Christopher Dyer Augustus

Hi,
I am soon going to be taking a trip to the east coast, and am planning on bringing my mountain bike with me. I have a couple of questions about this.

1) Does anyone in the Portland area have a hard case they would be willing to loan or rent to me for a modest fee, from October 12th to October 21st? If so, please get in touch at pigeon23@gmail.com. I'd be greatly appreciative.

2) How comfortable would you be going the cheapo route, and just flying with your bike in a cardboard bike box, assuming it was well packed with dropout spacers, lots of padding, etc.? Any truly nightmare experiences with this? Any words of advice to minimize potential mishandling by the baggage handlers?

3) Might I be best off just FedEx'ing it to my destination ahead of time, so that I can insure it? The JetBlue website has a disclaimer stating their lack of responsibility for lost or damaged luggage. That scares me a little. I don't imagine FedEx or UPS would necessarily treat it any better than an airline, but I would at least have recourse if something bad happened, no?