My kingdom for a seat

I'm flying a lot these days for work. I actually love to travel - and even love the "airport experience". So it's not the huge inconvenience that others find it to be. When I started traveling more, I purposefully chose Delta to be my air carrier of choice. I wanted to rack up frequent flyer miles and eventually achieve "status" - that little thing that helps get you upgrades and other perks for being seen as a truly "frequent" flyer.

Sho' nuff, it only took a few months before I'd reached Gold Medallion status. This is the second of four tiers in the Delta Medallion program. I've got nothing on the folks who have Platinum or Diamond status, but getting a first-class upgrade every now and again is pretty nice. But it doesn't always happen, and it surely doesn't happen on planes where there is no first class, such as my flight the other day returning from St. Louis.

The plane was a CRJ-50. If you've ever been on one, you'd know. People over 6' tall have to stoop to walk the aisle. People more than 2' wide have to virtually walk sideways. The seats are all leather, which I suppose is alright... but they're not exactly made for large individuals, either. It was with extreme fear that I saw a large gentleman moving towards my row and a confirmation of that fear as he pointed to the window seat next to me.

These days, that's the indicator that you (the person in the aisle seat) has to move to make way. No "hey, I'm sitting there, can you please move?" or "Hi - looks like I have the seat next to you." Rather - it's just a point and a grunt. But ok. Whatever. I can understand traveler sign language (TSL).

As I stood up, I dropped the armrest between the seats. This is also TSL - it means: you stay on your side of the row and I'll stay on mine. Or, in other words: DON'T TOUCH ME. I knew we were going to have a problem as he lifted it out of the way as he moved into his seat.

Actually, he didn't have a choice. He was now using 100% of his seat... and 25% of mine. Ugh. This was going to suck. 2.25 hours from St. Louis to Raleigh. I wanted to move - and I thought about going up to the flight attendant and suggesting that I should get 100% of my seat for the price I paid for it. But remember those small aisles? Well, between the other passengers boarding and my desire to get home quickly, I simply didn't want to make a stink. God knows that the person who complains is more likely to find themselves a guest of the TSA for a little while.

So I kept my seat - leaning into the aisle the whole trip home. I was getting more and more pissed off at each passing moment. Upon arrival at RDU, I found the gate agent and asked for the Station Manager. This is the person who has ultimate control of all things airline-related at your particular terminal. The gate agent informed me that the Station Manager wasn't present (it was, after all, 9:30pm), but that they were a red-vest and could handle whatever issue I threw at them.

I said "ok" fine - I wanted compensation for the trip as a result of not getting the full seat that I'd paid for. I was forceful, but calm. Direct but not demanding. I simply indicated that I didn't believe that I should have to pay for a full seat when I didn't get one.

RedVest's first response was that I should've let someone know before leaving STL.

"Wait. It's MY responsibility to tell you when I clearly don't have my seat to myself?", I asked.

Well, he said... sorta'. He explained that I should've asked the flight attendant to reseat me and that had they been unable to do so, that they would've asked the other passenger to get off the plane or buy a second seat.

I was nonplussed. I again suggested compensation. RedVest offered a $50 travel voucher. I demurred and suggested that there was a) more that he could do for me; and, b) that I wasn't going to leave until he was able to do something more - as I knew that while he suggested I call Delta Customer Service when I got home, that leaving the airport was giving up leverage. So I stayed put and started talking with him in a more collegial tone. Commiserating about the crowds, stupid travelers, "real" problems, etcetera.

Finally, he asked to look up my account to see what he could offer. I was a little shocked (though I shouldn't have been) at the amount of data he had access to about me. He asked if I was going to be taking any more flights in the near future and I said I was, but I hadn't booked them yet. So he pondered his navel for a little while and then suggested that he could offer me some frequent flyer miles.

In the Delta system, there are two types of miles. Miles you can use to redeem for future stuff... and miles that count towards your Medallion status level. I, as you can imagine, am not really interested in redeeming miles for more time on airplanes. So I asked him in a good natured way whether they were Medallion Qualifying Miles (MQM's) - their official term for the "good" miles. He gently laughed in commiseration with my assessment of the situation as he indicated that they weren't. Bummer.

Again, he went back to contemplating the nature of the universe and suggested that well, perhaps he could do miles plus something else. "Like what?", I asked. He then told me that he could do a one-way class upgrade that I could redeem for any future flight - guarantying a first-class seat when my normal status didn't/can't get it for me (such as on virtually any flight from Atlanta). OK, now we're getting somewhere.

So I said, ok... let's do a package. Make it work for me. And he proceeded to print out the materials granting me the one-way upgrade.

Then we turned back to the miles. He offered 5,000. I said come on... how many miles does it take, at minimum, to get somewhere? 25,000. Right... so 5,000 gets me what? Nothing. He responded, ok... how about 7,500. I paused and said, point blank "We need to hit 5 digits. You can do 10,000."

It was his turn to pause. "OK... 10,000. But I can't do anymore." He printed out the card granting me the 10,000 miles (which I think we're going to use to go to London... but that's a story for another day).

Right as he handed it to me, I said, "OK... now we can do that $50 travel voucher."

He was taken aback. "What? I can't do that."

"Sure you can... we were talking about a package. I just spent 2.25 hours leaning into the aisle, getting hit by the flight attendant EVERY SINGLE TIME SHE WALKED BY. You can do the voucher. Give me the package.", I said, almost invoking the Jerry Maguire "Show me the money." tone.

And as it was printing, RedVest lamented that he was going to get a call about it in the morning. As I walked away, thanking him for his help, I just told him to tell his boss that he was dealing with a professional negotiator.

What I think I really need is a tagline I can say after I've gotten my way. "You've been negotiated..." just sounds too cheesy.

Photos

Well, after some hemming and hawing, I decided to finally upload some of my favorite photos that I've taken and combine them into a photo blog of sorts.

So, visit http://photos.jeffreygordon.net and see what my camera can do.

I don't claim to be a professional, but some are pretty good, if I do say so myself. :)

Don't eff with Jon Stewart

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Thanks to QuizLaw for this.

Catch 22

So, in the Star Trek series, the red shirt-wearing folks are the ones who invariably die on every mission.



But what would happen if it was an away mission where they were fighting the Star Wars Storm Troopers, who seem to be unable to hit the broad-side of a barn?

:)

Lucky Penguin... Stupid Humans

Awesome

Mad Simpsons

I love the AMC show Mad Men. I don't know what it is really... the 60s outfits, the fact that people are pretty much allowed to do anything at work or the cool opening sequence... I think it's the opening sequence. Which is why the Simpson's spoof of the opening for their Halloween special this year is awesome:

TSA and Travel

I travel a lot.

This freaks me out - and it's what *I* think about when I'm sitting on the runway, hoping I successfully make it to my destination and back.

Literal Take on Me

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Embarq Advertisement for Free TV

I'm sure you've seen it or heard it. I'm talking about the Embarq advertisement for free TV.



Obviously it's a popular ad.

But what's the appeal? I simply don't know. What bugs me most, however, is the little ditty "they don't call her Queen Tut, for nothin'"

It's about her being made of gold and calling her Queen Tut. Anyone else see the problem?

RIIIIIGHT. It's King Midas who was tied to gold, not Tut! So "Queen Tut" doesn't make any sense at all. Even the fact that King Tut was buried in a coffin made of gold doesn't validate the ad. I wouldn't buy Embarq now if for no other reason than their misappropriation of history. Get it right if you're gonna' hang your hat on it.

So, while I'm hip with the various dopey yet catchy freecreditreport.com jingles, the Embarq one just irks me.

Kevin Smith Protests Dogma

OK. So regardless of what you might think about Kevin Smith, or Dogma, the movie he wrote and directed (and played Silent Bob in), this is pretty funny:

Updates on a few of the things I've written about

Well, it's not like I'm some sort of prescient person and know what the world is really thinking about... but there have been a few instances of things I write about in the last few months actually capturing some amount of world-wide attention. So this post is simply a note to the file on what happened.

Randy Pausch
Remember the post from a few months ago about the Last Lecture? Randy was diagnosed with cancer, fought a hell of a fight and along the way, delivered what many people consider to be the greatest inspirational speech of all time. He died on July 25, 2008. It's not only a tragedy for his wife and children... but also for the millions of people he was able (and will continue) to inspire.

McFly Nikes
Much less important than Randy, Nike actually responded to the cultural request of my generation and has released the Hyperdunks's. Here is info. And more info. And even more. Awesome. Now people are working on the auto-lacing mechanism.

Pandering to my Generation
Songs from the 80s continue to permeate the current cultural zeitgeist. Which isn't really saying much. In fact, with the Olympics on TV, I get the same round of commercials over and over and over and over and... oops, sorry. Stuck in a loop.

Anyways, what I was saying is that I get to see a lot of the same commercials. One of them is for JC Penny. The commercial's background music is Simple Minds' classic "Don't You (forget about me)" from one of my favorite movies, The Breakfast Club. The kids in the commercial are reenacting several of the scenes from the movie - and I turn to Tina and ask - "so, do you think the director had to explain to them: OK... now I want you to run down this hallway really fast, then do a floor-slide past the turn and run back towards the camera? Or do you think he just showed them the movie?"

But commercials aren't the only things participating in this recycling lifestyle. I actually saved money by getting digital cable the other day... which now gives me access to all of my favorite shows from my formative years. Emergency!, CHiPs, Quincy, Kojak, A-Team, Knight Rider (though the new series starts on 9/24!!!). But I realized that these shows, while all cutesily fatally flawed (it's really funny to see some of the "procedures" performed by John and Roy on Emergency! and compare them to what I learned as an EMT 19 years later), are really the genesis for almost all of TV today:

Emergency! is now ER or any other hospital/ambulance show
Quincy is CSI before they realized that people WANT to see the science
Kojak is The Shield; and Barney Miller is The Closer, Law and Order and any other cop show
A-Team is Burn Notice
Brady Bunch is now Jon & Kate Plus 8 (why invent what really exists?)
Knight Rider is now Knight Rider (some things have to be cloned exactly)

'llectuals

I grew up watching all sorts of shows about people my age trying to deal with life. The Facts of Life, 90201, then on to Melrose Place and Friends. Most of these shows had a fatal flaw. They were populated by self-centered, narcissistic, vapid characters.

Well, no more. Now's there's 'llectuals.

Presenting Stephen King's "N."

Toys

One of my favorite toys as a child (and yes, even as an adult), is Lego. The bricks are great fun for stress relief and they require at least some amount of imagination. I have sets back from the early 70s all the way to a pristine, in-the-box collection of all of the Harry Potter-related sets (I don't know why I'm keeping them in the box, other than to say I have them... maybe I'd let my kids play with them?).

But the toy villain from my youth has got to be the Rubik's Cube. They musta' released a billion versions of that thing in the 80s. And if 9 squares/side wasn't bad enough in about 10 different sizes (from microscopically small to desk-size large), the 12 square/side version (Rubik's Revenge, I believe it was called) was awful. Then they released them in ball-shaped versions, triangle-shaped versions... even a thing called the snake.

So I'm quite happy to see that someone took the time to build a Lego Mindstorms (computer-controlled Legos) set that is designed to solve a Rubik's Cube. It works by color-reading each side, generating a solution set and executing it. Check it out:

Flashpoint TV Show

There's a new show on CBS called Flashpoint. It's about hostage negotiators and snipers.

Now... I'm into negotiation, so you'd think that I'd love this show. I mean sure, the technology is cool - I wouldn't mind having someone assist every now and again with a voice in my ear while I'm in the middle of a negotiation... but the rest of the show just drags on.

To be honest, I was hoping for a little less talky-talky and a little more shooty-shooty.

Miss Universe Pageant Curse

So, tonight I was watching the 2008 Miss Universe pageant on TV (don't ask, it was the only thing on). Apparently, tonight was near the end, so there were 8 or so women left - evening gown competition time. Miss USA tripped down the initial step and fell flat on her butt. She was poised, got back up and kept moving as if it never happened.

Tina immediately wondered aloud how long it would take for video to appear on YouTube. So I went to look. Nope... not yet.

UPDATE (7/14/08): Video is now posted:


BUT, there WERE other videos of Miss USA 2007 at the Miss Universe 2007 pageant also falling on her butt.



So, two years in a row, the Miss USA contestant falls at the Miss Universe pageant during the evening gown portion of the event. Doesn't this qualify for some sort of curse, chant or other superstition?

More on Apple and customer service

About 2 years ago, I wrote a story about getting my PowerBook G4 fixed as a result of a hinge problem. At the time, I was indignant that Apple had a known defect in their product and wouldn't repair it for me. I spent some time in the AppleStore in Durham, NC (this was before the one in Raleigh opened) trying to see if they would assist under warranty... and they didn't. So my post was a result of my frustration at trying to get help for something I thought Apple should've taken care of, yet didn't.

However, I didn't lose my cool at the AppleStore, on the phone with Apple or anywhere else. If anything, I was mostly upset with myself and sad that I was going to have to pay a few hundred dollars for something I knew I was going to replace relatively soon.

Today I saw a post on Gizmodo about another guy who "Lost his S#?!" at the AppleStore in DC. It linked to a comic he wrote about the experience. (The comic is safe, but the comments afterwards are a little NSFW, so view this at home and away from young eyes).

Essentially, the guy had a very similar machine that I used to have... and he wanted to install a wireless card in it after purchase. He was upset that the screws on the machine weren't "standard" (they're TORX, which are, as you'll see from reading the comments, standard) and that he says he had trouble finding them at various stores (which people in the comments refute). He was upset that Apple wouldn't give him a screwdriver in the AppleStore to fix his own machine (for the same reasons that your auto mechanic won't let you use their tools to fix your car).

He ultimately lost his cool at the AppleStore and wrote the comic as a way to vent.

Now, per my other missives above, I do understand venting. I also understand being frustrated by a situation that I believe is somehow unfair.

But I do NOT take it out on others (Tina may disagree, since she hears me at home). So let me clarify... I don't take it out on the customer service person who really doesn't have much control over the situation.

[Update - about 3 seconds after hitting Publish]: OK... so I realize that by posting this little story, I'm probably perpetuating something that should just die. And, as Tina reminds me (man, I really love this girl) arguing with everyone I ever disagreed with isn't productive. Which, in turn, reminded me of one of my favorite comic artists of all time. So I'm converting this post from a semi-rant to a positive suggestion for you all to read XKCD.com on a regular basis. Here's one of Randall's drawings, completely on point.

Knight Rider GPS

If you were born in the 70s, grew up in the 80s and were male... you LOVED Knight Rider. The Hoff wasn't a dweeb yet (we had no idea he wanted to sing). KITT (the car) was awesome - and so was Bonnie. But I digress.

Mio just released their Knight Rider GPS - which comes STANDARD with William Daniels as the voice of this turn-by-turn speaking device.



Sweet! Hey Tina!!! I want one. My birthday is coming in a few months! :)

Followup on Stolen Credit Card

I waited a few months before writing this... mostly because I was busy, but partially because I wanted to see how it all played out.

The long-story-short version of the stolen credit card saga is that one of the drivers of the limo service we used in Orlando was the culprit. They used the card to charge their household bills on (not very bright)... and they confessed once cornered.

I still need to followup with the DA on the case, as I asked to press charges. So we'll see what happens. So far, no restitution or anything like that.