Blog Archives

I took a quick trip to San Diego last night and today. A good trip. Very productive. Warm and sunny. Good food. Overall…mostly positive.

Let’s begin with the landing this evening at SFO. An approach from the south and perfect afternoon lighting made for some interesting patterns in the salt flats and on the runway.

Naturally, there were a FEW annoyances…as most business trips have. An obvious annoyance was the bathtub in my hotel room!! Can anyone say ‘lawsuit’? These shards of paint formed a decorative ring around the entire tub.

But let’s focus on the positive. The hotel was very comfortable, and located on picturesque Shelter Island, with its marinas and joggers and restaurants. Its also VERY convenient to the airport.

One quirky little sign to wrap up this post. The ‘Boll Weevil’ restaurant is located on Shelter Island and is apparently a small regional chain famous for ‘half pound steerburgers’. Let me just say that a boll weevil is a nasty looking insect, and in no way makes me want to savor a Boll Weevil classic 1/2 pound peanut butter bacon cheeseburger.

I won’t go into my whole story, because you really won’t care. This is just a rant.

I called United Airlines this morning, because I was having an issue checking into my flight via their website…which I am fond of and have used a zillion times before. The web page gave me a helpful 800 number to dial. Annoying, but no big deal. (Actually, it IS a big deal, but what am I going to do? Punch my computer?)

So I called the United number and did their tedious voice routing and finally reached Friendly Agent #1 (in fairness, he WAS friendly). I explained my problem, read him the prompt on the screen, and he said that I would have to call the United.com number. I explained that I had reached him via United.com, but he failed to understand my dry sarcasm.

As we closed our call, he asked me “Have I met all your travel needs today?” Huh?

So, let’s skip ahead to Friendly Agent #2 at United.com who also listened to my story and then tried to pawn me off on yet another number. He explained why I couldn’t do what I was trying to do, to which I answered “Yes, but I have done this same thing dozens of times before…what is different this time?” So, he repeated his explanation, ignoring my question.

I don’t have a pithy punchline to conclude with. I’m just pissed. Now, I have to go to the airport early, attempt to use one of those humanless check-in kiosks, and then wait for someone to take pity on me. Its just a big waste of time.

Pooh.

So here, I’ll end with a visual metaphor for today’s customer service. This is a shopping cart I found this weekend…hard to reach, slimy, and crusty with barnacles.

I’m happy to report that the air is filled tonight with our gurgling fountain after a few months of silence. Last fall, the fountain developed a mysterious leak, but it was unpredictable. Today, we finally disassembled the entire fountain and installed a new liner. I had forgotten just how pleasant the fountain is.

The fountain capped off a really nice Sunday. We spent the bulk of the day walking in the San Francisco AIDS Walk. We were joined by 25,000 others for a 6-mile stroll through Golden Gate Park. The weather was perfect for the walk, under mostly sunny skies with fog near the ocean.

Like most San Francisco events, the SF AIDS Walk brings out a colorful mix of residents and entertainment…and our local herd of buffalo.

Twice during our week in Muskegon, we put in kayaks at the Happy Mohawk Canoe Livery on the White River. One of the local families was this happy band of swallows, tucked away safely in their mud nest. The children sat intently with heads poking over the edge of the nest, until mom arrived with fresh insects. At that point, mouths opened wide and the loudest squawker got a beak shoved down its throat for insect regurgitation.

HA! Makes my deep fried Twinkie sound pretty good, eh?

A cozy, wonderful, heavy fog rolled in last night, and blanketed the City. The fog makes every morning commute unique, as the fog begins to slowly roll back out to sea for the day.

This morning, as I arrived in my office, the fog had rolled back off the Financial District, but was still clinging to the water near the Bay Bridge. Just minutes after this photo was taken, the fog actually re-advanced and totally encompassed the bridge. Minutes later, the fog had rolled back completely. And of course, by the time the evening commute arrived, fingers of fog were already appearing over the SF hills. Now at 9pm, the City is once-again covered.

We will do this slow dance on most days all summer long. Truly magical.