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Monday

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14
Mar 22

American Airlines is the worst thing in the American airspace

Subtitled: Finally, now finally, on our Spring Break 2020 (And this time we mean it) trip

We are in Mexico today. We are finally in Mexico. Just as of today. Should have been here on Saturday. But the journey to our sojourn was negatively impacted by forces beyond our control. In other words …

TL;DR — American Airlines is a terrible way to travel.

It starts like this. We booked this in 2019. Then Covid. We rescheduled twice, because Covid. We were supposed to fly Delta, as we often do, but they canceled this route because of Covid. So American Airlines became our only option to Cozumel. Months ago, American Airlines rescheduled the first flight out of Indy, to make it even earlier in the morning.

So we woke up at 4 a.m. to arrive at the airport to do airport things and got on our plane which couldn’t leave on time. There was a fuel door that wouldn’t close, you see. The ~~captain~~ pilot must leave the plane, study the problem, Google the panel code, call his mom’s neighbor’s uncle about it, and then request a repair team to come and bolt the panel shut.

Then, and this part is very true, the pilot comes over his comm system and says “Well, that’s done, but this plane has an awful lot of computers, so it’ll take a little time for us to get started and in the air.”

Gentle reader, dear friend, if an airplane pilot ever complains, or speaks aloud in wonder about the amount of electronics on his flying sky tube, disembark the vehicle immediately. This is simply good life advice.

Only, you see, there’s a script the pilot is using now. Sure you can get off the flying sky tube. Reschedule a flight. Who knows how that will go. And if you leave this flying sky tube you’re not getting back on this flying sky tube. Tricky door panels and all that.

So we stay on. We depart (very) late. We arrive in Dallas very late for our connection. And this is where the troubles began.

We landed, and waited and waited and waited for the plane to connect to the airport, because of personnel problems. Meantime, our connecting flight just … left. Left five minutes early, even.

What airline does that?

(Later — Note how that flight departed early and was still delayed in arriving? Should have been a red flag for everyone.)

So now we’re stuck in Dallas with nothing but our luggage and dreams. There are no more flights to Cozumel, on the Saturday of the first week of Spring Break for most of the US. There are flights to Cancun and, after standing in a line for many hours, we are on standby for each of them.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter the purgatory of ineptitude that is American Airlines, and the studied indifference and downright rudeness of their employees at Dallas-Fort Worth.

Also, that sign in the foreground? May as well be hieroglyphics out here in the real world. You wonder how long before some bored maintenance crew takes them all down at this point, and where the last tattered one will be.

We also spent hours on the phone, to no avail..

We finally arrived at a place euphemistically called Customer Service. We went here three times on Saturday, standing in exceedingly longer lines each time, to be told different stories, tall tales, excuses and downright lies. Six hours or more in this line alone, for lies.

It was well-staffed. If you like irony and travelers’ distress. I painted over the very young person standing here just in front of us to demonstrate the time when the eight-station desk, the one featuring hours-long waits with a line stretching beyond eyesight into the distance haze of the airport. It was staffed by exactly one American Airlines “professional.” At max capacity, there were three people working at that desk.

And dear and gentle reader, at this point I have written 651 words on this shambolic experience, giving you only the highest points. The details will be spelled out to the executives at American. (I found a helpful mailing list.) Suffice to say, to you, that you likely haven’t had the displeasure of dealing with customer service of this sort in a long, long time. The business model, on the phone and in the airport, and at every level, seems to be “Get these people out of my line and into someone else’s.” We spent an entire day and night at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport dealing with these miserable people. And they are miserable. They are angry, and they are angry at you. Do not dare inconvenience them with your inconvenience, no matter how polite or flustered. Also, they’re the ones getting paid to be at the airport today.

Finally we got a voucher for a hotel. We had to re-coordinate with our condo people, who have been amazing. We had to cancel dives. (This is a dive trip. You go to dive and do little else. Because of this airline we have lost 45 percent of our dives.)

We spent Sunday doing nothing in exotic Dallas. Spring Break! We did nothing because The Yankee had to go back to the DFW airport on a luggage journey, another quixotic four-hour tale. One of our bags got to Cozumel yesterday.

American Airlines: Where incompetence meets apathy, in the sky!

Hertz canceled our car reservation, another American Airline knock-on effects, so we also spent about four hours on the phone with American Express and Hertz trying to make this right.

Which brings us today, and the Cozumel airport, after we finally arrived two years, and then two-days, late.

The Yankee retrieved the piece of luggage that arrived yesterday without us (I’m impressed we got anything back from these yahoos) while I stood in the Hertz line, because, we were told, time was critical. The people in front of us at the little Hertz desk, no dice. This bodes well. That poor family was irate, but no carros means no cars.

Meant the same for us. The guy starts to explain it to me. I said, “Please stop, and thank you. But you’re going to have to explain it to her,” and about that time my lovely bride came back with our lost luggage and I stood well, well away, over at the Avis desk, where I got one of the last cars they had available. We previously had a week-long Hertz reservation for less than the daily rate of this Avis car, and American Airlines will get that bill, too. (And the two-night Dallas stay, and the three extra Uber rides. And another for missed dives. It’s going to be fun.)

To sum up: American Airlines is terrible, and by 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon Smith’s First Rule of Economics, “Don’t make it hard for me to spend my money with you,” was invoked.

If American Airlines is the only way to get to somewhere I need to be, I’ll go anywhere else but there.

But enough about that, for now.

We’re staying at a place called Residencias Reef. Let us sing their praises.

It is a nice oceanfront place. We rented a one-bedroom condo. The furnishings are fine and it is well appointed. There’s a note on the printer that says you can’t get these cartridges in Mexico, but some are due in from Estados Unidos this month. Had I known, I would have picked some up for them. It seemed necessary after seeing all of the things there. Need Gorilla Glue? Got it. Forget your beach reading? Two shelves worth. Fresh fruit? At the ready. Sun block? Bug spray? Right over here. Bikes? Paddles for the paddle boards? Of course. Dry bags? You bet.

They’ve been beyond patient and kind to us. As we’ve noted, this is our Spring Break 2020 trip. We postponed it at the 11th hour that because of the rapidly deteriorating Covid situation, wondering “Will they even let us back in the country at the end of the week?” (The next week the mercurial federal government supposedly shut the door to Europe and Canada, after all. And there was something about a wall?) The condo owners were very understanding in 2020. We were ready to make this trip last year, but then a Covid spike hit. They kindly let us postpone once more. But this, they said, was the last time.

It was more than you could ask for, really.

And then we had to write them Saturday and say “We’ll be there Monday, because American Airlines is terrible at their job.”

Residencias Reef has been great. If we come to Cozumel in the future, or steer anyone else here, it will always be with them in mind.

Also, they have two heated pools.

And we waded into the ocean, which was chilly.

Tomorrow, we dive!

Monday / photo / video — Comments Off
7
Mar 22

Standard issue Monday

I worked a full day, and just a day and that was great. I left my office at 5:16! This is the earliest I’d left in four weeks, I think. I slept about four hours last night, so, though there was day left, there was not much left in me.

But that’s OK, because the day was a success, for a Monday. Four meetings and all the To Do list items satisfactorily To Done.

So it’s an early night, and not a lot of extra stuff. But! This is a fun challenge. Do you know where you’re at? Give it a try. I’m going to answer one of these questions when I have the rare lull.

And I’m also listening to this podcast with Jon Stewart, which is interesting if you like the level of thoughtfulness of a Jon Stewart.

In other nonsense …

And we must also check in with the kitties, who are insistent that I follow The Rules and post them on the Correct Day. One of these cats is very demanding. I’ll let you decide which one.

I had a nice cuddle with Phoebe, who spent her time alternatively telling on her brother and sleeping.

Poseidon, sitting on his favorite warm spot, in total defiance of The Rules.

Phoebe knows where to go when it gets too cold.

And if Phoebe is there Poseidon wants to be under that same blanket, too. (Like that’s the only blanket.)

They can’t coexist in such a small place. We make them take turns, because we need other, better hobbies.

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28
Feb 22

It will be a light, long week here

The day started bright and sunny, and the week is trending that way, according to the forecasts. I will see it in the morning, and that’ll be about all I see of it this week. There’s a lot going on, and it’ll be lighter than usual here.

So almost non-existent?

If you want to be cynical about it, dear straw man construct.

What would be the point of inventing this dialogue, otherwise?

To pad the post with paragraph breaks and an empty construct?

Who’s being cynical now? And on Monday, even.

Exactly.

It was a day full of meetings, most of them over Zoom. I don’t know if you’ve been in a meeting where the person in every Zoom window simultaneously raised their eyebrows and watched 10 pairs of eyes get wide simultaneously, but that happened in my first meeting of the day.

Someone mentioned something about a specific deadline on a particular project which pushed things up considerably. No one else was familiar with this date. I consulted two notebooks and my batch of post it notes and saw no such date. We decided maybe the speaker had misspoken. Perhaps he was thinking of another deadline for another project, and another group of people. It would be understandable, everyone has more than one project.

One of my large projects will wrap this week. I’ve been producing a singing contest show. And my last meeting of the day was with the organizers of that event. We have the names of the contestants now. Eighteen will enter, 10 will advance to the finals. Fortunately, I do not have to produce the finals. I spent three-and-a-half hours on the semifinals this thing, going over details we should have well in hand by now. But at least some of them are in, so I can finally write the show’s rundown. Another meeting on this tomorrow, and more all week. At some point all of the music will come in. And the scripts. And the entire speaker’s list. At least I have a crew for the show.

We have hit none of the deadlines I established for this project. It will still be better organized than when we did this same event last year.

Here’s a show the students posted this weekend. I like the shows like this, where the crew working on it just seem to be having a ton of fun.

They, and their fellow IUSTV crews, will produce at least six studio shows this week. It’s a delight to watch them grow.

Anyway, I left the office at 7:30 tonight and, yes, I am keeping score.

Let’s check in on the cats, as we so often do on Mondays. Phoebe found some morning sun and proves once more that it’s a pretty good life to be a cat in this house.

Poseidon would agree, except I framed this so that his sister said it. So, to be difficult, he would probably find fault with that, and try to bite her. It’s a good thing he’s occasionally charming, I tell him, he can be a trying cat.

Not that you’d ever know it from handsome looks like that.

(I have to play this cool and dish out some compliments. He’s sitting next to me as I type this.)

adventures / cycling / Monday / photo / television / video — Comments Off
21
Feb 22

The third half of winter

It is about time I thought on my walk from the car to the building this morning, to see a fake signal. And as I walked by one of the little patches of soil that separates the parking lot from the sidewalk, I saw it. Right on time, just like every other year we’ve been here, trying to trick me.

Even though I misinterpret it (“Spring!”) I will not be tricked. We have more cold and some snow flurries and ice this week and who knows what else in the next … six or eight weeks.

He said with the world’s most predictable sigh.

But, hey, the days are getting longer. The coats are getting lighter. And the cold is, for now, a bit milder.

This was the sun on our walk yesterday. I was only wearing a medium-weight coat.

And here are two more pictures from that walk, because I am fascinated by the idea that so many things look better in real life than they do in photographs. For instance, this sycamore is really popping in the late-day sun. And, yet …

Same with this tree, which I think is just dead. The sun is playful, the limbs are colorful, but the photographic result leaves something to be desired.

You know what else leaves something to be desired? My ability to keep things up-to-date. This show is from Wednesday night and went online Thursday and I forgot to post it here. Shame on me.

And here’s the talk show, where they focused on baseball and softball.

Which brings us to today, and here are the shows the entertainment division released today. And it seems like the late night show was evicted after a troublesome conclusion to their last episode.

That show continues to evolve in the most fascinating ways. One day they’re going to invent their own genre, I’m pretty sure.

And here’s the morning show, a production which I missed entirely, unfortunately.

I walked in from a meeting just as the students were breaking down the studio. And I am lesser for it. Watch it now, and you will be justly enriched.

I tried a new Zwift route on Saturday. I quickly regretted it. But at least I got a nice shot of my avatar in an aerotuck.

It was one of the fictional routes, and required a lot of climbing which I am clearly not good at or prepared for. But at the end of it all there’s a map. This is always amusing to me. It’s a fictional route. This is a real island in the South Pacific.

Two islands, actually. I mentioned one of them, Teanu, which is the bulk of the route you see in the graphic above, last Monday. But that part where it dips south, is Vanikoro. Apparently about 1,300 people live there, two distinct groups, in different villages, but you can’t see much from Google Maps.

Google Reviews, though … someone wrote “There is no TV 3 stars.”

That settles it for me.

cycling / history / journalism / Monday — Comments Off
14
Feb 22

Happy Valentine’s Day

I finally got to try my new bike shoes this weekend. To recap, I bought these on Monday …

And I decided on Monday evening, to my great frustration, that I needed to get new cleats. The gray ones you see here are the old ones. The new ones are black and yellow. They arrived on Thursday, I think, and I installed them and, most importantly, they clipped in properly to my pedals. I do not understand the old problem. The problem has been corrected, I have moved on.

So, yesterday, I got to do this.

And I went faster than I’ve ever gone on that particular course. Two loops, felt easy. It must be the shoes. (Probably it was a lot of rest in my legs.)

These are the earlier model and, thus, less expensive version of the Torch line. The 2.0 cost about $50 more and boast a stiffer carbon sole — meaning a more efficient power transfer. Surely that doesn’t apply to a duffer like me.

But it felt yesterday like it might apply. I’ll try to keep that in mind in 10,000 miles or so.

Anyway, the fictional place I rode was not over the ocean. The islet Zwift uses is in the Solomons. There is one village there, the internet tells me, but no roads.

I wonder if I can talk my lovely bride into a Valentine’s Day ride.

Let’s go back 50 years and down to Selma. It’s the Times Journal, which traces its origins back to 1827. Started life as the Courier, had its press burned during the Civil War, later through a series of mergers it became the Times Messenger, then the Times-Argus, the Selma Times and the Morning Times. Then, in 1920, the paper merged with the Selma Journal to become the Selma Times-Journal, a historically great local paper. Let’s see what was happening in 1972.

Coal strike in Britain was shutting down about eight million jobs. Bombings in Belfast, Nixon prepping for his historic trip to China, and a few bussing stories make the front page next to that rather anonymous standalone Valentine.

Oh, isn’t this a sweet photo on page three.

They did not last. John died in Illinois, in 2008, and was survived by another wife, who he’d only recently married. Carolyn died in south Alabama in 2006 and was also survived by another husband. That man, who doesn’t figure into this newspaper at all, helped design the plaque placed on the moon in 1969. (Her widower died just last year.) But the two above did, perhaps, get married. The names of surviving children in their obituaries match.

The first woman to graduate from AU in building construction.

She passed away last month. In her working life she contributed to projects at Florida Southern College; the University of Florida; the Cathedral of St. Luke in Orlando and Disney World. It’s no small thing to have your work create something people will value long after you’re gone.

An inside editorial.

Good. I’m glad we fixed that.

Oh, this is just lovely. Mom had never been able to cheer him on in a college game, and she surprised him here. He posted 22 points and 15 boards that night.

Nate earned two masters degrees, was a chaplain in the Air Force, worked his way up to becoming Col. Nate Crawford, retiring to Florida in 2006. He’s still down there, as far as I can tell. One of his sons went to the same military academy a generation later.

A half-page double truck ad that starts on page six.

This is 1972, but forced air wasn’t a mystery. How should you use your heater? Turn the heat up until you’re comfortable. Note the temperature on the thermostat. Repeat as needed.

Oh, on the next page:

I grew up with Louie the Lightning Bug (he was developed in 1983, and I had a sweeeeeet glow-in-the-dark Louie shirt.) And though I know of Reddy Kilowatt historically, I was a bit startled to see him here, in 1972. Turns out he declined in usage in the 70s and after. Fuel shortages hurt the mascots first, it seems.

Finally, on the back page.

Happy Valentine’s Day!