The Stand-up Philosopher

TSA and the Butter Knives

John Maxwell posted an entry on his blog yesterday recounting an incident in which he was given a gun as a present, forgot it was in his carry on, and it was noticed by TSA. I've been meaning to write a story of my own for a while.

On March 3, I celebrated one year in my current job. When I started the job last year, our finances were fairly tight. Though I did get an increase in salary from my previous job, the benefits cost more, I have to pay Philly's city wage tax, and a $4 a day toll to cross the Walt Whitman bridge. In effect, at first the job was a net loss but the opportunities were better so I endured mine and my wife's economic fears for a few months until things stabilized. This job requires a decent amount of travel. Honestly, to this point I could do more. It seems like I'll have two weeks of travel back-to-back, then I won't travel for 2 months. I actually enjoy the job more when I'm traveling. I find myself bored sitting in my cubicle in Philly.

To Take the Edge off My Car Issues…

I couldn’t resist. I got this from Real Dan Lyons, formerly Fake Steve Jobs…

 

Technorati Tags: Tiddy Bear

Planes and Cars- Travel Woes

I went on travel this week. Perhaps you picked that up from my Twitter feed which at times became quite cynical as my frustrations grew and my time since awaking went longer. I went up to Maine for a meeting. The meeting went well enough, and I learned a lot, and I believe it was very fruitful. I even me some people that I dealt with in my last job. It was good to see them again.

The travel was another story, although in the end we met our objective, arriving home, 24 hours late. We started on a flight out of Philly. About the time we should be pulling away from the gate, the pilot came on the intercom. Apparently, the plane had been fueled twice, and had too much fuel and was overweight for takeoff, so fuel had to be taken out. That would take about a half hour. It finished within the estimate, and we pulled away from the gate and began taxiing. As we taxied, the plane pulled over and the pilot said that all of the fuel was taken out of one wing so one wing was full and the other empty so the plane had to transfer fuel, but had internal pumps. My piloting experience is limited to Cessnas and Pipers (about 12-16 hours total flight time), but I'm sure that like the small planes, the big ones have fuel gauges in the cockpit and the pilot is supposed to check these things before pulling away from the gate. Perhaps everybody involved was on his first day of work. I don't know. We eventually took off, and arrive in Portland, ME after our scheduled time. Most people book tickets for specific flights, especially during the workday, because they need to be somewhere by a certain time. Time is money, and incompetent pilots and fuel truck drivers could end up costing somebody money.
Our stay went well enough. The meeting was productive and we had a good time after work in downtown Portland.

Wednesday, we got to the airport around 4 PM for a 6:20 PM flight. We pulled up at the terminal and I got out to check the flight status. The monitor said "On Time," so we returned the rental car and checked in and got our boarding passes. We then entered the police state through the TSA checkpoint. We then holed up at the Shipyard brewpub with a beer. The other two guys broke out their laptops. I plugged my Pocket PC's cradle into one guy's laptop to top my battery off. The battery in my 6945 does kind of suck for serious business travel. We took turns checking on the flight. Everything from New York got canceled due to storms. We heard that our plane was on the ground in DC, but could not take off. Eventually, our flight was canceled. By this point, 8 people from our organization were at the airport waiting for that flight. It's "Parents' Week" at summer camps in Maine, so there is not a single hotel room or rental car available in the Portland area. The only hotel room we could find was over 50 miles away, but there was no way to get to that hotel or back to the airport. One guy broke out his cell phone and we all took turns rebooking on a 7:15 AM flight out of Boston while we worked on finding a way to Boston. Enterprise Rent a Car told one of my coworkers that they had two cars available so he reserved them, but when we called the local office for a pick up, they told us they had no cars as the email confirming the reservation dinged on his Motorola Q. By this point, we were hanging around the rental car counters looking at options. I took a few moments to chew out one of the workers. I said "This kind of thing happens every single year. You know it's coming, so why don't you have any plans to deal with it?" He suggested we take a 3 AM bus to Boston. Sure, great idea. At one point, I asked if we could find a copy of the classifieds. Perhaps somebody was selling a $500 beater that we could abandon in Boston.

We managed to find a limo service with a van that could drive us to Boston, so we booked rooms at the Renaissance hotel in Boston. We had no desire to stay at the Portland airport if we could help it. The van ride cost us $66 each, and it took 2 hours to get to Boston. We rolled into Boston at 11:30 PM, and decided that a 7:15 AM flight was a little too ambitious. We called US Airways to reschedule. The two guys I work with had unrestricted tickets, but because I'm a contractor to the organization and have to book my own travel, I didn't have that luxury. US Airways wanted me to either pay $700 to reschedule or I could buy a new ticket for $500. I'm not going to cry "poor" because I do have a corporate card and this is a reimbursable expense, but just because it's reimbursable does not mean this policy isn't bullcrap. I asked to speak to a supervisor.
By the time I got to speak to the supervisor, it was after midnight. Between the meeting and the travel time, I was already over 16 hours on my timecard and in no mood. I tried to plead my case to the supervisor, who in turn tried to explain to me that the other guys had unrestricted tickets and I had a restricted ticket. I cut her off and said "I understand what the small print says, but I'm not some silly teenager who overslept and is trying to plead for another flight. Your airline STRANDED me in Portland Maine where no hotel rooms or rental cars are available. I rebooked for 7:15 AM out of Boston and had to pay a lot of money to secure my own transportation to Boston. By now it's after midnight, and I'm not really in the mood to get up in three and a half hours to go back to the airport. Your airline put me in this, and you have the authority to make the change.This policy is bogus and is nothing more than a shell game..." At this point, the phone I was on died. This irony is that earlier in the day, I was complaining about the battery life on my phone and the guy who owned the Blackjack that died on me was bragging about how long his lasts. Ah, irony. I called back on my phone to find that like my coworkers, my flight had been adjusted to 11:30 and no charge was required. Sometimes yelling at a manager, especially when the policy is BS, does get things done. With that settled, one of our traveling companions bought us a round of beers at the hotel bar. I went up to bed in my room, which honestly was really nice.

Of course, the nice hotel was not without problems. I wanted to check email and my RSS feeds on my iPod Touch. I easily picked up a wireless network, but could not log on. I called the number and found out that you have to pay for wi-fi. Why do the most expensive hotels always nickel and dime you for little things? There were two tiny bottles of water in my room with a friendly note on them letting me know that upon drinking them, a $4 charge will be conveniently added to my bill. I kept checking the toilet paper for a similar notice.

I settled down into bed and could not sleep. I used my Pocket PC to read email on the 3" screen until I wound down enough to drift off somewhere after 2 AM.
My wife called and woke me up at 7:45. I had an alarm set for 8. I called her when I got to the hotel the night before, so I filled her in on my "conversation" with US Airways. My wife told me that the 7:15 flight was canceled, as was the 9:30. Even if I did get up at 4 AM I still would have been stuck at Logan. She suggested we get a car and drive. When I met with my companions to leave the hotel, I passed that along. We caught a cab to the airport and went through a LONG line at the TSA Checkpoint Charlie (East Berlin reference for those who forgot the cold war.) Our flight was listed on time. We got some breakfast. At 11 AM, I went to check on the status of our flight and realized that there was no plane at the gate. This was NOT a good sign, as our boarding passes CLEARLY stated that the flight would be boarding at 11. Not long after, we heard that the plane would be landing soon. The plan did land somewhere after 11:30 and we were told boarding would begin shortly. Shortly after that, an announcement was made that maintenance was called out to the plane because of a problem with the bleed air valve. If I remember correctly, the bleed air valve is what killed Payne Stewart in 2000, so the plane does kind of need that. We were told that there would be an hour delay. Then we were told the delay would be longer. At this point, we'd had it with US Airways, weather, and sitting around airports impotent to do anything. One of the guys called Hertz and procured a one-way rental to Philly. We left. The other guy checked a bag. Bad idea. I don't check. Even when my mom died, I only took what I could carry on the plane. The airport told him he couldn't get his bag back. He'd have to file a claim in Philly. The wouldn't let him file a claim at Logan. Throughout the afternoon, he kept calling US Airways about his bag, and was told something different each time. Finally, he found that his bag was in Philly and he could pick it up at baggage claim.

We picked up our car and started driving through the weather that was grounding flights left and right. As we left, the guy with the checked bag found out through his Q that our 11:30 flight was canceled. He checked again later and found that the 2:30 flight was canceled. We could have been sitting around the airport all day, but at least we were driving. We had some control over our destiny.

Of course, this trip wasn't as simple as driving home. We had to return the car at Philly, and two of us left our cars in long term. We picked up my car, I followed him to Hertz, then took him to get his car. I got home at about 9:10 last night. I was still at work at 6:30 this morning. I'm a real road warrior.

I got a funny text from my supervisor this morning. He was one of the guys with me on the trip. My company issued me a Verizon RAZR when I started, but because it's practically useless, I don't use it much. When I get home from work at night, I turn it off and throw it in my underwear drawer. I forgot to take it with me when I left on Monday. This morning, I took it out and turned it on to find that I had a new message. It was from my supervisor, dated this morning at 5:53 AM, saying that he was at a certain bar by our gate at the airport. I was a little groggy, and wondered "What the hell are you doing at the airport? Haven't you had enough at this point?" I figured out quickly that he sent the text when he got to the airport on Monday so we would know where to find him. Somehow the message was timestamped for when I got it rather than when it was actually sent. Great move, Verizon or Motorola. The Verizon RAZR sucks. It's good for making calls while I'm at work so I don't have to use my personal minutes, but other than that it doesn't DO anything. Verizon has it locked down so far it's pretty much useless outside of making calls.
Anyway, I'm back at work and I have to get ready for my next trip. I'm renting a car and driving for that one. I'm tempted to say I'll drive for any travel from now on, even if it's to Hawaii. Heh, heh, heh.

I might write a post later on about air travel. If you think about it, airports and airlines really aren't equipped, nor do they seem to care, when things go wrong during travel. We had quite a few discussions during our journey about the "Passenger's Bill of Rights" that went before Congress before being shot down. Stupid Congress. Of course, they get a lot more money from the airlines than they do from the people that the airlines screw on a daily basis. Of course they're going to protect the airlines. The airlines have no incentive to treat customers right, because if they screw up they'll get another taxpayer bailout.

Father's Day, Road Trip, and Ignoring Cell Phone Bans

I had to make a quick road trip over the weekend. I got news about my grandmother on Saturday afternoon, and we decided to alter our weekend plans and shoot up to Buffalo for a short visit. I was given my Father's Day present early, a Nintendo Wii. It's still in the box at home. The rest of my Father's Day was pretty uneventful, enough that I pretty much forgot it. We left our house around 5:30 PM Saturday. The GPS led us astray. I wondered why we weren't taking the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, when my wife took the thing and found that somehow "avoid toll roads" was checked. We lost a good hour of time and went about 60 miles off course. We rolled into Buffalo about 2:15 AM Sunday morning. I still have no idea why "avoid toll roads" would have been checked. I would have checked it earlier, but my wife yells at me too much for "playing with the GPS" while I'm driving.
While in Buffalo, we took the kids to Niagara Falls, since they see it in the Little Einsteins video they watch incessantly. We went to see my grandmother and spent some time with her neighbors, wonderful people who have watched over her and taken care of her for years. We left Monday morning, and stopped for dinner in Plymouth Meeting to sit out traffic on Philadelphia's Schuylkill Expressway. I hate Philly traffic. I wouldn't mind moving to Buffalo. We like my grandmother's area. The cold wouldn't bother me. I'd welcome it.
While driving, we noticed a lot of people talking on cell phones. One girl driving a Corolla that we passed going down I-81 in New York was texting heavily while driving. In fact, we had to pass her on the right because she was so busy texting, she didn't notice all the cars flying up on her in the left lane, then flying around to the right to get back around her at realistic highway speeds. While coming up on trucks, we could often see the drivers in their side-view mirrors. I was amazed at how many truckers were talking on cell phones without hands-free devices. I saw this article on MSN about how drivers are ignoring the laws. New Jersey has some pretty stiff cell phone/driving laws, yet 1 out of every 2 drivers I see on the road here is TALKING ON A CELL PHONE WHILE DRIVING. I don't agree with these laws, but if we're going to have them, why not enforce them? Nobody but me takes them seriously. Since I lost my headset, I won't answer my phone while I'm driving. If it's an important call, I'll put it on speaker. If my wife is with me, I make (kindly ask) her to take the call for me. Nobody else her seems to take the law seriously though. Why not enforce it with hefty fines and maybe give us a break on our "highest in the nation" property taxes?
During the trip, my wife had to use my Pocket PC a couple of times to look something up on the Internet. While I talked her through it, I tried to pitch to her how much easier it would be if she'd led me get an iPhone, or better yet, if we both had iPhones. She's much more disciplined than I am though, at least when it comes to buying an iPhone.
We spent a buttload of money on gas for this trip. Here is a piece I came across at how we can thank Al Gore for that. Don't forget: follow the money. There is a LOT of money to be made on "green tech" and global warming speeches. When I see Gore move out of his huge mansion into a tent in the woods and ride a bike to his global warming conferences, I'll consider that he's doing it for reasons other than it pays really good and makes him really popular.
Anyway, I'm tired and cranky and I should quit while I'm ahead.

Airline Reservation Boondoggle

I have to wonder how much the airlines would be different if they would just charge a flat rate for a ticket for each flight. I can't quite figure out what benefit they have by price fluctuations across different days and travel services.
I was notified of an upcoming trip, so I went to US Airways (Philadelphia is a major hub, so try NOT flying US Airways out of there and tell me how far you get) to look into booking my flight. The price for this trip came up under $500 (it cost over $900 the last time, but I was flying at different times to the same place.) I suddenly balked, remembering that my seat preferences were already set in Expedia.com, so I was guaranteed an aisle seat. I actually prefer a window seat, but I've had to wake up way too many people on longer flights to get out of my seat so I just book aisle now. When I put my dates in Expedia, I was presented with a list of flight segments to choose from. I found that the two flights US Airways gave me were half the price of the identical flights in Expedia. I went back to US Airways and booked the trip directly with them. I was given my choice of seats, and I was actually able to book seats next to one of the people I'm traveling with.
I honestly don't understand why airline ticket prices can vary so much. When I first moved to New Jersey in May of 1999, I found out a friend in San Diego was getting married that September. I started looking for plane tickets to San Diego for his wedding. Over the weeks until I booked the ticket, I watched ticket prices for the same flight fluctuate more than $500 depending on the day. The ticket started around $400, and went up to more than $900. I finally caught the price on a downward slump and booked the flight (round trip) for $400 or so.
Does anyone have a good explanation for why the airline industry, which is constantly bitching about losing revenue, uses a pricing scheme that doesn't seem to be rooted in reality?

iPods and Rental Cars

Because I travel a lot in my current job, I've come across a minor complication: I hate the radio. Ever since I got my first Pocket PC and discovered that I could copy MP3 audio files onto it to listen to, I've done all I can to avoid listening to the radio. I got a cassette adapter and somehow every car I've had has had a cassette player. But now that I'm renting cars, I'm finding that nobody makes a car with a cassette player anymore. All rental cars have CD player. That does me no good. As I said, I hate the radio.

Why do I hate the radio? Sure, there are some decent songs and talk programs, but for the most part, listening to the radio for me is painful. I may hear a good song, maybe I'll hear a helpful talk program, but in between are the horrible songs, the mindless DJ chatter, and the pointless at best and annoying at worst commercials. Thanks to Steve Jobs and Apple (and my Dad's generosity,) I'm on my second iPod, the 32 GB iPod Touch. I love it. I have hundreds of podcasts that I can listen to, anything from This Week in Tech to Theology Unplugged, from Chuck Missler to John C. Dvorak, I can listen to what I want just about whenever I want considering the mood I'm in. That is unless I'm in a rental car. In a rental car, I'm stuck with the radio. The radio is painful considering the podcasts I could be listening to.

When my family went with me on a week long trip to the Virginia Beach area, I stopped and bought an FM modulator, as I expect to have lots of rental cars in this job. I found that it didn't work very well. Even driving around the block I couldn't keep a decent signal on any given station. Then, leaving the area, leaves you constantly tuning the radio and the modulator. That's no good. I returned the modulator to Circuit City today.

On my last trip, since I rented a car and drove 5 hours rather than deal with another butter knife issue with Homeland Security (I'll write on that later), I solved the problem by bringing my own speakers. But that really only works if I'm driving from New Jersey to my business location. If I'm flying, the speakers might take up too much room in my luggage.

Why can't rental cars just include an iPod dock? I don't know about the rest of you, but it would make my life so much easier. Does anybody really listen to CDs in a rental car? I guess I have one case of circumstantial evidence. One car I rented for a business trip in 2005 had a Steven Curtis Chapman CD left in it.

Technorati Tags: CDs,Rental cars,business travel,radio

Rain, Rain, Go Away, And Take the Traffic With You

Today was a long, long day. I was down in Norfolk for a meeting. We started yesterday afternoon and ended by wrapping up one last item this morning. I rented a car and drove down. After the butter knife fiasco last week at a Homeland Security checkpoint, I just wanted to drive. I decided to try Hotwire.com for this trip, and I booked a 3 star hotel in Portsmouth, VA. After paying for the room, I found out it was the Holiday Inn. It was nice, but next time I'll stay closer. I learned the "magic words" to get the hotel I want closer to our meeting location for a rate that my employer will reimburse. I'd never been to Portsmouth, but the drive over yesterday afternoon was nothing but painful. First, my GPS took me through Norfolk on a path that made me stop at every freaking traffic light on the way. Then I had to sit in traffic to cross a bridge and go through a tunnel. Then I didn't trust the GPS enough to make a turn where it looked like there was no turn, so I had to sit in more traffic waiting to go around the block and get back on track. It took an hour to drive 11 miles. Later in the evening, I met some of my coworkers at the Norfolk waterfront for a drink. Traffic was a little better then. I could see the Holiday Inn across the bay.

This morning was a repeat. I sat in traffic and took more than an hour to drive 11 miles again. Our meeting wrapped up early, and I started driving back to New Jersey around 10. It was raining in Norfolk, but I left it behind somewhere on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Then, about when I hit route 1 in Delaware, it started pouring. Traffic was holding at a steady clip, but the rain kept going for a long time. It kept up all the way to Cherry Hill where I dropped off the rental car and got my Kia Sedona back. It was raining so hard I forgot to take the GPS windshield mount out of the rental. I realized this while fighting my way home in 4 PM south Jersey traffic, only to have to head back out in 5 PM south Jersey traffic. My wife figured since we were heading out that way, we might as well swing by Trader Joe's in Marlton. I like the store, but like everything else in south Jersey, it's in a very bad spot and is a pain in the butt to get into and out of.

I only expected to die once during the trip. After getting back into New Jersey, I was heading up 295 and passing a truck. It was raining really bad, and the truck suddenly hit a huge puddle with it's left tires, and splashed water all over my car. I couldn't see a thing, not the truck, not the road, not even my windshield wipers. I just about freaked out, and put on the brakes, before realizing that I had no idea if there was somebody behind me or not. I'm glad there wasn't. I had to wait for a better patch of road to pass that truck. I had another car splash me farther down, but that car only had 2 tires on one side instead of 9 splashing me.

I'm back home, and about to go to bed in time for a new episode of Deadliest Catch.