Film Friday – Oak and Maple Pizza Peel Build

My Father-in-Law, The Chatty Buddha,  wanted me to make him a pizza peel and while I have built cutting boards and boat paddles, I hadn’t yet made a peel. I agreed, sourced the lumber from a local salvege store. It used to be flooring, but after some magic with the table saw, jointer, some glue, and a hand plane or three – he has a pizza peel that I gave to him for Christmas.  I hope to be enjoying pizza from it for years to come.

People Suck

I went out to the car this morning to head into work and something was off: glove box open, center console open… fuck… our car was prowled. The only thing missing were my 14 year old Oakley prescription sunglasses. Seriously!? They are useless to anyone without nearsightedness, a stronger prescription in the left eye, and a double astigmatism. Some asshat woke up today at noon after a hard night of car prowls and probable raccoon-raping, put my sunglasses on, and I am sure promptly threw them away.

Since I have nothing better to do with my hard-earned pay, I will have to get a new set this week and take them to the optometrist for a prescription. It should be super-cheap

I hate thieving little bastards.

Car Lift and Jeep CJ-7 Saga/Search/Information

Before putting 4000 pounds of 31 year old Toledo steel above my head for the first time I really needed the correct locations for a 2-post-lift pad placement points on a CJ-7.  I like who I am and I have some plans for the next 30 years or so and really didn’t not want to be that guy who squashed himself in his own garage.  It happens.

lift fail 1Lift fail 2lift fail 3

 

 

 

 

I have seen two jeeps on their sides at dealerships after falling off lifts, countless other lift fails, and have seen CJs put up in the air at least four different ways.  I have had a couple of cars in the air since building the garage, referencing their owner manuals for lift placement, but not the Jeep yet. Again, I didn’t want to be the guy that drops his 4X4 pride off the lift in his own garage. I started doing a little research and asking questions.

After a fairly fruitless internet Search, I called the company that built my lift (it is a Rotary Revolution RPT10) and they referred me to The American Lift Institute (ALI) manual that came with the lift. The 2016 version of the manual only goes back to 1991 for most vehicles and when I called them, there was no answer that they could give me. They referred me to “a local Jeep dealer.”

I dropped in the one nearest the house and there was not an “old-guy consensus” on how to life a CJ: on the frame behind the shackle mounts, on the shackles, on the spring plates, on the axles, etc… My Chilton and Hayes manuals have nothing and I am still trying to source a good 1986 Service Manual (can’t find anything in the downloaded ’82) and would love an original Owners manual. I went by a 4X4 shop a bit ago and the tech there said “lift it on the shackles…” and posed it as sort of a question.  I walked away swiftly.

So, relying on Cunningham’s Law, I asked the internet via the JeepForum if anyone had some documentation on where to apply the lift arms/pads on a CJ-7 frame and where the balance point/center of gravity of the vehicle was to put in-line with the lift posts?  I got some helpful suggestions and a couple answers that were on the edge of trolling, but the general consensus from CJ owners and mechanics on the forum was to follow the guidelines for the 1991 Jeep Wrangler and their frames, suspension, and balance points are very similar: The lift pads are placed under the frame (centered on the pads), directly adjacent to spring hangers/shackles. Sounded reasonable and plausible, so I decided to go with that.  The balance point/CoG is between my dash and the bottom of the steering wheel and that point goes on center between the two posts of my symmetrical lift.

I went ahead a couple weekends ago and decided to put it up and do a little general maintenance.  After everything checked out – raising the Jeep 6″ off the ground and giving it a serious shake on all 4 corners, raising it up and down a few times, I spent 30 minute for full oil and filter change. I lubed all the zert points on the drive-line and chassis while I was there.  No squashing or falling Jeeps. 🙂
Matt Talley_Lift location_CJ7_Jeep_2017

Matt Talley CJ Lift points (1)

Matt Talley CJ Lift points (2)

Matt Talley CJ Lift points (3)

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Matt Talley Changing oil_07-2017 Jeep (2)

Not so short contractor rant

We are so close to being done with the garage and the house (yard is still a disaster, which will have to wait ‘til next year, but the stress of dealing with crappy, disorganized, and/or no show contractors throughout this process has been and is so frustrating.  This is not a post to rail on all contractors or even all of our contractors…

We had same great ones:

  1. Maranatha Hardwood Floors showed up on time for the quote. The owner was personable and the quote was reasonable.  They showed up on time, did a beautiful job, listened to a specific request from my wife, there were no extra charges, cleaned up after themselves, and our floor looks great.
  2. RCS Fire Place was A-1: On time, good pricing, no add-on charges, etc…
  3. After an initial sales rep flub, Greenwood Heating & Air did a nice job on our heat pump. Very professional installers.  No complaints.
  4. Vehicle Equipment Solutions was awesome on the lift order and install. I couldn’t be happier with their work.
  5. Our Drywall guys were top notch.  Very professional, great price, showed up when they were supposed to and finished right on time.
  6. The carpet guys that did our bedroom were fast, professional, and did a nice job.
  7. I had some custom wrought iron brackets made and the blacksmith listen to our wants and delivered a beautiful product.
  8. Pacific RIM equipment rental was great in supplying heavy equipment for the garage tear out and site prep. When there was a breakdown, they delivered a new machine and I wasn’t charged for any gas use for the entire weekend.
  9. Bryan at Squak Box was a rock star when it came time to haul out the debris from the old garage and all the old concrete. On time, no hidden costs, dropped the containers perfectly.  Couldn’t ask for more.

And the not so great:

My garage contractor has now quit.  There is little I can do at this point besides shake my head in wonder and disgust.  It has been a bumpy road from almost the start, but I figured that with a little bit of work it would all be OK.  A bit of work turned into a part time job and time spent on the garage was time not spent on the house and that made Stamps-With-Foot grumble.  In addition to the garage tear down and the site preparation that had to be done (40+ hours of my time and ~$3000.  I had to do 4-5 hours of slab/rebar prep when the contractor’s guy messed up, then had to ask for poly burlap to cure the slab, apparently not standard.  I ended up keeping the slab wet for the entire 10-day cure (to limit cracking and allow it to fully harden, then apply the concrete densifier after my normal workday and the end of the cure process.

Installation of fire blocking isn’t required per code in Seattle for a wall less than 10’, but it is the right thing to do.  It was out of scope for the contractor and an additional cost, so The Ruminator and I ended up doing it while he was here on summer vacation.  I had to install two forgotten kicker studs, tighten missed/forgotten anchor bolt nuts, added nails to the hurricane straps, and had to go over punch list items twice before they were addressed.

The windows and door trim were installed incorrectly – I could see daylight in the corners of the windows and I asked that they be re-installed.  When that was being done, my siding got cracked.  I also found that instead of every 16” per code, the siding was nailed every 4’ in some locations.  I called and the foreman came out.  He addressed some issues but caused others.  I then called the owner and he came out.  He agreed with every point I had.  They crew came back and while some items were fixed, others were not and new problems popped up.  I let the owner know and this was his response:

“Unfortunately we’ve succeeded in messing up again.  ____ had no excuse for why he didn’t read my email, about taking the siding out from the bottom of the windows, and what they were thinking with the screws into the bottom of the fascia’s.  If they’d pre-drilled the holes it would have worked and been clean.

I don’t have anyone else in my employee who I could send down to make any corrections, and I don’t think you would trust anyone I sent to do any more work.  What I’d like to offer is to forego our final payment and let  you clean up any items by your self.  I don’t like doing this, I really want to get the job done for  you but we’ve already had three try’s.  I know you might not be as happy as you should be but I want to at least make you satisfied with _____________.”

I am not happy and while I agree that I don’t trust his guys to come back a third time, the keeping of a few hundred bucks does not make it all better.  Now, I either have to find and pay someone else or do it myself.  Frustrating.

I have looked at this.  Am I just an asshole?  Am I too picky or do I expect too much?  I really have looked at this hard and yes, I can be an asshole,  but not in this and not with a single contractor or tradesman on my site.  We provided lunches, Gator-aid, and beer for all the guys working, I talked to every contractor that has been on our property like I would want to be spoken to, If I wanted something different or changed, I addressed it right then by ASKING and wasn’t the least bit of a shit about it.  I cleaned up the job site in the afternoons after I got off work to save them all time and effort.

Is needing someone to stick to a schedule, be on time, and not halfway do something too particular?  I don’t think so.  Is asking that a contractor meet minimum code requirements, pull permits, and do the job they agreed to for the agreed to price crazy?  apparently so.

Other issues:

In addition to the plumbing circus that we had in the spring, we had a carpentry crew that abandoned us for a job where the other customer was screaming louder.  They left tools, work unfinished, material, you name it.   My electrician has been a little flakey – uncashed checks, no shows, showing up unannounced and unscheduled, really hard to get a hold of, etc., but at least this one hasn’t broken into our house while we were gone…  I have had 3 contractors come out for quotes on our basement bathroom tile and never heard from two of them again.  The third guy finally called me back and said the job was just way too small and “not worth the time it would take to set up his wet-saw.”

I get it, all the contractors in Seattle are busier than a puppy with two peckers.  That means that 1. they can be super picky, 2. charge what they want, 3. if they fuck up, no worries, there are three other jobs waiting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Productive weekend with Heavy Equipment – The Old Garage is Down!

Super Productive weekend!  The old garage came crashing down at about 9:00am on Saturday.  All it took was a little push with the forklift at the peak of the roof (I rented an extension boom forklift and a jack-hammer to assist with the garage and old slab destruction)  I didn’t take out any fences or cars, but one of our recycling cans took a beating.  Within 3 hours it was all loaded into a debris dumpster that I had dropped Friday morning.

The forklift was a little manky to start and keep running.  I would overload the hydraulics just a touch and instead of straining, it would die and take 3-5 minutes to restart.  The rental company was supposed to bring another one out, but we kept waiting and waiting and just making do as we whittled away at the slab and footing with the jackhammer and forks.  While the garage demo was a breeze, the slab was something else altogether.  It was super tough, full of quarter-sized aggregate, and 6 inches thick.  The footing was +16” deep.  I was impressed – I thought it was just some concrete poured over dirt like our basement slab.  Nope, this stuff was WAY overbuilt for the tiny carriage house.  I could had parked a tank on this thing and it would have been just fine.

With the slab about ¼ split and loaded into a second dumpster, the forklift finally died.  After a couple of calls, the rental company brought me a free 18000lb rated track-hoe with a bucket thumb and a pusher blade!!! That translated into an adult sized Tonka toy for my yard.  It was 5:30 or so by the time the track hoe was off loaded, so after demonstrating that I wouldn’t run it into a power pole, I parked it and work in the house a little.  I try to be a good neighbor and running heavy equipment while it is dinner time in a neighborhood does not endear you to others.

I was up and at it at 8:00 the next morning and the second piece of equipment was so sweet and made the tear out and load go so much faster than I expected! However, it is apparently not a normal occurrence to have a piece of heavy equipment spinning, grunting, working in my little neighborhood.  I one point I looked over and I have 5 neighbors standing in the shade of a neighbor’s garage, drinking beer and watching me demo.  When I took a potty break, one asked me if I could break something to make it more interesting.  Son of a…  They had gathered to watch me wreak havoc and as it did not ensue, were somewhat disappointed in me.

After five hours on the track hoe the garage, the whole slab, footings, three tree stumps, and four posts that were set in concrete were loaded and ready for transport.  All our water lines, fences, and overhead electrical lines were still intact so it was a successful second and final day of garage demo. My back yard is now a flat spot of dirt and is waiting for a new garage slab.

After playing in the yard for most of the day, Stamps-With-Foot and I went into Seattle and bought all the paint (Benjamin Moore only thank you very much) for the house interior and new fixtures and lights for the main floor bathroom and the laundry room sink.  I then cut and installed the new bathroom vanity on the main floor and did a little electrical work in the basement. It was then shower and night-night time, because I have a regular J-O-B to go to every morning.

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Let down by an online tool seller with GIANT balls.

So, I am a little tweaked… I got a small bonus at work and sent a little money to my mom and daughter, got something for my wife, paid to have a tree taken out, sent Heifer and MSF some funds, paid off my last student loan (FREEDOM!!), put a little money back for a rainy day, and with the last bit decided to do a little something small just for me: I bought a few beech molding planes and 3 mortise chisels from a guy with a web store in the Scotland. I will call him UK Tool Guy. I have bought twice from him before and it all went really smooth and my purchases were exactly as expected. I bought a toothing plane from him at a good price that was in perfect working order and arrived exactly as pictured on his site.

My experience this time around was different. The order part was normal, but when I received my stuff it was all kinds of wrong. Painted parts, broken pieces, condition received was NOT as advertised, etc… I spent 4 hours cleaning and fixing and will have to spend another 4-5 repairing 2 chisels and 2 of the planes. 8-9 hours is a lot of time to unexpectedly fix stuff that I just bought. I am not super-important in the grand scheme of things, but my time is worth something to me.

Anyway, I took a few pictures and wrote the guy to let him know about the issues, asking about the possibility of some remuneration. He sends me back a mail offering me a little credit instead of a refund. I take him up on it, not knowing what the shipping will be I choose a couple of items from his web store that equals to less than £50 (~$78) that he offered up. I think my time and frustration was worth more, but I didn’t press the point.

He sent me a response that informed me that I had gone over budget and that he would “…let me off for now…” Seriously‽‽ Was this guy born with an extra set of balls? This is the third time I have done business with him. I check his site regularly for stuff I am looking for – I am even on his MF mailing list. The bottom line is that I got an unexpected crappy deal, I was gracious and completely undemanding and he will “…let me off for now…”. It took over three weeks for him to send the stuff two new items out. So much for the “Shortly” time frame he referenced in his last mail. I believe that this is the last time I will be doing business with the UK Tool Guy

For the sake of Transparency, I have included the whole chain I sent below – only deleting names and contact info.
___________________________________________________________________________
Hi Matt

Thanks for your response.
Those two items actually come to £63.50 with postage which is a bit over
£50 but I’ll let you off for now, we can maybe adjust slightly with any
future order. I will get these off to you shortly.

THANKS

> On 17 March 2015 at 11:20, drivenoutside wrote:

Hi _____,

Sorry, I didn’t mean to come off as someone that can’t be pleased. It is
not that at all and my two previous purchases were really spot on.

Thank you for your immediate response and offer for credit. I would love
to have the boxwood rule and the upholstery hammer if you are OK with that.

Thank you and regards,
Matt

> On March 16, 2015 at 4:18 AM UK Tool Guy wrote:

Hi Matt

Thanks for your e-mail and I am sorry you had so much to complain about.
Not that it is an excuse on my part but I have a funny feeling I didn’t
pack your order up as otherwise I would have picked up on some if not all
of these points as I check everything properly when I am packing it. I
understand your frustrations when you get something that is not quite what
you were expecting and once again I am sorry for this. Rather than
refunding you some monies why don’t you instead have a look at the site and
see if there is something there around the £50 mark including postage that
you might like FREE. If there is just drop me an e-mail with the product
number so I can remove it off the site and send it over to you.

THANKS

> On 15 March 2015 at 20:36, drivenoutside wrote:

Hi _____,

I received the molding planes and chisels a couple of weeks ago, but as I
travel a good bit for work, I just this weekend had the time to open the
packaging up and take a look. What I found was a little surprising as I
have ordered a couple of planes from you before and condition was spot on
as advertised. I did not expect like-new condition as some of this
material is over 200 years old, but some of it was not as stated.

Two of the collars on the sash chisels are cracked, one completely. I am
going to have to tear them apart and replace the collars. I guess I will
either see if I can source from Marples or turn down some brass stock on
the lathe.

I spent most of yesterday flattening, polishing, sharpening, and oiling
the plane blades. There is a good deal of pitting on some of them and I
will need to replace two. Most of the plane bodies were fine, but the #12
was painted red and the #16 had a screw holding a crack in the body
together. I drilled it, filled with hide glue and inserted a beech dowel.
The #1 round’s wedge is cracked in half and has been glued back together
by a previous owner. I am going to have to make a copy of it and replace.
When I unwrapped the #9 there was wood worm in the packaging. Not just old
holes, but a live worm in the plastic. There was damage to the plane and
the wedge. I took the whole lot to our local vet and had her x-ray the box
4 times. It is a Luthier’s trick and it kills any worm/moth larva.

Take a look at the attached pictures and let me know what you think and if
you think it is fair to refund me a little of the purchase price and
shipping.

Thanks,

Matt

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On 23 February 2015 at 15:51, drivenoutside wrote:

Hi _____,

The ship to address is: __________
My phone number is: ___________

Please send me the tracking number so that if there is a problem with the
shipper or customs, I can call right away

Thank you again,
Matt

——– Original message ——–
From: UK Tool Guy
Date:02/22/2015 2:30 PM (GMT+02:00)
To: Driven Outside
Cc:
Subject: Re: Tool Order

Hi Matt

Just written out your invoice for the tools ordered. The grand total
including postage comes to £metric shit-ton. An invoice / receipt will be included with the tools. I’m in the shop today until 4:30pm if you want to ring with card details for payment.

MANY THANKS

Small job for the neighbors

Just finished a curio cabinet rework/repair for my next-door neighbor. It was the husband’s parents and as best as I can tell/find it is from 1910ish. It was really well made and a fine piece of small furniture to display dolls, tea cups, and such. At some point, 2 shelves were added and the corner trim blocks were lost. I turned some 7/8″ X 7/8″ X 3/8″ blocks down, and added rosettes with a skew chisel point. As my neighbor was handing me the cabinet to install the blocks, he also asked that I put in a third shelf. OK… I used an old fruit crate bottom for the shelf material and planed it down a touch to match the thickness of the other two. I then cleaned up the front edge of one of the “original: shelves so it matched the other and the new.

After the repair and rework, I mixed and fiddled with 3 different stains I had to color match the original finish; I didn’t want the rosettes looking out of place. After touching-up all the dings and scrapes, I added an oil finish and 2 coats of wax. It only took 10 minutes or so to buff it up to a high shine.

I took it over to his wife Monday morning and she was thrilled at the transformation. The Talley motto (at least my house-hold) is “Be Helpful when you can” and I feel this qualifies. I am glad I could do this little thing for them and hope they continue to use it and pass it to their kids.

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Rosettes for neighbor

Film Friday – A strait-razor shave

I do love a strait-razor shave and I try to have one every year on my birthday. It makes me feel pampered and clean and is something worth savoring and enjoying. I have a couple of my own razors (one VERY nice Sweeney Todd-ish feather of silver and steel), a strop, conditioner, etc…, but doing it yourself is just not the same: There is no hot towel, no inappropriate politically-incorrect barber shoppe banter, no scalp massage, and a complete lack of aftershave. Nope, every grown man should treat himself to a strait-razor shave now and then.

Our Stolen Puppy – found!!

My wife ran into our local pharmacy to get a prescription and when she came out our car and an SUV next to us had been broken into.  The other party had a gym bag stolen and our GPS and iPod were left alone, but they TOOK OUR DOG!!! My wife was inconsolable! All she could do was sob and sob. Brodie is a huge member of the family – I think my brother-in-law is plotting to off us so he can inheret him. My mother walks him every day. My wife’s father – The Chatty Buddha – treats him like a grandchild. Really, really: gifts at christmas and a dog-related comic hung at dog-bowl level in his home, which is 5 hours away and there “for when Brodie visits.” my friends talk about him like they party with the little guy on weekends and pet/scratch him before saying ‘boo’ to either of us when they come over. Vacations and dates are planned around this dog’s schedule. His theft was a serious kick in the gut. I wanted to do the people that took him some serious harm… Perminant limp sort of harm and my balling pacifist wife was all for it.

We rescued Brodie through Bulldog Haven NW after he was deemed unadoptable for medical reasons and was slated to be put down.  We nursed him back to health and he has been happy with us for almost three years. He is the best dog that either of us has ever had. We prayed that whoever took him was keeping him warm and safe and that we would get him back soon.

The minute we got home, we got online and on the phones to the vets in our area, his microchip company, we posted on the west seattle blog and the lady who runs BHNW jumped on craigslist minutes after our call to her. One of Laurel’s dear friends (Natalie) came over and helped man the phones, calm Laurel down, and she drove around with us looking for him until well after dark. There was huge Facebook traffic on this, with cross posts and more than 250 comments. Brodie’s abduction made it all the way to the Boeing Intraweb and there was a blip on the King 5 News site (since taken down). We printed over a hundred flyers and I rode one of my bikes around the neighborhood taping/stapling reward posters everywhere.

Brodie was found about a mile from Walgreens, huddled beside the recycling can, cold and wet, but safe. The guy that found him called the phone number on his tag around 8:00, as we were headed to get a quick bite to eat. I whipped my POS truck around and sped there. He didnt know about the reward we offered, but he will get every penny of it – There are good people in the world!

Brodie and his mother were super tired form his ordeal today. They fell asleep snuggling on the couch about 9:00. This weekend has officially been declared “whateverBrodiewants Fest” and there will be bacon for breakfest, buffalo snacks, hot yummy beef dinner, and more cuddling than he can stand.

We are glad to have him homeland cannot thank our friends, neighbors, and everyone involved enough. THANK YOU!!

A deal down at the crossroads…

My boy, like much of his generation, is not a letter writer. While talking to The Ruminator about why he hadn’t sent out a couple ‘Thank You‘ notes, he gave me the – ‘I don’t have any cards and I have bad handwriting’ – story.  I made a deal with him:  I would make him some stationary and cards with zombies on them if he both promised to use them for the aforementioned note of ‘thanks’ and if he would write me one letter a month for two years.  I told him that penmanship, content, punctuation, and spelling didn’t matter.  I just wanted one honest letter a month.   He loves “killing” zombies and so he was in!  I made him shake on it.  To drive the point home, I drew up the little contract below for him to sign, putting Christmas and birthday presents on the line for failure to live up to the deal, and made sure Santa witnessed it as well.

Quality stationary means quality paper.  Like with my own and Stamps-With-Foot’s Stationary – instead of the white recycled paper that we use for most printing, I used 30gram 100% cotton ivory/ecru paper and matching 100% cotton envelops.   I went into Adobe Illustrator and made a green zombie head Victorian silhouette from an image that I pulled of the inter-webs.

I worked on it for 3-4 hours and stayed up late putting it all together.  I had a surprise trip to the UAE come up, so I asked Stamps-With-Foot to send The Ruminator his stationary.  I even included an organizer and special pen for him to compose his prose with.  I called his house the day it all arrived and got an butt-chewing from his mother about how crappy it was to make a 10 year old sign a contract and expect him to write me once a month.  She was not amused and missed the whole spirit and reason it was all done in the first place.  I doubt that I will be getting a letter and no notes will be sent out.  My son will learn that he doesn’t have to keep his word and that not all manners are important…  Exactly the opposite lesson that I was trying to teach him.  We shall see how it all turns out…

My wife’s badass personal stationary

I have always felt that you don’t truly possess a house until either miscellaneous charities start sending you mounds of address labels in the hopes of a donation or until you have personal stationary with your home address.  My sweet little wife has never had custom stationary and I figured that it was about time and it would give me the opportunity to spoil her a little.

Having a print shop or a high-end paper store design and print say 100 letter sheets, envelopes and thank you cards will run you about $500.  Buying a hand letterpress, a couple sets of tin/lead font, paper, ink, new rollers, etc. will set you back $1000, easy.  I am way too cheap and too handy to fork out that kind of dough for something I can do myself.

Stamps-With-Foot loves her puppy like the Pope loves Jesus.  I thought that his handsome mug would make the perfect personal seal for her.  I took a picture of him and through the voodoo of Photoshop, I made a black silhouette image – all big ears and narrow butt.  I dropped that image into AutoCAD and did some arranging and formatting.  I added to that her contact information in a semi-french script font that I designed a few years ago for my own letters and cards.

Quality stationary means quality paper.  Instead of the white recycled paper that we use for most printing, I bought a pack of 30gram 100% cotton ivory/ecru paper and matching 100% cotton envelops.  Wood pulp paper yellows and crumbles after only a few years, but cotton paper with last roughly a year per percent of cotton before showing any signs of age: 25% cotton = 25 years, 50% = 50 years and so forth.  After some diligent searching, I found some indelible archival printer ink on the inter-webs for our HP and I loaded each sheet and envelope into the printer by hand.  A note from my bride should be as crisp and clean for our great grand children to read as it was the day she sat down to write it with her glass dip pen and brown bulletproof ink.

She swooned a little bit when I gave it all to her 🙂

Hipsters on a plane

I was fortunate enough to share a seat row on a flight from Chicago to Seattle with a young female member of the hipster mafia.  She had all the proper accessories: skinny-jeans, a Mac book, plaid, roughed up messenger bag, an ironic tattoo, bed-hair and of course big goofy Steve Urkel glasses that had no lenses in the frames.  There were affirmative grunts to the flight attendant and 4 tiny (under 3oz for the TSA – thank you very much asshole London liquid bombers for making us all know what 3oz looks like…) bottles of hooch in Listerine containers to mix with her tomato juice.  The aroma of sweat, cheap booze, and stale pot smoke lingered faintly in the background – all while the aforementioned macbook placed a cheesy 1970’s horror flick – after which she cracked open “Dont Hassel the Hoff” and read with gusto – Not making any of this up!

There was no sharing of the seat arm.  No ‘excuse me’ for repeatedly bumping into me while arranging the contents of her bag or when reaching across my face and over my book for another clandestined drink mixer.  Nope, I was sitting next to a late 20 something 15 year old.  It was not awesome.

So this is what we have wrought?  All our blog posts about nerd culture, bikes, beer snobbery, bluegrass, how amazing old vinyl is, and laments for the way things were back in the days when Kevin Bacon’s Footloose was cool and before we got real jobs working for the man.  We caused this – you and I with our own smugness.  Our own blathering on and on about bike polo and hot nerdy girls.  Our fault.

This girl and maybe millions like her are the worker bees that will fund the twilight of SSI and try to figure out how to clean up the mess we, our parents, and our grand parents have made of things here on terra firma.  We’re fucked.  How in the bejesus is all that going to happen when The League of Hipster Youth is trying, this very minute, to figure out how to extend their stay in mom’s basement indefinantly so they can use “their” money for music, handmade bikes, Apple products, PBR, and primo hindukush?!  Again, we’re fucked.

Bike to work month… big belly… left in the dust by old guy…

May is bike to work month and I need to ride. As I have neglected my many two wheeled lovelies this spring in my quest to become hugely fat, I decided it was time that I get back in the saddle, shed some pounds, and get into fighting shape. My first outing was somewhat painful and more than a little ego smashing. I drove into work the first sunny morning of the month and cut out 20 minutes early to take advantage of the not-rainy weather. This winter and spring have been cold, wet, crappy, and gray and I am so white that my skin is almost translucent.

I rode my CycloX bike at what I believed was a nice little let’s-get-reacquainted clip. The sun was warm, the sky blue, little wind, I was soaking up vitamin D, and WHOOSH! – an ass on a blue bike darted past me without a word and cleared my bars by a couple inches. Son of a… Poor form, poor form… Times past, I would have chased him down, stuck on his wheel and punished him with a nasty big-ring pace till he fell off, ashamed of his transgression and performance.  However, my cookie handles precluded me for doling out lessons in cycling etiquette right then. Let’s just say that I got passed a bunch.  Once, that lovely afternoon, by a 70+ year old man on a ’80s steel frame, who said “Look out, son!” as he rolled by on my left.  Really, he said that.

I would like to tell you that I got stronger as the month wore on, but traveling for work, a painful case of costochondritis, and my own laziness conspired against me.  I rode home three more times in May, averaging once a week and did ZERO weekend rides.  I am more than a little ashamed to own as many bikes as I do and not treat them with the respect they deserve.  June and July are going to be different.  I am going to commute an average of twice a week (when I am home instead of in Belfast – long story) and I am going to do one weekend ride a week.  In fact, next weekend I am going to take my lovely bride on a tandam bike ride/pincnic on either the Burke/Gillman or the Cedar River trail

On a brighter note, ridership at my work has increased 33% from last May to this: we have 3 people out of 700 that now ride to work occasionally instead of just two…

Evil on the inside

My dear friend Rosy is currently feeling the sting of retribution.  It is his own fault and really more the result karma then anything I might have done.  I HATE snakes and he thought it would be giggly funny to send me an e-mail with an embedded surprise snake video – it may have made me fling my iPhone and pee myself…  Unhappy does not cover my reaction.  Even before his giggling subsided, I began “Project Retaliation.”

Rosy has a beautiful and loving wife, supportive parents, friendly neighbors, and ultra religious in-laws.  I decided to deliver payback through these good people.  The thing about my core group of friends – The Arthritic, Big Belly,  Hillbilly Climbing Assn., is that we are occasionally mean to each other…  There have been forced birthday paddlings, blow-up sheep in restaurants, public ridicule, chain-mails, doctored pictures, co-conspirators, and certain gross misdemeanors committed in the name of good fun, love, and friendly vengeance.  This is shaping up to be one of the latter occurrences.

First, I went online and signed him up on the  Liberation Party website as wanting information and I gave them $10 in his name.  I used his wife’s email address for further contact – she has strong Republican sympathies and the rest of her family are Super-Tea Partiers.  Apparently, Rosy also gave the Tea-Party $10 and clicked every “send me updates and info” button that he could while making that donation…  My friend is now an official Lady GaGa Fan Club member and his picture and details are on one of the Justin Bieber freak/fan sites – they will be sending him periodic (hopefully daily) updates for all things Bieber.  I requested some dirty, dirty, adult toy catalogs for him and sent them to his parent’s address.  Then, a 1-year subscription to OUT! magazines was sent to Rosy via Amazon, but I used his conservative next door neighbor’s address.  Rosy will get a Bear of the Month-mail from now until the end of time and there were also literature requests for everything from hair-loss treatment to laser back hair removal to penile enlargement device specifications.  It really is the small things in life that make us happy.

A couple weeks later I got the text message below from his mom:

One might be tempted to think that I over reacted.  One would be wrong.  Rosy once contemplated releasing a live adult bison into my apartment because I teased him about his mom being hot and me having prior physical relations with her (I didn’t) – he actually looked at the logistics of getting the thing trailered in, really.  Rosy doesn’t have a stop or pause button – you have to decimate him to make it stop.  He fired the first shot in this little war and I had to retaliate with immediate and decisive force or there would have been more snake videos and pictures.  He will attempt some sort of well thought out retribution and I will then have to use the nuclear option: his turbo-religious in-laws.  Stay tuned…

A Better Man Than I Will Ever Be.

J.A. Sparks of Deport died on Saturday, December 18, 2010 in Brentwood Terrace Healthcare and Rehab Center in Paris. He was 86 years old. Mr. Sparks was born in Clardy, Lamar Co., Texas on June 1, 1924, the son of Joseph Alexander and Jessie Hulett Sparks. He married the former Juanita Webster on January 12, 1952 in Texarkana. Mr. Sparks was the owner and operator of Sparks Metal Construction for many years, was a long time member of First United Methodist Church, Deport, a member of Deport Masonic Lodge #381 for 61 years. He was a former school board member of the Deport Independent School District; was on the Board of Directors for First National Bank of Deport for many years and a U.S. Army Veteran of World War II.

My Uncle JA was one of my favorite people on this earth.  He was the first adult who treated me as a sentient, thinking being when I was a child.  There was genuine interest in his eyes when we talked about trees, farming, building, and shooting.  JA, to the horror of my mother and delight of my father, taught me to shoot a pistol accurately and safely when I was nine years old.  Not a small cheap .22 cowboy knock off mind you – I learned to shoot using his big stainless .357!  That same summer he introduced me to the biggest oak tree I have ever seen – the acorns as big as silver dollars and he shared his childhood collection of arrowheads and tales of the collecting.  I returned home to my parents after a week at the Sparks’ home, with a burn scar on my thumb (lesson:  don’t pick up odd scraps of metal on a job site…), a .30 caliber rifle casing from his WWII days, and a milky-quartz Caddo-knapped arrow head.  I have held on to those mementos, including the scar, all this time.

As I grew into adulthood and life took me here and there, I got to see uncle JA every couple of years – he helped me get an “A” on a collage paper with a letter about a deer hunting trip in Germany during the closing days of WWII.  When visiting, we would ride the fields in his truck, he would describe in detail what he was working on at the time, eat Chinese food – his favorite, and just talk.  He always had the same look of interest, acceptance, and care.  Knowing that Uncle JA’s sweet tooth rivaled my own, I would send him chocolate from Europe when we lived in Germany, with my Aunt Juanita doling it out to him a little at a time.  After he went to the hospital, I sent a couple packages, knowing that he might not understand where or who they came from, but I hopped they would be a happy surprise during his day.

My own son, who at 9-years old was also enamored by Indians, is the current owner of JA’s arrowhead.  I gave it to him after we got home from a Christmas visit to Texas where Carlton got to have lunch and ride around with JA and me.  I have never seen that child happier.  He keeps it safe in an old jewelry box on top of his book shelves.   As for that old, patina covered .30 casing: It was in my pocket on a cold December morning when we laid a better man than I will ever be to rest in the gray-brown Texas soil.  JA Sparks helped shape who I am and his memory and example will live with me for all my days.

Flippin’ the bird

I flipped a senior citizen the bird on my way home today. not a casual, lazy, flick of the wrist sort of obscenity, no no… It was a full on, arm strait out, display of the middle finger that would make any self-respecting British football hooligan proud. What might provoke such behavior one might wonder? Why would a someone who is normally so courteous to the older folk commit such a heinous act against one of our blue-haired citizens? Am I ashamed? Will I feel the need to perform some sort of penitence to balance the violation of my Karma? Nope. The act was completely justified!

I was peddling along, listening to a podcast on the French Revolution, the sun was shining, and traffic was light – a recipe for a fine commute. As I pulled into the home stretch, about a mile and a half from La Maison Du Talley, a red car comes soaring down the hill by Luna Park Cafe and doesn’t look like it is going to heed the stop sign. I looked at the driver as I pulled the break levers hard and she was talking on her cell phone; holding it to her left ear with her right hand. Her left hand was on the top of the wheel completely blocking her ability to turn her head to look in my direction.  She made NO attempt to even glance to her left to see if there was a car or a cyclist or a pedestrian or even a lady with a baby carriage coming from that direction. I skidded to a stop as she rolled a full 10 feet past the stop sign, almost clipping me with her bumper.  I looked at her as disapprovingly as I could, pointed to the stop sign and yelled (only so she could hear me in her cocoon of Detroit steel and over her cell phone conversation)  for her to hang up the phone and drive. I then peddled on, shaking my head in annoyance.

About 30 yards up the road she caught up with me, rolled her window down and screamed at me to watch where I was going and that I was an “asshole.” Other obscenities came spilling out as she sped up, I was shocked and reacted as any cyclist worth his shifters would – finger up and complimented with a vocalization of the same.

I know I have said this a couple of times recently, but I have been hit 5 TIMES while riding and was recently rubbed by a rear-view mirror. Three of those incidences involved someone talking on a cell phone while driving. Look, we all make mistakes from time to time, but for the love of God, put the phone down, buy a headset, and watch for cyclists. This is Seattle, we’re everywhere… I stand by my use of THE Finger this time. In fact, I kinda want to wait at the corner the same time tomorrow so that I can do it again.  I know, I know that would solve nothing and only make her REALLY dislike cyclists. I am sure her side of the story is just as compelling as mine: “I was driving home and some lunatic, drug crazed man on a bike went nuts and screamed at me. I didn’t DO anything, I was just driving and he came out of nowhere and started screaming at me…”

You wish you had my neighbors!

Some mornings I get up and it feels like I live in the nicest mobile home in a south Alabama trailer park. It is the neighbors – both sides.

On the North side of Casa da Talley, resides a couple of 20-something constructions workers who also happen to be in a metal band. They are nice enough guys during the day and when sober, but add beer and darkness and the guitars are plugged in, the drum sticks uncased, and the amp volume is turned to 11. Sometimes the music is OK, but there practice space is 10 feet from our bedroom window and guitar licks at 2am when we have work the next day is super-uncool. Add to the music their general inability to take care of their yard, the heaps of trash in the front and back, the non-working trucks and motorcycles parked in the weeds and one has a recipe for hillbilly soup. On of the most enduring things they have done since we have been there was to carve their Halloween pumpkin with the words “Balls Deep” and put it out on their front porch. While I seriously doubt that they had even one trick-or-treater I am willing to be that their artistic flair led to a bunch of uneasy questions from the little ones on the street.

I need to point out that I live on a block of 500K+ homes. These guys live in one of the very few rentals on the whole street and have made life generally miserable for the entire neighborhood for the last 2.5 years. The owner of the property is a septuagenarian lawyer who could care less about the those of us who have to live near his tenets.

To the south I have on old chain-smoking semi-recluse whose yard, if left solely in his care, can have grass growing 3 feet high. There are vines growing into his roof and attic, the back yard is completely covered in weed-trees and there are heaps of trash in the back and alley. Though usually benign, he has recently moved a homeless couple into a tent/tarp in the backyard and says it is in exchange for them doing his yard work. Both of my new “neighbors” seem to have serious alcohol problems, but the woman also has a chemical dependency and possible severe mental health issues – her companion has apologized for her outbursts at least once. When a half naked homeless man apologizes for your behavior while he is smoking a hand-roll and taking swigs from an Olde English 800 tallboy, you might need to look into some in-patient care…

While having a BBQ with friends and family 2 weekends ago, there was cussing and screaming from the tent compound about how stupid her partner was and shortly there after screams of drunken ecstasy and and very vivid and specific directions as to what she wanted done as the couple engaged in freaky dirty hobo sex 2 feet from my fence. REALLY!? My buddy, David – The Sleepy Weasel, was there and we went over to ask the homeowner to make them stop. He seemed genuinely surprised that he his very own drunken, crazy, high, street people were doing the dirty. He apologized and marched into the back to turn the hose on them or something. The stopped and we spent the afternoon around the grill loudly discussing the ballistic wound capability of various pistol rounds and hand loads – David just got back from his third tour in Iraq and his wife grew up in her father’s sniper rifle producing machine shop: he is currently manufacturing optic mounts for the Navy Seals .50cal rifles. After she uttered the phrase “6 inch permanent wound cavity” there was a rustling under the tarp and all was quiet for the rest of the afternoon 🙂

In all fairness, part of the reason that we got such a smoking deal on our home was the neighbors and the condition that their houses were in. I spoke to a Realtor 3-4 months ago who had shown our house a few times while it was on the market and lamented that is not for trash and the truck parked in the yard next door (north house – truck was gone when we put our offer in) she could have sold the place in a month and got the full asking price.

Well, as of today (July 9, 2010) my hellbilly neighbors are quiet and respectful, and have cleaned up some. They had a huge party a couple of weeks ago and pissed off the wrong neighbor who called a couple of cops he knew. The cops told them to turn it down and they did – for exactly 15 minutes. the cops came back found the party in full gallop. They used some obscure statute about willfully disobeying the Seattle noise ordnance, and the police seized all the guitars in the house. They busted a few people for underage drinking and both of the guys living there got hauled off to jail for a day or so. I guess after 2.5 years one guy had taken all he could stand.

Concerning the new “tenants” to the south – well, that one is stickier: There is no law in Seattle that makes it illegal to live in a tent in someone else’s backyard. The fact that there were invited by the property owner also adds a wrinkle and there is very little that can be legally done about the situation. One of the guys across the ally came out the other morning and saw the dude peeing in the back with just a shirt on – no pants. That neighbor was enraged – he has a couple of kids. He called the cops, the health department, Planning and development, the sheriff, and the city attorney. I would really HATE to piss this guy off – he seems to be tenacious, bright, and angry. There is talk about him procuring bees. For my part, I have been cranking up the circle saw bright and early every morning and shooting the pellet gun with my son, talking loudly about marksmanship. As my boy has a competition air rifle that shoots a .177cal pellet out at 1200 feet per second, it is not a quiet activity. So far it has endeared me to the Machiavellian homeowner and made our new neighbors grumble a little bit.

I will give it a couple of weeks and watch from the bench to see how this all plays out. Hopefully,  no new tents appear and the one there now gets packed up and moved.

World’s Greatest Employee!

Someday, when I am “Tha Man” I want a shop full of employees EXACTLY like this woman:

work harder

She poured me some great coffee the other day, was smart, happy, flirted the right amount, pronounced words correctly when discussing 1950 Parisian fashion/lingerie (odd topic I know, another customer was some sort of antique clothes dealer), dealt with a shithead customer – not once losing her smile.  The tattoo should have told me all I needed to know.  If this woman applies for work in your office/shop/business/pub/store/whatever, hire her and give her more than she asks for.

Commuting with Bear Spray…

Man, Some days my bike commute (1200+ miles so far this year) is the SHIT!… Warm sunshine, crisp air, blue sky, mountains in the background, little traffic, all the lights are green, etc… Then there are days like today that I get home ragged, twitching, in a foul mood, and in need of quite time. I got off a little late so the sun was setting as I started the 40-minute ride home. Traffic was tight, exhaust fumes hung thick in the air, some asshole swerved at me to be funny – I hope, two douche-bags laid into their horns as they sped past me while I was climbing a hill, a lady in a Honda almost hit me in the cross walk, and finally this dick screamed at me with his head hanging out the passenger window of a truck as I was coming to yet another red-light. I got up out of the saddle and mashed the peddles for all I was worth, getting mentally ready for the beat-down I was going to give the ass-hat. Just as I got within reach of the bumper, the guy driving ran the light. I hate assholes!

I was hit 5 times in 3 years of living in California and I learned that you have to watch drivers like a hawk. After a while you become intuitive of their no-signal right turns and you can feel when that lady on her cell phone is going to look right through you and pull out, so you hit the brakes and avoid a crash that she was never aware of. The Burbs and industrial district south of Seattle is a whole other hot mess indeed. Unlike in the city proper, there aren’t too many of us bike commuters, lots of busy mid-level managers talking into the mobile phones, and it is a battle every time I get on my bike. There is a guy in a dark blue Chevy Malibu van that has the same schedule as me who will squeeze his van against the curb if he sees me coming so that I can’t pass him at red lights – no cutting in line! I get honked at daily, had a Burger King bag tossed at me back in June, and once had a semi-homeless (living in his car) dude (there are a bunch in S. King County, WA) try to chase me down and steal my bike – really!

Now, if I had caught the guy at the light I would have hit him at least three times before he got his door open. Then it would have been two good-sized fellers on a skinny guy in spandex and funny shoes. I would have given pretty good, but I would have bleed some and I don’t know if that would have taught them the proper lesson. Ruminating on that and the possibility of assault by one of our local street people, I have decided to not fuck around with my safety. I have a wife and kids and it is my job to come home safe every night (and contribute heavily to two college funds), so I sat down at my bride’s sewing machine and made (with her patient help) a snazzy black nylon pouch to hold my bike-commute insurance policy: bear spray. Yep, a big ol’ canister of Ursine-Off. If it can stop a charging grizzly, then some asshole that takes a swipe at me because I am on a bike and look like an easy target is going to have a very spice-filled evening. I see it this way: If you’re a prick and you try to touch me or run me over, you get a nice even coating of Oleoresin Capsicum, I call the cops, you learn a valuable lesson, I go home safely, have a yummy dinner, you may get to post bail, I have a beer, you spend the rest of your evening itchy and red. Everyone wins!

The Un-Friendly Skies…

I have been in the aviation industry for a while now and I have done more than my fair share of flying. In the time that I have spent flying for a living I have had my share of delays, missed flights, crappy third-world airports, rescheduled and cancelled flights, mechanical problems, chatty drunks, turbulence, irate passengers, screaming babies, “customers of size,” and one very scary emergency landing. I am a bit of an old hand in dealing with air travel and very little phases me. Recently, I had an experience that left me shaking my head in wonder at the heartlessness and compliancy of a major US airline: Continental

I was flying into Arkansas for a summer visit with the kids. I arrived without issue in Newark and after an eight hour layover; I expected to make a connecting flight to Little Rock that night at 8:00. About 7:30 I and the other assembled passengers were told by a gate agent that our flight was postponed due to inclement weather until 9:00. Around 8:40pm the gate agent left and we did not see another one for the rest of the evening. Our flight was postponed an additional 3 times with the departures screen and at 12:30am a cancellation notice was broadcast over the intercom system. We were instructed to go to a Continental Airlines Customer Service Desk for flight rescheduling or to call the 800 reservations number. I stood in line from 12:30 to 3:30am. I phoned the Continental Reservations office while waiting in line and it took over an hour to get through – I am sure because of the volume of calls from my fellow passengers stranded in line with me. I was told that I had been automatically rescheduled to the 8:00pm Sunday flight. I was also told that there were no available open Continental flights out of Newark for Saturday. When I asked to be moved to another airline, I was told that it could not be done over the phone and would have to be taken care of at the service desk. So… I stayed in the line, which at 3:00am stretched down an entire wing of the terminal and was 400+ people strong.

At 3:30am the staff at the service area shut down their computers and left the desk with roughly 170 people still in our line – the bulk of the other customers waiting had been sent to another gate in another hall. A cynic would say it was because the airline wanted to split the herd so that we wouldn’t stampede when the shutdown came. People in the front of the line were begging for assistance we were told very loudly by one representative that she had been dealing with “us” for over eight hours, was tired, and was going home. Some of the passengers in that line including myself had already been in-transit for over 22 hours and knew all about being tired… When the Continental employees left, the lights in the area were shut off and we were all left to fend for ourselves with all the food establishments closed. There was no attempt to make any kind of arrangements for passengers, even those of us travelling internationally: no alternate accommodations, no blankets, no pillows, no snacks, and seemingly no thought given to those of us left in line. In addition, we were told that if we left the airport that we might not be able to enter again as our tickets were for cancelled flights and that it would be best if we stayed put until new tickets could be sorted out the next morning. The lights were then turned off and all Continental personnel left the area. There were a couple people who took some really damning pictures of the state of things that night: passengers huddled together still in line at 5:00 am, A couple asleep on the floor beside the wife’s wheelchair, a mother sobbing (who was a Continental flight attendant on maternity leave…) because she had run out of diapers and baby food for her infant.

The Continental Service Desk did not open at 4:30 like we were told it would as the service representatives made their hasty exit. We had to wait until almost 6:00am before staff reappeared. I was rescheduled for a 7:00am flight to Houston and then an additional connection flight to Little Rock. When I spoke to the reservation representative to schedule the flight out of Newark, I was told that my return flight had been upgraded because of my SkyTeam Elite status (all those miles flown have to count for something) and because of the continued delays. I appreciated this gesture. When I arrived at the gate we were told that no flight crew was available for the 7:00 flight and it was rescheduled four times before we finally got a flight crew just before mid day. Although numerous passengers requested assistance we were not provided with blankets or water or any flight information until 10ish when an airport representative arrived and assured us that we would leave Newark before noon. He also arranged for soft drinks and peanuts for us after a near mutiny by the gate agents and a bunch of screaming by passengers demanded some help.

My connecting flight from Houston to Little Rock was also rescheduled due to a mechanical problem with the First-Class entertainment system. I arrived in Little Rock almost twenty-four hours after my originally scheduled arrival and after nearly forty total hours of travel time. Once in Little Rock, I learned that my luggage was still in Newark and I did not receive it until later. Great…

A couple of weeks later, after a great visit with my son, I started my journey home to Germany. After arriving at the Little Rock Airport I found that my flight had been cancelled and I again was rerouted through Houston. Continental Airlines was at that point not on the top of my list of my favorite US carriers… The gate agent in Little Rock had no record of any promised upgrade. I was told to discuss it with Customer Service in Houston or Newark. My flight from Houston to Newark was completely full and I was told that I needed to discuss any promise of upgrade with the Newark staff. After arriving in Newark I went back to the Customer Service area and was told that I would have had to have been given a certificate at the time of the incident that there was nothing that they could do. I was told to call the Continental WECARE number to make any sort of complaint. It was if I had at that moment ceased to matter, the woman just sort of shoved the card with the WECARE info on it at me and turned to finish a conversation about her house with a co-worker. Continental has this slogan that the print on all there posters and ads: Work Hard. Fly Right. Really?! Neither was my experience with Continental Airlines or their staff in Newark!

I called while sitting in the Newark airport waiting for my next flight to notify Continental Customer Service of the incident and was told that upgrades on flights to Europe are NEVER given and are not even allowed in this type of situation. I was shocked by this and felt that the customer service agent that rescheduled my flight had purposely lied to me so that I would be happy just long enough to exit the airport where I was no longer a Continental concern. The WECARE telephone agent offered to send me an international care package for my inconvenience, but after checking she could only offer to mail me a US domestic one to my home in Germany. Great, two free drinks and a pair of headphones for domestic flights in a country that I don’t reside in and on an airline that I have grown to detest. By the way, my bags got lost on the trip home too. At least Continental is consistent…

This experience was so crappy solely because of the almost complete lack of customer service that I experienced at multiple levels. Delays are understandable, but a lack of empathy for passengers stuck in transit is shameful. I wrote Continental a letter, not looking for a handout or for a perk, but to draw their attention to a breakdown in their organization in Newark. I had hoped that it would be addressed and that other passengers that have the misfortune of delayed or cancelled flights in Newark in the future find the process to get them to there destination much less painful and frustrating than the process that I experienced. After nearly a month, I received a semi-well crafted form letter, complete with an auto-generated signature that calmly spelled out how everything that we experienced in Newark was “completely out of Continental’s control.” I almost choked as I read the customer service manager’s response. In addition to her letter following the basic tenets of an unsatisfied customer response letter: Empathize with the customer, restate their position/experience back to them as a sign that you have taken interest, apologize for their upset, assure them that ‘management’ would be notified, and ask them for their continued support. She had the balls to state that, “Continental employees worked tirelessly around the clock… in an extraordinary effort to accommodate our customers as quickly and safely as possible…” Really?! I doubt that any of the 400 or so people left abandoned at the Continental Customer Care desk overnight to sleep on the cold, stained concrete floor would agree.

As I said, I wrote my first letter in the hope that it would cast a light on a single failure at a single point in time for hundreds of passengers who were in Continental’s care. I did not ask to be reimbursed for anything or for any sort of freebie, as that was not my intent in writing them. It was my hope that this failure would be acknowledged and steps would be taken so that it would not happen to other travellers in the same situation with that airline in the future. The response I got just tells me that it was not an isolated incident and that there is a flaw in the Continental customer service system. I was not pleased.

I have a problem letting things go… It is one of those things about my personality that could either be considered endearing or a flaw… New Travel Rule: Stay the Hell away from Newark and only board a Continental flight in a case of Rapture, but pack a snack, because you will be routed through Houston and will be the last to arrive at the Pearly Gates.

Cell Phone Spatial Awareness

I have noticed more and more that people get really wrapped up in their own little techie universe (I do it at times), and sometimes we forget that there are other people out there and all about the manners that Mom and Dad taught us.. We have all stood in line at the grocery store behind someone on the phone with their girlfriend or buddy: They are loud, ignore everyone around them, often don’t acknowledge the checker’s presence, and discuss things publicly that should be reserved for their home or Dan Savage’s sex advice column.

Normally, I just chalk it up to poor home training, but I draw the line at the movies. How hard is it to remember to hit the power button?! Every time I have been to the movie in the last three years (I go a lot) some unthinking prick’s phone starts going off and they fumble like a monkey with a math problem trying to shut it off. Recently, a girl in Hamburg got a call, answered it, and talked for a few seconds thirty minutes into the show. If that wasn’t bad enough her phone rang again not five minutes later and she answered it AGAIN?! Even my pacifist wife shot her an icy look, full of daggers, and was ready to fit her for a pair of Las Vegas-special concrete shoes. As everyone around her glared and she finally got the message and grudgingly switched the thing off. Is it rocket science to turn off the FVCKING phone before the movie starts?! If I can learn to put down my beloved CrackBerry and disconnect from my Borg-like BB hive for the greater good, then it shouldn’t be that hard for the rest of the world to have a touch of common courtesy.

I know I am ranting here (this is my corner of the web and I am allowed to do that when I pay for the bandwidth) and I get that part of this is a kind of unconscious rudeness, as most people don’t realize what they’re doing or that there are others around them as they discuss So-and-so’s erectile dysfunction while standing in line at Blockbuster (true story – I heard the conversation in Newport Beach) or on the commuter train. Essentially, those people subject us, against our will, to their conversation and if you dare to ask someone to keep it down: you get the stink-eye and told to mind you own business, as they flip you the bird and tell the person on the other end of the conversation how rude you just were to them. Apparently, I missed the memo that said as of a specific date loud, obnoxious cell phone use in public is OK. So that I don’t just go on and on about this: please think when you are on the cell. Be polite, put the phone down if you have to interact with sales people or staff, don’t pollute the common space with personal details, and PLEASE turn your cell/handy/Razor/BlackBerry/Treo/etc… off before the movie starts.