For escrow, John K would be okay with me, but I think I would prefer to try out
https://www.bitrated.com/. It's not exactly escrow, but it serves the same purpose, and serves it better. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm excited about what it promises. But again, as I said, John K is fine with me.
I think the way it would work if we use John K is that I send John K 1.5 BTC, then when the miner arrives and I verify that it is actually a November Jupiter, I will pay you 13.5 BTC and we will both send a message to John K asking him to release the remaining 1.5 BTC to you. I suppose I could also pay you 15 BTC and ask him to release the 1.5 to me; it doesn't really matter. If we tell the escrower in advance what time we expect the transaction to take place, I think he should be able to respond quickly and release the funds within an hour or two. I've read that John K has been a bit busy (finals, or something) and less responsive recently, though, so maybe another escrower would be better. Maybe finals are over for him. Don't know. We could ask.
If we used bitrated/m-of-n, we wouldn't need to wait for John K or anyone else, since your sig plus my sig would be enough to release the 1.5 BTC into your address (or mine). Bitrated's arbitrator only needs to act in case the two of us can't agree on what should be done with the 1.5 BTC deposit, in which case the arbitrator and one of us would need to agree on what to do with it. (2 of 3 signatures required.)
I'm not sure what I would do about the return flight. I think I would probably hold off on booking it until the miner arrived. There's a good flight that leaves at 1:35 pm on Thursday, so if we could catch that, it would be great. Otherwise, I'd probably spend the night in Cin city, and try to find somewhere (motel?) where I could plug the miner in and run it while waiting for my flight.
By the way, do you have a power supply for the miner? They ship without one, right?
