Cash free

I'm on the road, sort of. After a one-night stay at the condo on High Ridge following my two weeks in Austin, my trusted AAUP executive director delivered me to CVG on Sunday. While the flight was uneventful there was one more wrinkle before I could get out of town. I had a beer and sandwich at Moe's in concourse A. I intended to pay with my debit card. The waitress slammed the card through the register and broke off a corner of it - taking with it part of the magnetic strip.

Ordinarily, this would only be annoying. In this case, however, it meant that I was leaving for four months in Europe within the hour and my main source of funds had just been destroyed. I quickly tried it in a PNC bank machine to confirm it would no longer work and then got on the phone to the bank. They can only send the card to my home address. I'm having my mail forwarded to the college so I'm trusting that one of my dear colleagues at Ray's Place will watch my mail and forward to me in Germany my new debit card.

Fortunately, I have enough Euros with me to pay the rent and survive for several weeks but after that ...

I'm currently at Eddleston Manor, which is what we've dubbed my relatives' house in England. It is not far west of London, near Reading. Today, we are planning a drive down to the south coast, perhaps Portsmouth, or toward Salisbury. We'll see.

I leave for Deutschland on Thursday.