Myrtle Beach Airport Bridge

I’m back on my kick of not being inspired to write much. So I’m going to share a picture a friend of mine sent me this morning that made me laugh.

There has been a huge building project going on to build a new $46 million bridge across the Intercoastal Waterway in Myrtle Beach to make easier access to the airport. I am thrilled to report they opened this bridge about 2 weeks back.

Now mind you a project of this size and magnitude has plenty of checks and double checks to make sure things are done right. So my question is why didn’t they do a spell check on the city name and at least spell Myrtle Beach right?

I hope they put better quality work in the construction of the bridge than they did in the making of the road sign.

What are the Odds?

I am working home office again this week (as you can tell from the lack of posts). I finally got myself to sit down last night to enter my expenses in for the previous week. This is a chore I don’t like even though it doesn’t take long and it’s not all that difficult. I try to make myself do it on Saturday but that slid into Tuesday.

The ritual goes something like this.

We enter our expenses on-line, assign the cost center to be billed, enter where we went and what we did. The system assigns a unique trip number. We have to write our personnel number and trip number on each page of our expenses we are sending in so they can be matched if they get out of order. We only have to send receipts in for items over a certain value which is higher than most meals I eat.

So I have devised a system that I enter just enough to get my trip started. I save it and paste that number into a Word document and print out about 8 pages with my trip and personnel number. This part I have down…

I go to print and there is not a single sheet of paper in the printer. Since this printer is networked to all computers in the house I figure there will be a line of things that have not made it there yet that will kick off. Strange enough my last print job just used the last sheet of paper. It’s happened before but not a common occurrence.

I move on to the taping down the receipts on the forms I just created so I can fax them to the expense department later. I pull out my tape dispenser and have just enough tape to tape down one small receipt. So it’s off on the search for another roll of tape. I get my roll of tape and continue the ritual.

I keep all my receipts even if they are below the value I have to turn in. I just want them if I ever get audited (which really has not ever happened, but I’m picky that way). So I generally staple them together and attach them to my reports that I faxed in. Wouldn’t you know the last staple was used earlier in the day. So off I go again on the search for staples.

I fax in my receipts and expense report (30 minutes later due to all the searching for supplies) and I’m ready to file them away in my shoebox file cabinet. I always highlight the date of the report so it’s easy to find if I flip through them. I reach over and grab a highlighter off my desk and the darn thing is out of ink.

Least to say I’m still looking for the cameras in my office. I’m sure this will show up on candid camera someday. I mean what are the odds of not having paper in your printer, tape in you tape dispenser, staples in your stapler or ink in your highlighter all in the same day.

Good thing that was my last task of the day.

If only I could sing

If only I could sing I could probably write a few more songs about the airline industry. This guy has really put United Airlines on the spot with his issues. When you have 4 minutes if you have not see this it's worth the watch.

I need to get a guitar and learn to sing.



The following was sent to me in an e-mail about the video. There are some good articles about this guy's experience. I don't think United expected him to be able to reach over 3 million people in less than a month.

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The story of a Canadian musician whose guitar was allegedly damaged by United baggage handlers at Chicago O'Hare has become one of the most-talked-about aviation stories on the Web this week. Now, after going viral online, the story also has gone mainstream. The Chicago Tribune, U.S. national TV networks and a bevy of Canadian papers are among those to pick up the story during the past day.

The move shows just how quickly the Internet can help a disgruntled customer can turn the tables on a company and its effort to manage its public image.

As for the Tribune's take, United's hometown newspaper writes "Canadian musician Dave Carroll could have sung the blues after United Airlines workers at O'Hare International Airport smashed his guitar and the carrier refused to pick up the $1,200 cost to repair it.

Instead, he turned the experience into a witty ditty, 'United Breaks Guitars,' and scored an instant hit on YouTube, his first in a 16-year career." The Tribune adds that Carroll "spent hours reasoning with United agents in Chicago, New York and India" over a nine-month period, all to "no avail."

Carroll posted his United-themed song and video on YouTube early on Monday. As of this morning, it had been viewed nearly half-a-million times. The Ottawa Citizen notes "the song documents Carroll's woes and frustration with the airline's refusal to compensate him for his loss." Carroll performs the song on the video with his Nova Scotia-based band, the Sons of Maxwell. The Citizen adds Carroll -- via notes on his YouTube post -- "promised the last person to finally say no to compensation … that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world."

As for the other two songs, they're still coming, Carroll says. Still, the buzz generated by the first song is remarkable, even earning him a mention on CNN's "The Situation Room" yesterday. "Any day you’re on Wolf Blitzer’s screen in 'The Situation Room,' it’s a big day," Carroll is quoted as saying by the Los Angeles Times.

United, on the other hand, "is facing a PR nightmare after failing to resolve the issue," Benet Wilson writes on her Things With Wings commercial aviation blog. But, she adds "to its credit, United Airlines saw the error of its ways and is now trying to resolve the situation. And @UnitedAirlines was on Twitter explaining to its 15,603 followers on what it's doing for the guitarist and offering an apology." Damage control in an era of new media ...

And, Carroll's video could even lead to a better experience for other United customers, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. "While we mutually agree this should have been fixed much sooner, Dave's excellent video provides us with something we can use for training purposes to ensure that all customers receive better service for us," United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski says to the Sun-Times.

DELTA – The true meaning

DELTA = Delayed Through Atlanta. Let me tell you it’s so common that flights are delayed here that I’d be surprised if they left on-time.

Today I’m sitting at the gate on a flight that is already 1.5 hours delayed. They keep saying it’s because of a late inbound aircraft. Then they tell us it’s being towed over from the hanger and has to have security screening before we leave since it’s the first flight of the day. Mind you it’s NOON didn’t they know this flight was on the schedule? They sold 74 seats and 12 extras they don’t have.

I find it amusing to watch all the business travelers that are pacing around attached to cell phones freaking out that they are going to miss their meetings. All I can think is they should have booked the earlier flights if they had meeting today. I am obviously calloused to the whole situation.

Sad part is on Friday they did the same thing in Houston on the first flight out. They ferried over the WRONG plane and didn’t know until the crew got there. So they had to move the plane that was there and bring us the right aircraft.

I’m not a rocket scientist but don’t these Airlines have computer systems to help coordinate all this stuff. I trust these people to fling me through the air in a tin can at 30,000 feet and they can’t even get the right plane to the gate knowing full good and well what should be there and when. I understand delays for Maintenance and Weather. But for stuff like this it’s a bit ridiculous.

Things I see in a week

I've been horrible about writing for some time now. I keep telling myself I'll get better but I guess the summer heat has got to me.

The past 7 days I've been gone. I flew to Houston and drove from there to my mom's house in South Arkansas (about 6 hours). I spent the weekend with her then went to work in Lufkin, TX about 1.5-2 hours north of Houston. Mom came with me and spent the week so it was nice to spend time with her.

When I first got to the Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport this statue was in the main lobby of the airport. Being Houston has NASA and Texas is known for cow I guess it's not a huge stretch to come up with this one.

Mom and I stopped to see the courthouse that is being restored in Marshall, TX. We were hoping it was ready for tours but it was not. The building is over 100 years old and they are restoring it to the way it was back then. To the extent of using art brushes to touch up painting, gold leaf. We peeked through the windows but figure it will be ready by Christmas.
The statue below is at the Marshall County Courthouse as well.

Now you've heard about all the Texas travel so you would think the picture below would have been takend in Texas. That's where you are wrong - it was at the Myrtle Beach airport when I got home. Who knew we drove around old Caddies with Horns. There are a lot of things I saw I didn't get pictures of. I'll try to do better in the future.

Not a lot to report

I’m back at Mom’s in LA “Lower Arkansas”. I had home office last week and work in Lufkin, TX this upcoming week so I flew out Friday to Houston and drove 6 hours north to moms. I took a picture at the airport that I was planning on posting to the blog but I left my camera cable on my desk at home. Maybe next week I’ll get it right.

Instead I think I’ll post another picture from a trip I took to California a few years back.

One Year and an Eternity ago

Last year I changed jobs over the July 4th weekend. I left a job that I had worked for almost 4 years to go back to my previous employer with a lot more travel. I left on July 3 from one job and started the new job July 7.

It seems like an eternity since I came back. I always say a month doing this type work feels like a year. You are running from place to place, week to week and the time just flies by. I have no idea how many air miles I’ve flown in the past year but I’d say it’s very close to 150,000. I know I’ve ping ponged cross country most of the year working in Los Angeles and Oregon. I started off in Houston for a few week last summer and back in that area for the 1 year mark.

Looking back it was the right move at the right time. It was a gut wrenching decision to leave a job I loved and leave people I truly cared about. Sometimes we have to spread our wings and go even if we don’t really want to do it.

Not much of a blog today… But it’s what happened a year ago in my life. Some mighty big changes that week.

Happy 5th of July

I’ve been horrible about writing the past few weeks. I guess we all need time off at some point and this was mine. I’ll try to do better in the weeks to come; it’s not that I haven’t had ideas to write about just that I was too lazy to write them.

I had an unexpected day home alone yesterday. I was planning on going north of Wilmington, NC yesterday but plans changed at the last minute. So I ended up at home alone. I went for a walk in the park behind my house and spent about 2 hours over there. They have swings in the shade where you can watch the boats on the waterway. I watched those while listening to my iPod for about half an hour. Then I walked about 2 miles in the woods sitting along the side of a pond for a while then returning to my starting point watching boats come in and go out from the ocean.
I was really surprised that on the 4th of July how few people there were in the park. I doubt I saw 5 people the whole time. I guess everyone was at the beach which is where I plan on going in about half an hour.

Hope everyone is doing well and I’ll try to get another post out in a few days.