areas, should you so choose. A ticket on posh Hawai'ian Air from LAX to HNL (Waikīkī) was $379ish this morning. Magic dates from HNL to SYD were 15,17, and 19 October for Air Pacific. For Qantas, *THE* magic day was Wednesday 20 October. If I tried to push that forwards or backwards AT ALL, the cost of my trip bundle varied ridiculously to the tune of several hundred to several thousand (yes thousand) dollars. I desperately tried to book on New Zealand, but no matter how hard I hit the computer, it would not allow me to do so at a reasonable rate since I was going other places. Opted not to go to Fiji since there was some regionalised cyclone damage, and it's a little too much adventure for this go. If you opt for Fiji instead of Hawai'i and skip Australia, there might be a
 pleasant cost savings on Air Pacific.

* If you're clever, you just noticed that I used the airport code for Sydney back there. Why yes, yes, I did. "But Brooke," you might posit "Australia is not actually part of New Zealand. Koalas v. Kiwi." Yeah, yeah, I know that. It's just that I desperately wanted to see Uluru and a brevicauda. Gonna have to settle for the Opera House (which I've wanted to see since I was quite little), cause a trip to Alice Springs is just way too much money and time to squeeze in this go, regardless of method of transport, and willingness to contort to ridiculous dimensions. I'm hoping maybe, just maybe, they'll have a brevicauda in the zoo, though it looks like I'll only have a frilled neck lizard for companionship. For marital dispute purposes, Sydney is *not* the capital of Australia, as anyone with better than mediocre geography coursework knows. However, like LAX, a heck of a lot of flights are rerouted through Sydney, so you might as well stop over and
 decompress if you're not on a tight schedule, or if you notice a ridonkulous 18hr layover on your schedule.

* You do want to do all of the cool pre conference stuff, don't you? I mean, if Joann jumped off a bridge, you would follow her, provided you were properly secured, yes? They _did_ spend a lot of effort drumming up cool things to keep the Americans busy, so you may as well get to where ye're gettin' early. After all, Hobbitses are wiley, and if you wanna see em, Joann scares them, so you'll need to go alone. You *definitely* want to take a roadtrip, ya? So be sure that you fly into Auckland, home of the nefarious JAFA, in time for the night of 22 October, if the Conference page is still to be believed. Also, meet the Mayor of Levin and tell him how super cool he is, as well as tell HLT how super cool they are for innovating. That's on 28th October. Hurry it up, wouldja? Joann needs to have headcounts and whatnot to confirm stuff for things.

         
       "Yeah, yeah. What's the bottom line?" 

       Fine, I'll tell you, but keep in mind it's for a highly customised, very, very squirrelly itinerary. For reals, Expedia was quite unhappy with me at least 3 times during my fidgeting with dates and departure points. There were cheaper, longer, and more expensive options to choose from. Also, do not swim for at least 3 hours after reading the bottom line.

       $1801 IAD>LAX>HNL>SYD>AKL then WLG>LAX>IAD. So that's there and back again between 14 October and 3 November, air and taxes only. If you want to know the precise dates for searching purposes, shoot me an off list email, and I'll hook you up with when I left from where. To sweeten the deal, I intend to buy at least one round at the local pub, and I've heard rumour that the beer is really, really quite good.

Cheers,
Brooke