Kerfuffle

Remember when there used to be a lot of airlines?

When I was a kid, I knew all the airlines.  It was like an obsession.  I knew where they flew, where their gates were if they flew out of Chicago O'Hare, and what kind of equipment they used.  My mom used to tell me that there were even more railroads than there were airlines, but the airline industry sent them to their graves with but a few old routes and train names to live on in the form of Amtrak.

Recently I was cleaning out my desk and found several frequent flier cards for airlines that have gone away.  Many were merged into others while others went bankrupt.  In some cases, you can trace the lineage.  For example, Wisconsin Central changed it's name to North Central; North Central merged with Southern and Hughes Airwest to become Republic; Republic was taken over by Northwest; Northwest merged into Delta.

It's hard to believe so many of these carriers are gone.  I've flown many of them (marked with **).  I logged the most miles with TWA and Ozark the hard way -- 300 at a time between Chicago and St. Louis -- while working on the Anheuser-Busch account.  But all those miles, including a lot earned during fare wars and triple mile deals, all rolled into American... and I am still burning them off.

How many of these airlines do you remember?  And how many have you flown in your past?

Air California (merged into American)

Allegheny (merged with Piedmont and PSA to form US Air)

Aloha (bankrupt) **

America West (merged into US Air) **

American Trans Air (bankrupt) **

Braniff (bankrupt)

Capital (merged into United)

Chicago Air (lost feeder agreement with Midway, ceased operation) **

Empire (merged into Piedmont)

Air Florida (bankrupt)

Hughes Airwest (merged with North Central and Southern to form Republic)

Kiwi (de-certified by FAA... ouch!)

Midway (bankrupt, a few times) **

Mohawk (merged into Allegheny)

Muse Air (taken over by Southwest, renamed TranStar)

National (merged into Pan American)

New York Air (merged into Continental)

North Central (merged with Hughes Airwest and Southern to form Republic) **

Northwest (merged into Delta) **

Ozark (merged into TWA) **

Pan Am (bankrupt, the name was unsuccessfully resurrected four times.  FAIL)

People Express (merged into Continental)

Piedmont (merged with Allegheny and PSA to form US Air) **

Presidential Air (bankrupt)

PSA/Pacific Southwest Airlines (merged with Allegheny and Piedmont to form US Air) **

Reno Air (merged into American)

Republic (merged into Northwest) **

Southern (merged with Hughes Airwest and North Central to form Republic)

Texas International (merged into Continental)

Tower Air (bankrupt)

TranStar (short-lived alter ego of Southwest, ceased operation)

Trans World Airlines/TWA (merged into American) **

ValuJet Airways (now operates as AirTran after a horrific crash attributed to lapses in safety practices)

Vanguard (bankrupt)

Western (merged into Delta)  **

Who did I miss?

Another PR lesson for United Airlines: Your lousy customer service and surly employees might get you a popular YouTube music video

United Airlines is one of many so-called legacy air carriers that have hit the skids.  In my estimation, they have fallen the farthest.  I personally avoid them -- and their Chicago O'Hare hub -- at all costs.

Musician Dave Carroll spent nine months wishing he had steered clear of United's unfriendly skies.  The airline's baggage handlers trashed his guitar as he watched from his seat on the plane.  He then had what can only be described as a complete customer service cluster-fuck. 

Carroll, being a musician and all, decided to apply his creative talents to the problem.  He came up with this:

As of this writing, the video has had 641,937 views and 10,867 people have given it an average rating of five stars.  5,610 people have left comments... few of them very favorable to United.

To really appreciate the song, take a look at Carroll's website.  He posted the whole sad story and to read it is to know he really did get screwed by United.  No surprise there.  But only when he got past being mad and got creative instead did United finally wise up.  Funny what a viral video can do.  As is often the case, once this thing took off, the mainstream media picked it up. The LA Times put the video on their site.  Yesterday he was interviewed on CNN's The Situation Room, and a part of the video was shown.

Paging Dave Carroll to the white courtesy phone.  United Airlines has a call for you!  And what d'ya know... they are suddenly in a mood to make things better.

"It struck a chord with us,” said Robin Urbanski, a spokeswoman with United Airlines.

Yeah.  I'll bet it did.  Especially with Wolf Blitzer playing the video. 

"We are in conversations with (Carroll) to make what happened right and, while we mutually agree this should have been fixed much sooner, his video is excellent.

“It provides us with a learning opportunity we can use for training purposes.”

She said they hope to provide customers with better service.

I think it is safe to say that until this turned into a very unflattering PR problem, United was no-way, no-how going to do anything for this man.  They practiced the fine art of the customer service run-around, which can be quite effective in getting people to just give up.  It's kind of an extended way of telling the customer:  "You aren't important to us, and we know we can ignore you, so just fuck off, won't you?"

And to think United was once what many people considered the best airline flying.  Now they make Air Uzbekistan look pretty good.

Signs of the times: Keeping doorways and ATM lobbies open and accessible and trees whiz-free

[San Francisco]  We live in a world of signs.  Traffic signs.  Advertising signs.  Signs indicating stores and services.  Warning signs.

I passed a few lat night that seemed a little different.  I didn't photograph them, but should have.  The first was a hand-made sign in the window of a pet store:

"This is not a phone booth"

Makes sense.  With people on their phones all the time, and perhaps looking to stay out of the elements or hoping for a quiet place, doorways are a natural choice.  But in the world of neighborhood retail, the chattering masses probably doesn't help your foot traffic.

Another hand-lettered sign very politely hoped to keep a little tree from becoming a popular doggie urinal:

"Please don't stop here"

Simple and to the point.  The intended audience knew it was directed at them.

But this one was most unusual, found in an alcove that housed a Bank of America ATM:

Note it only addresses overnight camping.  I guess that means people are free to set up for the day.  They're so accommodating in San Francisco.

I wonder: Where these guys go at night?

[San Francisco]  I came upon this man and his pets on O'Farrell Street at Powell earlier this afternoon.  It's hard not to notice a man with a white rat that is perched on top of a big tabby cat that itself is laying on top of a dog.

It was hard for this young man to pass the quartet by without asking if he could pet the rat.

I'm feeling a bit sheepish that I neither asked if I could take a photo, nor did I drop something in his collection can.  I was to amazed that he was sitting there with these three animals, all getting along. 

There's a lesson in there somewhere.

Looking for a small piece of my childhood: In search of the Manx Hotel

[San Francisco] When I was maybe nine years old, our we took what I think was our best family vacation.  My folks, brother, sister and I rode The Burlington's California Zephyr (this was pre-Amtrak) from Chicago to San Francisco.  We then drove down the coast all the way to San Diego before catching Santa Fe's Super Chief from Los Angeles back home. 

It was an incredible trip for many reasons.  One of the coolest reasons, to me anyhow, was that it was my first time ever staying in a real "city hotel."  We had stayed in motels and motor lodges during other vacations, but this was right in downtown San Francisco... not that I could remember where.  It had bellhops and all these seemingly important people buzzing around.  It was called the Manx Hotel.

This afternoon, I set out to find the Manx.  It wasn't in any of the listings, so I assumed it was long gone -- at least the name was.  But was the building still around?  Was it still a hotel?  With a little Googling, I found some old postcards from the Manx Hotel, including one with an address:  Powell at O'Farrell.  That's within a mile of where we are staying.  Off I went.

From the old postcards, I recognized the building.  It was still there, and it was still a hotel.  We had passed the Villa Florence hotel on Saturday, but I hadn't realized it was the old Manx.  For confirmation, I went into the lobby.  While all redone, the basics were the same, right down to how the restaurant and front desk were positioned. 

I had to get confirmation.  The desk clerked smiled and said, "Yes, indeed, but that was a long, long time ago."  She told me other people at times asked about the Manx, especially old men who remembered it as the U.S. Navy's west coast headquarters during World War Two.

Next time we come out here, we have to stay at the Manx, umm, I mean the Villa Florence.

Is it possible to open a Starbucks inside another Starbucks? Random thoughts from the city by the bay

[San Francisco]  This is a city that resembles New York in so many ways.  Of course, there are no giant hills or cable cars in Manhattan.  Drivers here are a lot less likely to lean on their horns the second a traffic light turns green.  But, still, San Francisco is very much an international city.  In line for coffee, one can hear four or five languages, although apparently "latte" is a universal term. 

It's both entertaining and educational to simply walk around.  Among the things I have learned:

• These people, and those who visit here, must drink a lot of coffee.  I thought Seattle was overrun by coffee places branded and otherwise, but this is crazy. In an unofficial survey of six blocks, around Union Square, I noted nine Starbucks, two Peet's, and perhaps a half dozen independents.  Those are just the ones I noticed.  And when, considering that load factor, one still waits about ten minutes at 10 AM for a coffee drink and an Egg McMuffin knockoff, then one may wonder if there are still not enough to meet the demand.
• There are cabs everywhere.  I love that about Chicago and New York, and this may be the only city west of the Mississippi that is so cab-friendly.  I'd estimate that at least a third of the taxi fleet here are hybrid vehicles.  The Ford Escape hybrid is the model of choice, but there are also a fair number of Prius taxis.  It makes a ton of sense. 
• Speaking of traffic, drivers here seem to make a real effort to pull over and try to get our of the way of emergency vehicles.  In Chicago and New York, drivers seem oblivious to sirens and flashing lights and, even worse, jump in behind them to make better time across town.  Of course, not everyone here is paying attention, which is the likely explanation of why the guy in the Lexus SUV lost his mirror and crunched his passenger door when kissing the back of an SFFD ambulance in front of my hotel this morning.  Oops.
• There is a woman sitting opposite me right now in a Starbucks (did I mention they have those here?) who bears a disturbingly close resemblance to Yoko Ono.  I am trying to resit the urge to ask her to sing in the unlikely event it really is her. 
• If you drive to the wine country, it is best go up 101 over the Golden Gate Bridge and come back via Berkley and I-80 over the Oakland Bay Bridge.  This way you can game the system, as the only bridge that charges tolls in both directions is the OBB.  We must have saved at least $5, which we spent at, umm, Starbucks.
• The City of Napa is everything that the City (town?) of Sonoma is not.  It has fast food places, a Wal Mart and a Target, regular grocery stores, and locals who look like they work for a living.  Sonoma has a town square with a few dozen retailers all competing to sell overpriced things no one needs.  This is not to say one is better than the other... just that they are way different.
• People here smile back when you smile at them.  Except the homeless people hitting you up for change, especially if you decline by saying something like "sorry."  They don't think you are really sorry.
• A lot of people wear backpacks here, and they are not all tourists.
• When I lived in Los Angeles, I fell in love with the food at California Pizza Kitchen.  There are no CPKs in Madison but, not surprisingly, there are several here.  As much as I want to go into one, it just seems too touristy to me to do so. 

I need to get off my ass and get out of this Starbucks.  I think I'll head down the street to another Starbucks.  Kidding.  Sort of.  Not really.  No, I promise I will go outside now.

Map, schmap: Making the case for GPS in every rental car

[Calistoga CA] The wine country in Sonoma and Napa counties is beautiful. With our trusty rental car, an iPhone and a Blackberry, we figured we didn't need GPS or a map. While we're not lost, as we've been here before, we are learning how quickly one becomes dependant when every car one owns has a GPS in it. 

The wireless phone works, to a degree, but it needs cell towers to triangulate a location. Not a lot of towers out here. Tasting wine doesn't exactly sharpen one's own internal compass either. Not wanting to drive back the exact route in reverse when we return to San Francisco after dinner, we fell back on that low-tech standby: a map. 

How 20th century. 

Since dinner here in Calestoga will include more wine, a map is probably worth the cost of a latte (the new universal cost-comparative standard it seems.) 

Posted via iPhone

Shopping for Friesians? Have I got a deal for you!

[Sonoma CA] Black Sterling Farms is where you'll find Dutton. And for just $19,500 you can ride him home. (Saddle not included.)

This trip might get kind of expensive.

Posted via iPhone

Thousands of costumed (or naked) people in the streets, drinking and yelling and dancing and occasionally running... at 8AM: welcome to the Bay to Breakers 2009

[San Francisco]  Modern hotels don't have windows that open.  That's too bad, because when visiting a different city, sometimes it's interesting to hear the sounds of the street.  This morning at the corner of Third and Howard, the sealed windows didn't matter much.  The sounds of a partying crowd 20 floors below was only somewhat muffled.

Looking down from the hotel window was quite the sight.  A seemingly endless parade of costumed (or not so costumed) people were marching along the street in a scene that seemed like a mash-up of Mardi Gras, the gay pride parade, and a moving block party.  Behold, the 98th Bay To Breakers "run."

The event has it's roots in San Franciscan's efforts to recover from the 1906 earthquake.

From the organizer's website...

At 5:13am on April 18, 1906, a devastating earthquake - that would become one of history's most notorious natural disasters - rocked San Francisco. The subsequent fire and destruction were unimaginable, and many feared the City would be gone forever. But San Franciscans, displaying their typical fortitude and innovation, immediately began rebuilding the city and producing events to lift their morale. One of those events, the Cross City Race - known better today as ING Bay to Breakers - was first run in 1912 as a precursor to the world-class athletic events planned for the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition. There were less than 200 participants that first year and Robert Jackson Vlught was the first person to ever cross the finish line, with a finishing time of 44:10.

Apparently, it was a real race back in the day.  Somehow, over the decades, it has morphed into something more than a footrace.  Many of the participants were displaying official race registration numbers, though they were hardly racing.  Nearly everyone was in some kind of costume, many in groups that had put significant effort in both creation and construction.  Some of the best efforts had props... huge props... like the folks with the rolling bar...

This is clearly an event that is made better, judging from watching the participants, with the addition of alcohol and/or weed.  People were pushing kegs along in shopping carts, and there were spliffs-a-plenty based on my finely developed sense of smell for those things.

If one was really lucky, or really drunk, walking was optional, as this guy clearly demonstrated.  Keep in mind, this is a "run."

The storied Engine Company One of the San Francisco Fire Department happens to be on Howard Street, and the firefighters and EMTs were more than happy to participate.  The weather is unusually warm for San Francisco today, and the firemen felt that the crowd would appreciate any efforts to cool them off.  And they do have hoses and those tanks of water and all.  The naked guy with the Super-Soaker was very much outmatched, not that he cared.

By 9 AM, there were a whole lot of drunk people stumbling along.  This gentleman proved it is a possible -- sort of -- to walk, hold a beer, and do a jello shot all at the same time...

 
Not every sight was easy on the eyes.  There were a surprising number of naked people. To be fair, some had hats and all had some kind of footwear.  It seemed the people one might have wanted to see naked were not, and those who were, well, yikes.  Being a blog that strives to hold onto a PG-17 rating, I'll spare you the really horrific shots and just give you this badly represented Ninja Turtle:

... and this, well, I have no idea:

 
It's always nice to come away from any experience having learned something new and helpful.  In my case, I learned that wine-in-a-box can be a lot easier to handle while walking if you lose the box...

I'd like to suggest the folks who run the Madison (Wisconsin... my current base of operations) Crazy Legs Classic consider some of the more fun elements of San Francisco's Bay To Breakers event.  We in Wisconsin are already no strangers to enjoying beer for breakfast, as evidenced by Badger tailgating and the Miflin Street Party.  The nudity thing may be a push, but Madison likes to think of itself as progressive, so what the hell?

It's may be worth noting, incidentally, that this event passed right by the Moscone Center, where the American Psychiatric Association is currently holding it's 162nd annual convention.  In their 162 years (really, 162 freakin' years!) this probably was one their more  interesting diversions.  But, as my partner and live-in psychiatrist noted as we watched the show, "These folks are probably all psychiatrically quite healthy."  Indeed.

Looking for a vacation spot where you can escape from that dreaded government oversight and... SOCIALISM? Problem solved!

Pack your bags and get to the airport!

[via DK]