I'll Be Home For the Holidays...

Yesterday Tracy and I got my flight booked to return to the Twin Cities over the holidays. I'm flying out of San Diego on Tuesday, Dec. 23 and will be in town through New Years before we road trip it back to SoCal.

We had a little difficulty finding a reasonable one-way flight, but Sun Country turned out to be the best option. It was interesting watching the price of the flight change from one hour to the next. Originally, I wanted to fly home at 4:45 p.m. so I could get in a full day of work, but that flight went up $125 during the same day. It started at $219 and is now over $400, even with 70 open seats. We were going to book it when we first saw it at $219, but I wanted to wait 12 hours for payday ... bad idea.

The early 9:45 a.m. flight at that point was $145, but I was holding out to try and save a vacation day by flying at 4:45 p.m. Not to mention I have to work this weekend to stay caught up, so missing an additional day in the office isn't the best idea right now. At any rate, we played the game of watching the fares bounce around and decided to jump on the $219 early flight before it got too expensive. Three hours later, Tracy checked the price again on that flight and it was $269. If somebody knows how or why fares bounce around so much, fill me in.

Christmas Party Tonight, Renting House Tommorow

I have my work X-mas party at South Coast Winery tonight and free drinks are slated for the first three hours. This could definitely get interesting. Our sales managers are all in town and look to be pretty thirsty. South Coast Winery in Temecula was distinguished as the best California winery in 2008 so it should be classy. Well, for the first two hours at least.

Tomorrow my house goes up for rent: $1450 w/ sewer, garbage, water included, no pets. My real estate agent is graciously listing it and helping me rent it for free. Steve and Jean have done everything imaginable to sell my house and I highly recommend using their services if you ever look to sell your place in the Twin Cities. I'll re-list with them once I decide to sell again. This market is really out of their and my control. There have only been two houses sold in Robbinsdale in the last 30 days within $50k of my house and both were foreclosures at $165k. Not what you call a good market!

Off to be a wine snob.