The Airlines: Love ‘em or call Greyhound!

I have been waging a one man vendetta against an airline, of which will remain unnamed, due to a morbid fear of being sued, for about 15 months now.

This unnamed airlines, which flies non-stop from Portland to Amsterdam (PDX to AMS) and from the Twin Cities to Portland (MSP to PDX), has been the bane of my existence for longer than I care to admit.

A bit over a year ago, as I was attempting to spend something like $2,300.00 to buy round trip tickets from Portland to Amsterdam, but their on-line system was having problems and couldn’t confirm my flight. They suggested I call to make the reservations. So I did. I called and waited on hold for 30 minutes, only to be informed that I would be charged a surcharge for talking to a live person. I remember it being $25.00 per ticket, but that may be an exaggeration. I was flabbergasted!

Their system doesn’t work, so I have to pay more money… ludicrous. After a number of days of haggling, and many hours on the phone, I finally got the tickets, without the real-live-person surcharge by talking to a supervisor’s supervisor, who could track all my attempts on her computer, and admitted that it seemed odd.

It was a bitter victory, but a victory. (Figuring the hours I spent, on-line and on-phone, it was like $3.50 per hour.)

So, now I am trying to get a ticket from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Portland. I checked Travelocity, and they didn’t have great prices, but the only non-stop flights they listed were through this unnamed airlines. I thought I would check their website and see what I could get. Holy frickin’ Toledo, they got great prices. I swallow my pride and try to buy the ticket.

Well, as stunning as it may seem, I can’t . Seems my legal name is Robert M. Cornelison, and my credit card is R.M. Cornelison. Obviously, I am different people, with the same address. I have to call. Been there, done that.

So today, I went online to Travelocity… I’ll do what I can. There is another airline with non-stop service from Minnesota to Oregon. Hot damn. I jump to their website buy the ticket (for $9.40 more than then unnamed airline) and strut around like I have beaten Goliath. I am so proud. I am a demi-god.

Then I get the ticket confirmation. I am flying the unnamed airlines. Seems Delta and the butt-plugs have merged.

At best, a hollow victory.

Happy Stonewall Day

June 28, 1969

It was a different day. America’s laws concerning homosexuals were on a par with the Soviet Union and its bloc.

Forty years later, we are still struggling for equality.

Gardening with Mac.

I am not a gifted gardener: I don’t have green thumbs. I’m claiming it was a hard winter, as a number of my perennials are still in their dormant state.

But there are some successes;

The red hot pokers are putting on a show like never before.

And the Japanese irises are blooming, even if it isn’t a robust display.

FPO Training.

Once a year I get to go play in the woods for my job. It’s a tradition that started six or seven years ago.

The Forest Service does an annual training of Forest Protection Officers at the Inn. FPOs are sort of entry level law enforcement. The USFS doesn’t have a large number of Law Enforcement Officers, so they are supplemented, to a degree, by the FPOs. FPOs write parking tickets, enforce campground rules: patrol the forest in general. Often they are the first to see real problems.

On Thursday of the weeklong training, they do scenes that attempt to re-enact situations the FPO’s will actually encounter. My friend Sher, who at the time ran the training, invited me to take part in the scenarios. I jumped at the chance to get out of the office and into the woods. (Granted, it is Wyeth Campground, by the train tracks, but there is no carpeting or file cabinets.)

Since then, I have been a dufus out gathering firewood without a permit, twice I’ve been stealing fire camp equipment, I’ve been a kindly drunk who got his truck stuck in a ditch, had a car accident with a Forest Service vehicle, and had a heart attack trying to get my truck out of a ditch. This year I was a snitch… turning in the neighboring campers for stealing fire camp equipment. Trust me, I knew all the tell tale signs.

Then there was the two years when I was a grower at a major pot farm in the forest. But that was for LEO Re-certification. So it doesn’t really count.

It’s fun, but I hope I help the FPO be safe. As Sher told me once, the FPOs are damn near the only people in the forest without guns.

I do get gratifications by the many times people say “Thank you” to me.

This from 2004... I think I was stealing fire camp equipment, and obviously setting the stage for my future drunken scenes!

June 22, 1969

Many of us remember it with a bit of a chuckle. Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River caught on fire. What I didn’t realize is that it wasn’t the first time that the river through downtown Cleveland burst into flames. Apparently the first eight, nine or ten times
(depending on your source), no one thought it odd.

As scary as it is to say, the Cuyahoga is not the only river in America to burn. The Providence River, in central Providence, Rhode Island has also been known to flame up. Apparently, they intentionally burned it from time to time, just to “clean it up”.

Add to that the North, Chicago, Buffalo, Fallsaway, and Passaic Rivers and you get a pretty grim picture of the United States’ history of abusing its rivers.

Let’s all give us a hand for doing a little better these days!

Summer is here!!! Summer is here!!!.

Just in time for Father's Day, the northern hemisphere greets summer!

Define "Truth in Advertising"

As I was driving home from work today, listening to the advertisements on the radio station, I was struck by the totally unbelievable claims.(I know, old school. I should have been madly texting on my I-pod while getting down to rappy-type-music on my boysenberry!)

Are there people who really are desperate enough to try this crap?

First, there was the “natural supplement” that would take 15 to 20 pounds of troublesome fat off your belly in two weeks, without you having to starve yourself or do any tiring exercises. Wow, this sounds so totally healthy! (Has anyone checked to see if meth does the same thing?) And, to sweeten the deal, they would send you a month’s supply “FREE OF CHARGE!!!” Okay, maybe I’m cynical, but if it is a natural supplement and does what they claim, why do they have to give it away? And if it’s suppose to work in two weeks, why do the send you a month’s supply? Is there a detail I missed?

Then there was the credit counselor, who will get you debt free in 2 years, no matter how close you are to bankruptcy, using just the money you earn now. Yes, pay off your cars, your 30-year mortgage, your student loans and your thousands of dollars worth of credit card bills. In two years! I thought about doing the math, but I was afraid it would destroy the magic for me. The only thing I could think of was that the counselor would instruct you to open a warehouse to hold white children being inducted into the lucrative sex-slave industry. You really wouldn't "earn" any more money.

But, for the coup de grâce, there was the miracle cream that took 20 years off your face in three days. This one, of course was targeted at the female audience. Like there aren’t a whole bunch of men who would use this cream, if it worked, with eagerness and glee? We’d just be macho and buy it by the truckload. With that said, the whole idea of putting something astringent enough to accomplish that small feat, on my tender skin, scares the bejesuses out of me. And, not to be outdone by the “natural supplement”, the miracle cream was giving a free month’s supply also! It works in 3 days… why a month? Is it opiate based?

Maybe I’ll just read the newspaper as I drive home from work!