Current mood:	ecstatic
Current music:	"You're Beautiful" - James Blunt

Are You Ready For A Surprise?
I'm going to Tokyo.

Wait a minute. Let's try that again...

I'M GOING TO TOKYO!!! YEEEEEE-HAAAA!!!!

Okay, I've had my moment. I'll go back to normal now.

This was absolutely not planned, folks - it just kinda dropped into my lap. Things just happened to work out really well - almost as if it were fate, even. So let's go back to where it all began.

It's the end of the NFFC Convention last July. There's one last opportunity drawing at the end of the Convention - a tour of the Archives and lunch at the Rotunda with Dave Smith. I bought about 5 bucks worth of tickets, and, figuring I had no chance to win as usual, I marked the back of the ticket with my name and the line "Yes, that Paul." Wouldn't you know it - the one time I decide to be a smart-ass when I enter a drawing and my ticket gets pulled. Needless to say, my beloved Blondie and I are thrilled.

Fast forward a few months. We have to settle on a date and invite a couple of guests. Blondie and I choose a really nice couple we know from two of the local NFFC chapters. They're flattered at our invitation and they agree to join us, even though they're going to be flying out to Tokyo on a trip the following day.

Fast forward again to last week. I get a phone call from the friend I invited. My first thought is that he and his wife will have to cancel on the trip to the Archives. Not quite.
It seems my friend's wife can't get time off from work. I'll be responsible for my airfare, a small portion of the hotel room we'll share, and my expenses in Japan. Would I like to go with him to Tokyo?

Would I like to go? Dude, I've been wanting to go to Tokyo Disneyland since... well, for quite a while. Every time I've tried, the finances and/or the timing have never worked out. Well, my friend's offer makes the money part more or less reasonable, but I just know I'll never get the time off from work. I'm in the middle of training a couple of new employees, I'll never find someone to cover for me, and I'll be on the verge of changing jobs, so nobody will ever approve it. Figuring I've got nothing to lose, I start talking to people at the office.

According to the training schedule, the trainees will be off most of the week I'll be gone. The supervisor, who's a friend of mine, and the interim office manager, who I know pretty well from his last job, both agree to cover for me for the couple of days the trainees will be in class. Everybody up the food chain has been so pleased with my job performance and my willingness to take on the new job that they're willing to cut me loose for a week.

Okay, one possible obstacle left. My beloved Blondie will be in town. She's already had to put up with my being gone for almost two weeks in November while I went on a 40th birthday cruise and WDW trip with Mom. She's not going to be really happy about this, I'm sure. This trip's not worth Blondie hating me for a long while, so if she says no, I'm not going.

I talk to Blondie and she reminds me once again why she's such a wonderful woman and I'm so lucky to have her. She'd love to go with me, but she doesn't have the money; she knows how much it means to me, though, and she's willing to let me go - provided I scope out everything for her to see if she'll like it, so maybe we can go together for TDL's 30th in 2013.

Guess what? We're out of obstacles! It looks like this is actually going to happen.

There's still a lot that need to get done, but things are slowly coming along; barring any unforeseen disasters, in about seven weeks, I'll be on my way to Japan.

Funny how things work out some times, isn't it?