Category Archives: Bronder Luck

Worst Airline(s) Ever.

Not sure who to chalk this one up to USAIR or United but they both blow in my book. Here’s how I spent the last 12 hours.

5:30pm:
I leave work early to get home, change clothes, and catch a cab to the airport since my flight is at 8:10pm.
6:30pm:
I get a voicemail from the Airline (at this point not sure which one) saying my flight’s been delayed.
6:34pm:
I check United’s Flight Status section of their website to see if my flight’s on time, it is.
6:35pm:
I call United’s Customer Support to check if my flight’s been delayed, it’s not. I’m assure by ‘Tom’ from Bangladesh that my flight is on time.
6:55pm:
I call begin my attempt to call the Car Service which is in vain.
7:05pm:
I decide to walk a block to the actual Car Service dispatch center to ask for a rid e in person.
7:30pm:
I arravie at Laguardia, checkin electronicly only to find my flight’s been delayed by 2 hours.
7:35pm:
I begin to understand why the Airline Industry in going bankrupt.
7:45pm:
I call United again, asking them how their website and their Customer Service dept. didn’t know the flight was canceled after they called me. They’re sorry for the miss-communication.
8:00pm:
I find a bar with bad food and have a beer.
8:30pm:
The customer at the next to me has a orders a drink and when the waiter returns with the beverage the clase splits nearly in half. Straight down the middle. I take this as an omen of the way my night is shaping up.
9:00pm:
Taking the demonic splitting of glass I decide to move on, as I’m walking to the next airport bar I notice on the board that my flight is now canceled.
9:10pm:
I head to the ticket counter to ‘barter’ with the agent about getting a flight to Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati… anywhere. He of cousre tells me there’s nothing until 3:50pm Saturday which I find unbelieveable. Then I started suggesting other cities to fly to and then to Columbus. I always thought this was the job of the Ticket Agent but it’s not. This is the job of the Customer, the ticket agent is just there to feel your pain. We find a flight via Washington Dulles (which I hate) at 6:00am Saturday getting me in Columbus at 10:00am excatly 2 hours before kickoff and 1 hour after tailgating begins.

If you can’t tell I’m pissed. I just spent my entire evening at the airport without leaving. It fucking blows and so does United or USAir or whoever the hell operates my flight(s). The Whole Airline Industry can kiss my ass.

Ted Leo @ River to River 2006

Ted Leo and The Pharmacists @ River to RiverTed Leo and The Pharmacists @ River to River

Last night we checkout Ted Leo and the Pharmacists at this years River to River Festival. The show was at The South Street Seaport which is like one of those fake old towns that you see, with cobble stone streets and all. The music was good but for no other reason than luck we stood behind all the tall people at the concert.

My view at the Ted Leo ShowJulie's view at the Ted Leo Show

It was fine until the show started and then the guy in the pink shirt on the left decided to stand directly in front of me. It wouldn’t have been so bad but for the hair. So I bitched a lot during the show and then I noticed what the view would be like from Julie’s spot. As you can see in the second image above it’s worse than mine.

Empire State Building from the South Street Seaport

We ended up moving around to the side of the stage where you could actually see the band and then I stopped complaining and we started to make fun hipsters.

Mystery My Ass.

ConED

For the record we didn’t get power back completely until yesterday afternoon. Granted we did get it back for about 5 hours on Tuesday. This relief was short-lived when an explosion near the manholes up the block took everything down again. So today with the power of electricity I stumbled upon this article.
Here are some key lines:

Power company Con Edison initially said fewer than 2,000 customers were affected, but it increased that number tenfold Friday morning to 25,000 customers.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg estimated that would translate to about 100,000 people considering that each “customer” could be more than one household in an area where homes are often sectioned into multiple units, and could even be an entire apartment building.

“The sad thing is, this shouldn’t have happened,” Bloomberg said. “We don’t know why, but the most important thing — make sure nobody dies or gets hurt and then help Con Ed to get it back up.”

Some of our neighbors called ConEd just to be told they wouldn’t even have an estimate for the length of outage till the next morning. The best part, no one worked on our block the entire night of Tuesday. Not one ConEd Guy. As the pictures show our block was literally on fire twice. How could they not be working on our block?

Consolidated Edison spokesman Chris Olert said the revised number followed a block-by-block cable inspection in northwest Queens on Thursday night. It said previous estimates came from the number of customers who called to complain.

I guess this is how the block by block check will go… Genius.