Car finally fixed

Well my car is finally back together. There is one minor thing that needs to still be remedied - a small clip on the trunk liner was not re-attached properly. This too will be noted to the shop that did the work (see below). Here is a picture of the motor mount that was damaged in the accident. Initially the insurance company claimed that it wasn't caused in the accident and was likely just worn or pre-existing. I think had they not agreed to pay for it these photos would have certainly proved my point.


The body shop that did the work: Ryan's Auto Body in Ocean Township New Jersey was unable to detect what was making the clunking sound I had described after having the car for two full weeks. When they put it up on the lift they noticed that the drive shaft moved a little when it was put into gear and that seemed a little bit odd to them, but they didn't know what to do to investigate or repair the problem. I will be sending them a rather unfriendly letter about their stunning ineptness.

More mediocre performance - this time Continental Airlines

Contained below is a message I sent to Continental about their excellent web site and their President's club. Let's see what happens. During the last tirade I netted 2,500 miles.

Subject: More tiring experiences with your company

Message: On Monday March 13, 2006 I was anticipating an mid-morning flight and needed to avail myself of the use of the Presidents Club early the next morning. Thinking erroneously that online would be a nice fast easy way to get my membership and have a temporary card in my hand for the morning, I went to the web site to sign in. It dutifully took all of my personal information, including credit card data and One Pass number. When the process was completed it said to check my email. Great I thought, I'll go over pick up my temporary card and go into the club in the morning. Instead, I received this email:


>Thank you for purchasing a Presidents Club membership.
>Your application should be processed within 48
>hours and you may begin enjoying the benefits of
>membership at any of our Presidents Club locations.
>If you visit a Presidents Club prior to
>receiving your card, simply provide the clubroom
>representative with a copy of this e-mail and
>photo identification.


There was no warning that this process was not an instant process and that there would be delays that I should anticipate. So I did as the mail said and took the printout and my id to the club. How unfortunate for me that the system didn't know anything about me and I had to hold up the line while waiting for the people at the club to determine that I should be granted access. To this date I have not received either permanent or temporary card so while I may be able to get into a Contintental club, I can not avail myself of the services of any of your partner airlines clubs. Thank you once again for continuing to meet my ever decreasing expectations on my dealings with Continental and your wonderful hub airport of Newark NJ, which 80% of the time has broken AirTrans, and generally miserable service.

It is so nice being nearly held hostage by hub and spoke airlines.

9/11 Government Conspiracies

Have you heard the latest Charlie Sheen tirade. Charlie apparently thinks there is some conspiracy about the collapse of the third building in the 9/11 attacks. Is it just me or can someone who is a notable womanizer, both in real life and has made a fairly good career of representing this role on Spin City and Two and a Half Men, really expect to be take seriously? I'm not actually saying that he's even wrong in his accusations, for all I know there may have been some grand conspiracy to cover up whatever actually caused the collapse. It just seems to me that he lowers awareness for this issue rather than raising awareness. I mean seriously I for one thought: "this just has to be a farce if he's behind it". Yet CNN was reporting it the other day, and seeing if "Now that Sheen is behind it maybe the story will get some legs", seems like wishful thinking.

World's Largest Microsoft Error Message

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You asbolutely gotta love this, Network world had an article about one of the giant screens in Times Square displaying a Windows Error message. Not sure if this is the kind of advertising Bill Gates really wants. Additionally, a few weeks ago I was returning home from Detroit and the lane markers that tell you which security lane is open and which is closed on a 17" TV screen (why are 4:3 TV screens always odd numbers?) had a virtual memory error displayed on it. This screen simply sits there with the equivalent of a screen saver (well not really because I'm sure it will burn in) on it and yet it had a virual memory error.

Selfish Airline Passengers

So what has irritated me today? Airline passengers that feel they are sooooooooo important that they MUST USE ALL THE OVERHEADS. I have several times had to check my bags when catching a flight and being one of the later passengers to board. Today I witnessed a complete jerk that simply had to have all of his stuff in the overheads. I managed to get early boarding status for my flight - which I don't normally get primarily due to the shorter flights I take - and was on board early. I also managed to score an exit row seat (again not enough status for First class or Business Class) so I had decent leg room. I stuffed my smallish carryon in the overhead, crumpled my overcoat up and jammed it in on top of my carryon, and then threw my PC under the seat in front of me. I had plenty of leg room to be quite comfortable for a 1 hour or so flight. The guy right behind me piles his fairly large carryon (nearly the limit) into the overhead, then hoists his laptop bag also into the overhead, then tosses his coat in, and pours himself into the exit seat across the aisle from me. Now he had a slightly larger bag than me, but he fully consumed an overhead whereas I left enough room for some other soul to place their bag in should they need to do so. Why is it that so many people have to be so selfish.

Accident

Well - it happened. On Friday, I was almost into the Lincoln Tunnel. The person in front of me stopped hard and so did I. Unfortunately the person behind me did not. The result was >$2,000 of damage to my bumper and rear deck lid. At least that's what Allstate appraised the damage to be. Adding to the mess - my coffee cup decided to vent all of the contents all over the inside of the car and down my back. Fortunately the Big Green Clean Machine was up to the task and got all remnants out of the carpet, the seats and most importantly the headliner. Should be a week or so until it is back in order. Key Sera Sera

CNN Data Security - Do you want Miles O'Brien's cell phone number?

Yesterday during my morning hotel routine watching CNN with O'Brien and O'Brien, Miles was discussing the potential impending blackberry shutdown with another member of the CNN team. To show how blackberry's can send messages quickly from one place to another Miles sent a test message to his co-worker. His co-worker showed the message on his screen - including Miles' personal cell phone number. So if you want to speak directly to him - give me a call or drop me a note and I can give you the number.

New New Jersey Slogan - "New Jersey: Come See For Yourself"

A little bit stale news, but New Jersey has a new slogan. New Jersey: Come See For Yourself. I personally would have voted for: "New Jersey: You Got a Problem With That?". There were a few interesting others including: "New Jersey: Most of Our Elected Officials Have Not Been Indicted." which I'm not so sure of. There certainly seems to be a lot of corruption around. I think Monmouth county (in which I reside) went for the record and came up short to a few counties in New York and parishes in New Orleans - must be something to do with being New. It has been just about a year since we moved in to our new house. I can't say that I have totally adopted the attitude of my new home town, but it certainly exists. I almost bought my wife a T-shirt with "New Jersey - Attitude Capital of the World" on it, but decided against it. I will say this - New Jersey is not just Newark and Trenton - the area we live is quite suburban, albeit there are homes in the area that do appear to be very similar in external view to Tony Soprano's.

Newark Airport Experience - or why I hate Continental

I am currently sitting at gate 111a at Newark airport waiting to take flight 2227 to Detroit scheduled departure time 8:00PM. As I type this message it is 8:40PM. There is no gate agent, the board states that we are on time, and yet we are sitting here. I have called the reservations number twice to no avail. It sure would be nice if in fact there was a person to tell us what is happening with the flight rather than continuing to display "On Time" and a departure time of 8:00PM. I have spoken to other gate agents all who say: "It states 8:00 according to my computer", they then look further and say: "Oh wait - it is delayed - we are waiting for a flight from Dayton". Interestingly enough - none of these people took the initiative to update the board, call someone to man (or should I say person) the gate. Basically giving me the information is to them more than enough and is the end of their duties. What an absolutely miserable experience. I have been flying Northwest to Detroit for the past few weeks, and will very likely be traveling to/from Detroit and Newark for a while. It certainly looks like I will be using the services of Northwest rather than Continental in the future. I am rapidly running out of airlines.....

Driving in New York

Driving in New York is always an adventure. However, I've determined that I enjoy this challenge of the mind and reflexes. The primary goal is of course to prevent it from becoming a contact sport, while getting where you want to be. This is definitely not for the faint of heart. Driving on the side streets provides only one or two lanes, the avenues are wide providing 6 or 7 lanes depending on which one you choose. It is not uncommon to be driving down the center lane of one of the broad avenues and have the center two lanes suddenly become a construction zone. There are constantly people stepping between cars, delivery drivers stopping, starting, loading and unloading their wares. Taxi cabs are noted for being completely insane, but I have found that they behave like packs of roving dogs, and you must not show fear. If you do you will be inundated, you must simply push your way to where you want to go. Simply because you are in a traveling lane does not mean someone can't stop and call it a parking spot. All in all a good challenge and good workings for the mind. If you travel during non rush-hour times it is not insanely loaded with traffic, but even the slightest hiccup can cause insanity quickly. You must be constantly alert. Actually the city does provide a compelling reason for not using a cell phone without hands-free, looking away for a moment will cause you to miss the next obstacle.

New Photo Blog

As many people have, I have taken quite a lot of digital photos throughout the past several years. I've created a new blog to simply display a few of the more interesting ones in a separate area rather than clutter up this blog. I've also become interested in a few other photo blogs - there are links in the other blog to those. Enjoy.

Circuit City Fails Again

Once again I entered a Circuit City store to make a purchase. Once again I received less than stellar service. I decided to avail myself of 18 months same as cash (why use my money when I can use theirs). I was waiting patiently for a sales person to help me purchase a new computer. The existing one is getting a little tired. I waited and waited. I decided to find an application for the credit and fill it out. I easily found the form but couldn’t find a pen. I went to the service counter and asked for a pen to fill out the form: “Do you have a pen I can use to fill this out?” Without even looking up, he said tersely: “No”. being as I saw pens laying right next to him, I knew that he was just being a jerk, so I tossed the form in his general direction, walked out of the store, called the store manager and complained.

Dots Dots Everywhere but not a drop to drink

Frequent readers will notice a new template. I did this to get ready for the new year - Also , I got a little bored with the old one so decided to try something a little bit different. For those not familiar with blogger, try clicking the upper right Next Blog button to randomly be sent somewhere. If you're bored it can be kind of fun. If you hit a dead link just backup and try again.

Christmas fun with Dry Ice

For Christmas - my family received a gift from family packed in Dry Ice. The scientist in me couldn't resist having some fun and playing with the ice since to quote Velma: "When you put dry ice in water, you get a really spooky fog!" We started out trying to pour some water over the ice.

This worked fairly well at generating fog but it mostly stayed in the container it was in and didn't really flow. After a little bit of testing we discovered that putting hot water in a bowland throwing in a few pieces of dry ice really generated some serious fog.

It generated so much that it flowed out of the bowl and down the sides of the counter.
I then took a dime sized piece of ice, a decent swig of hot water and generated a nice cloud from out of my mouth ;-).

Lastly while shuffling around the ice with a spoon so as not to get burned we noted that it sounded quite a bit like it was being tortured when touching the spoon to the ice - check the video (if you can't get the video to play try saving it to your hard drive).
To quote Manav: "Good Fun!"

Plane connections in Cincinnati

I had a tight connection in Cincinnati. When I landed I called Delta and told them I had just landed and was trying to get from the C concourse to the B concourse. If you've been in Cincinnati you know this means riding the bus. The bus to get us was delayed by planes so I called Delta again and said I was on the bus and only a few minutes from the gate. Which I fortunately verified as it had changed from when I checked in at Newarkk. I thought I made it as I was at the gate at 4:05 for a 4:10 plane. No gate agent, no one around and door closed tight. However a plane was clearly visible and a pilot clearly watching me at the window. I called Delta. As I continued to sternly tell them how ridiculous this was I watched the jetway pull away from the plane. I knew what this meant so I increased my fervor. Several minutes passed and the jetway reattached. Gate agent came out and let myself and another passenger on. I was quite amazed. - Frank P. Bresz - Sent from my BlackBerry

The Patio is finally finished

Well they finally finished the patio. We also finally put some trees around the thing to break up the straight lines a bit. Check out the gallery for a surprise ending. There were some visitors across the street after all of the rains in NJ this week.

I am a Borg and I'm IN!

I just purchased a new Verizon Blackberry 7250. Finally - I am out of the relationship with Cingular. They have been quite abusive. Also purchased a Bluetooth wireless headphone with it. Motorola HS820 - very lightweight. I still can't help feeling like I am a Borg when I'm wearing this thing. I think next I'll have to pick up some bluetooth sunglasses.

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I am now totally Verizon. Home phone, office phone, DSL, 4 cell phones, I am so totally IN, and right around National Coming Out Day.

Finally they are installing the patio

Well they are finally building the patio. For those of you who haven't heard the story this job was first awarded to a contractor in April for completion in May. At some point he finally completed the front landscaping, but after repeated calls, never returned to build the patio. After another round of Landscapers's Challenge we selected a new contractor. This one seems very reputable and is making good progress. Watch for more pics as they are available.

Who is Eric Rudolph and why do I care?

Its been a while since posting. I am sitting at O'Hare waiting for a flight home. I've been chatting with my colleague about random business. I've glanced over at the CNN Airport edition a few times. Each time they are talking about Eric Rudolp - the hunt continues, mysterious travel. Who is this guy and why do I care? Is he like Natalie Holloway, that everyone must know about? Do we now need 24x7 coverage of him? Bob Costas was so right to not give these kind of stories more air time.

I know there is more 'newsworthy' stuff happening. Draft Iraq constitution, Israeli pull out in Gaza, oil prices (up or down). I know I've written this rant before - during the “Runaway Bride” incident, but my goodness this is ridiculous.

Don't know for sure but I wonder if Bill Hemmer's (sp?) exodus was precipitated in part by such pop-journalisn. I know in an article I read he would like to just go through the New York Times and report about all the stories therein. No chance of that now at Fox but at least he'll get to report news as he sees it.

Proudly Honor our Military

I won't add to this, as it requires now further comment on my part. I've sent a copy to CNN and one of the anchors I respect - Lou Dobbs - we'll see if anything becomes of it.