fauxklore | Entries tagged with customer service

Celebrity Death Watch: Larry Kramer was a playwright, best known for The Normal Heart. Christo was an artist, known for his large installations Norman Lamm was the President of Yeshiva University for many years and a major force in defining Modern Orthodox Judaism. Irene Triplett was the last living recipient of a Civil War pension. Pat Dye was a college football player and coach. Bruce Jay Friedman was a comic novelist and screenwriter, best known for such movies as Splash and Stir Crazy. Rupert Hine was a songwriter and record producer, who produced work by such people as Tina Turner and Bob Geldorf. Steve Priest was a bassist and singer for The Sweet. Keiko Ito was a haiku poet. Kurt Thomas was a Hall of Fame gymnast who won world championships in the late 1970’s. Vicki Wood was one of the first women to compete as a NASCAR driver. Thomas Freeman was a debate coach whose students included Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barbara Jordan. Bonnie Pointer sang with her sisters. Claudell Washington played outfield for several baseball teams, including a World Series winning A’s team in 1974. Harry Glickman cofounded the Portland Trail Blazers. Mike McCormick was a pitcher, primarily for the Giants, with whom he won a Cy Young award. Sally Banes was a dance historian and critic. Charles Webb wrote The Graduate. Dame Vera Lynn was an English singer, best known for “We’ll Meet Again.” Sir Ian Holm was an actor whose roles varied from King Lear to Bilbo Baggins. David Perlman was a science journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Lester Crystal was a news executive at PBS and NBC. Ralph Dunagin was a cartoonist, whose work included both editorial cartoons and comic strips. I know I owned a copy of his book Dunagin’s People at some point and may still. Thomas Edward Blanton Jr. was the terrorist who bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, killing four African-American girls. Milton Glaser designed the I (Heart) New York logo and co-founded New York Magazine. Julian Curry was an actor, best known for playing Claude Erskine-Brown in the TV version of Rumpole of the Bailey. Tom Finn was a founding member of The Left Banke, best known for the song, “Walk Away Renee.” Henry Martin was a cartoonist whose work was published often in The New Yorker. He was also the father of Ann M. Martin of Babysitters Club fame and illustrated a couple of children’s books she wrote. Sir Everton Weekes was a cricket player for Barbados, who is noted for integrating the sport. George Ratzinger was a religious musician and the older brother of Pope Benedict XVI. Max Crook wrote the song “Runaway.” Earl Cameron was a British actor, whose career included being the first black actor to play various sorts of roles. Ennio Morricone was a composer of film music. Mary Kay Letourneau raped her teenage student and later married him. Ronald Graham was a big name in discrete mathematics, which I don’t understand well enough to tell you more about. Charlie Daniels was a country music singer-songwriter. Louis Colavecchio counterfeited coins for use in casino slot machines. Naya Rivera was an actress best known for appearing on Glee. Kelly Preston was an actress who appeared in numerous movies, including Jerry Maguire. She was also married to John Travolta. Judy Dybble was a founding member of Fairport Convention. Joanna Cole wrote the Magic School Bus series of children’s books. Grant Imahura was a roboticist, most famous for appearing on Mythbusters. Zizi Jeanmarie was a ballerina.

Jean Kennedy Smith was the younger sister of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Edward M. Kennedy, and Eunice Kennedy Shriver and was last of her generation of the Kennedy family. She worked on issues involving people with disabilities. She also spent 5 years as U.S. Ambassador to Ireland. She had been on my ghoul pool list last year, but fell off this year because there are just too many options.

Johnny Mandel was a composer, best known for film music. His best known pieces include “The Shadow of Your Smile” and the M*A*S*H theme song, “Suicide Is Painless.”

Carl Reiner was a very funny man, both as a performer and a writer. His most classic role was as straight man to Mel Brooks for The 2000 Year Old Man. He also won the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2000. He was not on my ghoul pool list because I was sure he would live to 100. I feel robbed of two or more years of his brilliance.

Hugh Downs was a television host. His work included being a news anchor and a game show host (for Concentration). He had held the record for most hours on commercial network television for many years, though was surpassed by Regis Philbin in 2004. He had been on my ghoul pool list last year, but I fogot about him this year.

Nick Cordero was an actor, best known for roles in Bullets Over Broadway, though I think his greatest significance was originating the title role in The Toxic Avenger off-Broadway. He also was, alas, well-known for his lengthy struggle with COVID-19, documented by his wife. He earned me 13 ghoul pool points.

John Lewis was a civil rights activist, who went on to become a respected (and effective) Congressman. He seemed like a genuinely good man, who fought hard and dangerously for what he believed in. Plus, he liked cats, which is generally a good sign of character. His death was no surprise as he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December (which is why he was on my ghoul pool list, earning me 18 points). By the way, C. T. Vivian, who was another important civil rights activist, died the same day.

Non-celebrity Death Watch: Marvin Stokes was an organizer of volksmarch events, primarily in Florida, though I first met him at a walking weekend he put together in Savannah, Georgia.

General Thomas Moorman was a significant leader in Air Force space, including serving as Commander of Air Force Space Command. He also led lots of independent studies after he retired from the AF and was on the board of directors for my employer.

Minor Customer Service Fail: ( bought a laser printer (actually, multi-function). I explicitly asked about cables if I want to use it non-wirelessly and the sales guy told me it came with a USB cable. He lied. This was easily remedied via a trip to Staples (which I needed to do anyway, since I couldn’t find printer paper in my house) but it was annoying to have been lied to.

I also still have to find time to finish setting things up.

More Significant Customer Service Fail: My air conditioning failed on Tuesday. Of course, that was just before the temperatures were predicted to rise to the high 90’s. I wanted to try a couple of things (e.g. changing the filter) first, so I didn’t have a chance to call to call until Friday. I have ceiling fans in every room, so things were not intolerable, but were definitely getting uncomfortable. (It got up to 87, which is hot, even for the likes of me, who normally sets the AC at 80.) Anyway, I got an appointment for first thing Saturday morning. And the guy didn’t show up. After two calls to the company (which didn’t bother to call me when he didn’t clock in), they cancelled. They offered me an appointment on Sunday, but a friend had recommended somebody she had used and I called him instead. I was concerned when he showed up half an hour late. But he fixed the problem quickly (needed a capacitor replaced) and everything was fixed in an hour or so.

All is well now, but I was decidedly hot under the collar.

Other stuff: I’ve continued playing board games (Code Names, Dixit, Fibbage, and others) one or more times a week. I went to two story swaps in the past week, as well as listening to a couple of storytelling shows and some music programs, including the Urban Arias production of Why Is Eartha Kitt Trying to Kill Me? which is a very amusing opera.

I am also crazy busy with work. And it seems horribly unfair that caffeine is not an adequate substitute for sleep.

I went up to New York for the weekend, primarily for the Flyertalk Do known as the Brooklyn Reality Tour. That involves 20 odd people (some of them odder than others), a rented van, and lots of food, as well as some actual sightseeing.

The trip up was irritating because Amtrak appears to be trying to make the airlines look communicative. Hint: there is such a thing as a public address system. If a train is delayed, it might be more effective to use that to tell people than to have someone come out and tell the 5 people at the head of the line, relying on them to relay the information to the hundreds of people lined up nearly all the way to the entrance to the station. And if people have somehow heard that the delay is 10-15 minutes, you might consider making another update sometime before 40 minutes have gone by. In the end, we were about an hour and a half late. Fortunately, my hotel was close to Penn Station, so I could collapse once I got there.

As for the tour, much of it is really about seeing old friends (and meeting new ones). I mentioned lots of food as part of the deal and this year’s version started with Smorgasburg, a large array of food stalls set up in a park in Williamsburg. Somebody had told me there is a place that sometimes has pastrami dumplings (something that sounds amazing), but they did not appear to be there this week. I was also disappointed that the place that makes sandwich rolls with scallion pancakes was not yet open when we got there. There were, however, plenty of options and I started with Home Frites where I got frites (duh) with chipotle ranch sauce. They were good, but the portion was too large and I’d have been happy with half as much. That cut into my other grazing, which was limited to a plate of teriyaki balls from Mimi and Coco’s. Those were kind of mixed – the more gingery bits were very good, but the ginger was unevenly distributed and the sauce was too salty. Finally, it was hot enough out that ice cream was essential and I tried Blue Marble’s strawberry, which I’d give a B+ to. All in all, it was a good lunch stop and I was glad that I had limited my breakfast to a single bagel.

I will probably get our various touring out of order. We were supposed to go to Green-Wood Cemetery, but they don’t allow tours and even our van drew their wrath. We still had to put up with someone asking if there was stiff competition for gravesites. We also went to Coney Island, where we walked around a bit. One person wanted to ride the Cyclone, but it was shut down with a car stuck. Apparently, passengers had had to climb off. We also drove around Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach, Sheepshead Bay, Crown Heights, Prospect Park, and various other neighborhoods. We were supposed to have a rest stop at a Starbucks, but they were renovating and had no toilets available. A nearby bar served a similar purpose. Eventually, we had a dinner stop for pizza at L&B Spumoni Gardens. That was followed by a bakery stop. Finally, we watched the sun set over Manhattan from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.

All in all, it was a good, albeit tiring, day.

The Jewish Genealogical Society of New York was having a talk I was interested in on Sunday afternoon, so I used the time before that to attempt a little research. But I mostly learned that I was already doing the right sorts of things. The talk had to do with Jews and the liquor industry in Poland and Lithuania. There are some tavern keepers connected to part of my Lithuanian family (though they are far outnumbered by tailors and cucumber farmers), so there is some immediate relevance. After the talk, I had time to pick up some Jewish soul food (brisket sandwich and kasha knish) at Ben’s to provide supper on the train home. That train was also delayed (though only maybe 10-15 minutes), with minimal information provided. I was, however, able to nap a little bit on the train, though I still pretty much collapsed as soon as I got home.

I’ve just had a couple of particularly awful customer service experiences.

Mom subscribed to several magazines. Some of those subscriptions were acquired using the last of her American Airlines miles (which she should have just paid to transfer to me, but she didn’t ask my opinion). You can’t get anything back if you cancel them, so I just changed the address on those. Another subscription was easy to cancel and returned the rest of the value of the magazines. But there is one who I can’t reach yet. Their customer service hours are 10-3 on Monday through Thursday. I found that out when I tried calling on Friday. Today, I was in meetings until 2:30. I tried calling and got put on hold and, after 10 minutes or so, they just hung up on me. That lasted all the way until 3. Aargh.

But her medigap coverage was even worse to deal with. There was one phone number on the bill. I called that number and got into phone tree hell. I must have gone through 70 levels of phone tree, including re-entering the first number I’d called. At one point, I got a person who asked me what number I wanted and connected me to yet another phone tree. When I finally did get through to a human being, it was at the wrong Blue Cross/Blue Shield. To be fair, that person did connect me with a human being at the correct one, but not until after arguing with me that I needed a different phone number. I wasted 40+ minutes on this crap, only to be told I didn’t need to do anything to disenroll her because that would be automatic when the bill wasn’t paid. Aargh, aargh.

My catching up here is going to be somewhat non-chronological. I think it makes the most sense to write a general entry first, in which I will mention a couple of things that deserve their own entries, and then write those entries.

Attempt at Movie Going: I have lamented before that most of the movies I see, I see on airplanes. I made an attempt at the beginning of the month to go to an actual movie theatre. The specific motivation was the opening of a new movie theatre reasonably near me. It's the Angelika at the Mosaic, which is a real estate term to try to persuade folks that the part of Merrifield at Lee Highway and Gallows Road is something other than industrial wasteland. The theatre is nice enough and has interesting art house selections (including Butter, the movie about a butter carving contest that I was attempting to see), but they were not ready for prime time. To start with, I asked for a ticket for one movie. The clerk handed me a ticket for a different movie entirely and then had to get help (including giving me back my money) to get the correct ticket. Then I watched the concessions clerk take 20 minutes to find chips for nachos. I went into the theatre and the movie had already started - 10 minutes before its schedule show time. Someone got the manager who claimed that they had gotten a bad print and would load the new print and restart it. We waited for about 10 minutes. He came back in, told us they were having trouble loading the print and it would be another 10-15 minutes. He handed everyone a pass to make up for that. (And, indeed, it did got a long way to compensate.) We waited another 20 or so minutes. He came back in and said the projector was having trouble. He gave out more passes and told us to come back in a half hour. I went and got some lunch nearby and, when I returned, learned that they were not going to show the movie for another hour (which was when the next scheduled show was). I gave up and just asked for my money back. So I failed to see Butter but I do have two passes to the Angelika.

Celebrity Death Watch: The ones I missed noting include football player turned actor Alex Karras, actor and activist Russell Means, moderate Senator Arlen Spector, presidential candidate George McGovern, and Cambodian royal Norodom Sihanouk.

Notes to Myself: Amazingly, I figured out that a random string of letters I scribbled on one of my planner pages was a list of which Qantas fare codes earn full mileage credit on American. What I can't figure out is where on my electronic ticket I can actually find what the fare code was so I can persuade them to give me that mileage credit.

Passport Renewal: I timed my passport renewal well. I not only managed to avoid needing to pay a fee for expediting my renewal, but the regular processing by mail took only 2 weeks, not the 4-6 they claim on the website. I got the old passport back a few days later, by the way.

Dinner Out #1: I had dinner with some frequent flyer friends at Four Sisters, a Vietnamese restaurant just down the street from that new Angelika. The spiffiness in the neighborhood did the opposite to the food, alas, which was not as good as I remembered from previous visits there. (Admittedly those were to their previous location, by the Eden Center, so it is possible that it was long enough ago that my memory was being faulty.) I think I will stick to Pho Cyclo if I want Vietnamese food in that general vicinity in the future. The company and conversation were worthwhile, however.

Dinner Out @2: A far more successful dinner out was the MIT Club of Washington event last week at the Embassy of Hungary. Their chef won the best embassy chef competition last year and it was obvious why. The smoked salmon with fennel salad and a pink waldorf salad were particularly notable, but all of the food was delicious. And, again, it is always a delight to have a chance to converse with intelligent people.

Dead Products Department: I am saddened that Newsweek is going all digital. I am even sadder at the cancellation of Purex 3-in-1 laundry sheets. These were very handy for travel. They are claiming the pods are a replacement, but they are less travel friendly since they are liquid filled. And I don't see how they would fill the fabric softener role that the 3-in-1 sheets did. Sigh.

Hurricane Sandy: My first extreme weather event of the month involved my trip to Chicago, which merits its own entry. Hurricane Sandy had the decency of striking at home. The rain was quite heavy and the winds were loud, but there wasn't much impact in my neighborhood and, miraculously, my power never went out.

However, the storm hit hard up at my mother's. I have not yet been able to talk to her myself, but (thanks to facebook) a neighbor checked that she is okay. There was as much as 7 feet of water in Island Park. She is on relatively high ground, but I am sure the downstairs got flooded. (She had taken everything off the floor down there as a precaution.) There is still no power in town and phone circuits are busy. I have to say I am grateful for technology letting me at least check up on her via a neighbor, but I will be happier when I can hear her complaints directly.

Other Stuff I Need to Write About: I ran two storytelling events, both of which went reasonably well. For one of those, I adapted a familiar folk tale and the process of doing so is worth an entry in itself. I also went to another storytelling concert, one play and one ballet. No wonder I don't have time for dating, not to mention writing about dating.

Good Jobs for Women: There was a piece in Forbes several weeks ago listing the 10 best jobs for women. Aerospace engineer came in 10th. For the record, many jobs on the list had some science / math orientation, e.g. oceanographer (3), geoscientist (8), surveyor (6). Supreme galactic empress was not on the list, alas, but I still aspire to that one.

Odd Advertising: I get a number of circulars in the mail with discounts for local businesses. Restaurant ads usually have pictures of food. I understand most of these, e.g. kebabs for the Persian place and stir fried something or other for the Chinese restaurant. But why on earth is a restaurant whose tag line is "Get to know our homemade food" advertising itself with a photo of a plate of toast?

Customer Service: I have cooled off from my bad experiences with several companies, but I will note that it is very annoying when either clicking on a discount or logging into your account (which has the link for getting a discount in it) makes the price of an Amtrak ticket go up by 20 bucks. I know how to circumvent this (which sometimes requires buying two one-way tickets instead of a round trip one) but they have known about this for a couple of years and show no interest in fixing it.

Do I Want to Read This? Mark Leyner has a new novel out. I will admit to having liked My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist but could he possibly have more to say?

Celebrity Death Watch: King George Tupou V of Tonga died recently. The interesting part is that he died in a hospital in Hong Kong. As you may recall, the Tongan treasury was greatly increased by the sale of Tongan citizenship to people from Hong Kong who were concerned about China's intention, but much of that money was embezzled by their court jester. That was under the previous king but it is still such a good story that I can't resist repeating it.

Non-celebrity Death Watch: Mara Chibnik lost her battle to pancreatic cancer. She was a calm and intelligent presence back in the good old days of Usenet (and a few mailing lists we were on). She influenced my thinking on a range of subjects, including gender, sexuality, aging, and books. I will miss her.

Speaking of Sexuality: I saw the documentary Trembling Before G-d Saturday night as part of the Northern Virginia International Jewish Film Festival. Homosexuality in the Orthodox Jewish world is more talked about now than it was when this film was made over a decade ago, but it is still (obviously) a controversial subject. I found the movie interesting and moving, especially a scene in which an older man talks about his estrangement from his family, saying "I'm 68 years old and I want my daddy" before singing "Shalom Aleichem."

Brother Russia: As I've mentioned before, I subscribe to Signature Theatre largely in order to support their productions of new musicals. This is their latest and was, in my opinion, an interesting failure. I didn't have problems with using the life of Rasputin as the subject of a musical, but I didn't see the need to place it in the "play within a play" mode involving a theatre troupe. I may also know too much about Russian history to have been able to get past the (admitted) fabrications, which do get called out by one actor later on. The music was just okay, with the only particularly memorable song being a lively celebration of vodka. (My experience, however, is that Russians of the class frequenting that tavern would actually be more likely to drink beer or kvass.) The performances were fine (especially Nastascia Diaz as Anastasia). The choreography was remarkably dull and the whole thing was too long. Overall, this might have been better off with a year or three of workshops to figure out what it is supposed to be and edit it into a more satisfying show.

First, the obvious celebrity death of the week is Steve Jobs. All I need to say about him is that I am writing this on a MacBook. His death totally overshadowed that of guitarist Bert Jansch, who was a major influence on many musicians in many genres.

I had some internet issues on Thursday and, surprisingly, Verizon customer service was actually helpful. (It apparently turned out to be a bad port on the cable modem and moving the ethernet cable over to the next port worked.) I also had a meeting in Chantilly and there was next to no traffic either on I-66 or on Route 28. Seeing how well things were going, I decided to buy a $10 scratch-off lottery ticket - and got a $50 winner. However, karma caught up with me on the way home from my dentist appointment that afternoon, which took over an hour for what should be a 20 minute drive.

But the main thing I want to write about is the new office. Our group moved to that wonder of urban planning known as the Mark Center a couple of weeks ago. The biggest plus of this is that I have an actual office there, with a computer and all, instead of working out of my company's office and going back and forth using swing spaces and so on. I thought the big minus would be the commute, but (so far) the shuttle bus from West Falls Church is working okay.

However, I have to wonder about the quality of the construction. There are already non-functional escalators from the transit center / parking garage area to the building. Last Wednesday (that is, less than a week after we'd moved in), the door of our suite wouldn't open, locking us all out in the morning while they waited for the building manager to call the door manufacturer. Apparently, the eventual solution involved a mallet. This week's fiasco was the non-functioning emergency exit doors, which were annoying until they got the alarm turned off. I suspect that the turnstiles will be a significant issue when the building is fully occupied as I am not sure why anybody would think that 4 turnstiles are enough for a building that is supposed to have 6800 employees.

I have a well-paying job that I mostly like. Turnstiles and doors are definitely in the "first-world problem" category.

I've been up to lots of things, but writing here has not been one of them. However, today I revised my master list of things to do (an elaborate affair involving graph paper, categories and pens in multiple colors) and writing an entry here will let me cross off something. (Of course, I remembered something else I need to add, so it's not a lot of progress, but still ...)

Celebrity Death Watch: Obviously, the big recent celebrity death was Osama bin Laden. I'll admit to being glad, but I'm also uncomfortable with extrajudicial killing. And I have definite mixed feelings about the burial at sea. Overall, I'd have preferred a trial, execution, and unmarked grave, but we could have done a lot worse. The thing I am puzzled about is why some people said that the affair made them proud to be American. What was uniquely American about the whole thing?

I'll also repeat that I consider terrorism to be like a hydra. Cutting off the head doesn't kill the creature.

Other deaths are ones I am considerably sadder about. Two involved Broadway luminaries. Marian Mercer was an actress who won a Tony for Promises, Promises. And Arthur Laurents wrote the book of West Side Story. But the most significant was in the realm of science. Jerry Lettvin was a true original, one of the best known people on campus in my days at MIT. He was a colorful character and a great inspiration to many students. I didn't know him well, but I felt richer for having known him at all.

Dear U.S. Airways: Days start at midnight. If I am searching for a flight on June 27th at 12:40 a.m., please don't second guess me and show me a flight on June 28th. I did not catch this until after I clicked "buy." Fortunately, I called immediately and could, therefore, cancel since the ticket price on the right day was not worth taking a redeye for.

Product Mockery: While grocery shopping the other day, I saw bags of pre-peeled, hard boiled eggs. I despair for my people.

Tall Tale Contest: I drove to Roanoke on Saturday for the 2nd Annual Virginia Tall Tales Competition. There were nine contestants. Mac Swift won, with an excellent piece (which I had heard him tell before) about his uncle's desire for a flat farm. 11-year-old Olivia Merryman came in second with a piece involving how video games saved her life. Linda Goodman was third with an unusual encounter on a dark road (and an atrocious pun). And Anthony Burcher got the audience choice award with his spooneristic version of the Tower of Babel. For those who care, I told "Why I'm Not a Millionaire." It was all a lot of fun. The evening show had Bil Lep headlining, along with music by Ryan and Paul Little. Much to my relief, the Littles turned out to play jazz and not country music, which is always a risk in that part of the state. Overall, a great day.

Roanoke Walk: Since it is such a long drive (about 4 hours), I stayed overnight in Roanoke and did a volksmarch in the morning. The route went through downtown Roanoke (a bit depressed, but the market square has some life still), the Old Southwest historic district, and greenways along the Roanoke River. It was pleasant enough, though not as exciting as it might be. Still, I appreciated the exercise before the schlep home.

And now I can go and work on some of the other 50+ items on my to-do list.

All of my good intentions about regular updates seem to fall prey to being absurdly busy.

Last Friday, I had planned to get out of the house bright and early. But I wanted to do two things before leaving - 1) write an entry here and 2) finish the minutes from the Voices in the Glen annual meeting. This was slightly complicated by my internet going down in the middle of the first of those. My phone had no dial tone, too, so I got out the cell phone and called Verizon's customer service. The good news is that unplugging everything and plugging it back in fixed the problem. The bad news is that the customer service representative didn't suggest that until 40 minutes into the call, around when she was telling me they couldn't get a technician out to my place until Thursday morning. (Yes, nearly a week.) Still, things were fixed and I ended up leaving the house just about two hours later than I'd planned to. (The other hour and 20 minutes is because I had underestimated how long I needed to actually finish writing those meeting minutes. Also, despite how much I travel, I still seem to end up packing last minute. And I still managed to forget something I intended to bring with me.)

Eventually I got out the door and headed west. Taking the day off had been a very good idea since the traffic was minimal and I made it to Harrisonburg in just over two hours. That gave me time to do the Volksmarch there. The walking route took in the historic downtown (pretty much like every other historic downtown in Virginia) and parts of the James Madison University campus. In particular, the campus part went to the arboretum, which was lovely except for the part when I couldn't quite figure out the directions and walked an extra kilometer or so. The weather was gorgeous and I'd have liked more time to linger over the route. As it was, I had to restrain my usual compulsive reading of historic signs.

It's just a short ways to the Massanetta Springs Conference Center, where the Virginia Storytelling Gathering was being held. On the way, I made a quick grocery stop and bought chocolate for the white elephant gift basket the Virginia Storytelling Alliance board was putting together. (My basket contribution was what I'd forgotten to stick in the car, despite having left myself two notes to do so. I blame stress.) I picked up my room key and went off for dinner with the rest of the board, the featured tellers and a few general hangers on. L'Italia serves your basic red sauce Italian menu and the eggplant parmesan I got was good enough, but Harrisonburg is not Italy, nor is it New York. The company is more important than the food, of course, and I had no complaints about that.

The Friday night concert started with an amusing story by Donna Will about Volkswagons and small towns. Then Lynn Ruehlmann told a touching story about adopting her son. Mack and Joan Swift closed the concert with a Jack tale, told in tandem. After a refreshment break, we had a story swap. I won't name everyone who told, lest I inadvertently omit someone. I told "The Secret Place," which went over well.

The morning started with a keynote speech by Michael Reno Harrell. He pretty much just talked about how he fell into storytelling. He was entertainingly funny, which is what one needs in a 9 a.m. speech. Everyone had signed up for his workshop on humor so the schedule was rearranged to put that shortly after his keynote. He started off with a truly atrocious pun about how Houdini used trap doors a lot in his early work, but it turned out he was only going through a stage. (Yes, I have repeated that pun to many people in the past week. You should know me well enough to know I can't resist the groaners.) Then he went on to say that the secret to being funny as a storyteller was to be a retired Methodist minister with a bowtie. That reference to Donald Davis got a good laugh, but it also served well to illustrate a point about context and humor. The rest of his talk had to do with how the humorous story (as compared to the comic story and the witty story) is uniquely American, with a lot of references to Mark Twain. I'm not entirely convinced, but I'm also not sure I really grasp the distinction he was trying to make. All in all, his presentation was entertaining. But I'd have preferred an interactive workshop to a lecture.

The other workshops were held after lunch and one had the opportunity to go to two of the three. For the first session, I went to Linda Goodman's showcase, "Shattered Silence." Her two stories, about women who had been abused as children, were powerful and I thought she did a good job of answering questions about how she developed the material. The other workshop I went to was Ellouise Schoettler's "Put Flesh on Old Bones," which had to do with genealogy and oral history. She had some interesting examples (e.g. from old letters) of using genealogical materials to find stories. I wish she'd had the time to go more thoroughly through a speciifc example, so we could see her entire process.

After the workshops came the VASA general meeting. I am now officially on the board for 3 years (starting in July, though I've been an acting board member since Novemberish).

The evening concert started with Ralph Chatham telling a Celtic story about a kelpie. Then Geraldine Buckley told two personal stories - a short piece about her first experience volunteering at a prison and a longer one about sangria and nuns. After a short intermission, Michael Reno Harrell told a few stories (and sang a little). His story about the things he and his siblings found in his mother's house after her death was particularly notable. And, seeing as how I describe my mother as having the largest collection of half-used rolls of contact paper in the greater New York Metropolitan Region, it definitely struck home.

We were doing a basket raffle (hence, the chocolate I mentioned above) as a fundraiser and the raffle followed the concert. I'd bought a dozen tickets and distributed them among a few of the baskets. (My general philosophy on where to place tickets at these things is that wine is a good thing and scented candles a bad thing. Baskets with some of the former and none of the latter are desirable.) I ended up winning one from the Virginia Beach folks. In addition to a bottle of wine, it had margarita mix, cans of roasted nuts, various art objects (e.g. a pin in the shape of a mask which is presumably Lynn's handiwork), aquarium tickets, etc. And no candles.

Saturday night closed with a swap, which I emceed. (Surprisingly few people know that MC really stands for Miriam of Ceremonies.) I made sure that people who had told at Friday night's swap would not tell unless everyone else who wanted to had a chance. At midnight, I gave everyone the option of continuing with the last few names or going to bed. The vote for bed was unanimous.

Sunday morning's swap gave those last few people (and some others) a chance to tell. So, overall, almost everyone who was at the gathering told a story. (There were a few who didn't want to. We encourage but don't coerce.) A session of Inspirational Stories followed. I asked permission to set the stage for our final event and told "The Tragic Tale of Benny the Bum" to start a half hour or so of atrocious puns. I have a reputation to uphold, after all. (My instructions for my funeral specifically call for there to be a 21-pun salute.)

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend. Hanging out with other storytellers is always fun. The attendance was small, but that meant there was plenty of opportunity to get to know everyone there. I'd say it felt like a family reunion, but my family does not reune (and, if we did, I suspect there would be bloodshed involved).

The drive back was also reasonably quick and uncomplicated. I had time to do my grocery shopping and handle a few chores before heading into Arlington for dinner at the Mad Rose Tavern with the Flyer Talk crowd. The best story of that evening was hearing about Greg's attempts to get to South Korea, with his connecting flight scheduled to arrive in Tokyo about 45 minutes after the earthquake. He did make it, with a day's delay, but had to spend way too much money for a hotel room in Kobe - and a taxi to get to it. By the way, Mad Rose has gotten some opening buzz, but I was not impressed by either the food or the service. It's probably worth going to as just a bar, but not for dinner.

I will write about everything else that's been going on in a separate post. I hope not to take so long getting to that one.

I've got a list of things to do the length of my arm and writing about some of these things will help me cross off part of it.

Baseball: It ain't over till it's over. It ain't over till it's over. It ain't over till it's over. If I say it enough times, maybe I'll believe it.

Fashion: The latest L.L. Bean catalog offers a cashmere hoodie. This is just wrong.

Cars: I read a description of the Fisker Karma hybrid luxury sedan. The detail that I consider over the top is that the wood trim is claimed to be made exclusively from "trees that died from natural causes."

More products that make no sense:There is something being marketed called Devotion Vodka. Its claim to fame is that it contains protein powder. Does anyone actually believe this makes it healthier? I'll stick to a good rum, personally.

Defunct product that made no sense: While cleaning out a recipe folder, I found a "Ragu Rewards" brochure from 2000. One product offered (for just 10 UPCs plus $3.95 postage and handling) was a "children's mess kit." This included one sectioned plate, 4 tumblers, 3 bowls, 3 snack cups, lids, plus a fork and spoon, all in a drawstring travel bag. Exactly how many children was this intended to be used for?

Signs, signs, everywhere a sign:A couple of weeks ago, the Washington Post had a story about the Typo Eradication Advancement League. This appears to be a two-man operation, devoted to correcting spelling and grammar on signs. The odd part is that the story was in the travel section. Anyway, these guys are doing a good thing and it seems they have a book and a web site.

Customer service: It does not give me great confidence in a telephone company when two out of three calls to their customer service department get disconnected in the middle. It took some doing, since the person who was supposed to reschedule an appointment just canceled it instead. He also gave me a ticket number that was completely useless, as it can't be used to look up the status of a repair or even to talk to another customer service person. But I did finally get a technician out here. I have functioning phone service again! And, even better, I no longer have an intermittent hum on the line. It seems that the technician who installed my FIOS back when I moved here (nearly 3 years ago) never disconnected the copper wire.

Travel There is a company doing zeppelin tours in California. I have definitely got to do this.

I complain so much about bad customer service that it is worth noting when a company gets things right.

I bought an Amtrak ticket to go to New York in January. I'm using a Flyer Talk event as an excuse for theatre going and bought a ticket to see "Finian's Rainbow."

Within hours of buying the ticket, I got an invitation to another party in New York. Which I could make it to if I could change the train ticket up to a few hours earlier. I did have to go through a bit of a phone tree to get to an agent (you can cancel, but not do changes on-line) but once I did, it was a breeze. Not only did the Amtrak agent make the change easily and quickly, but she was cheerful and friendly about it. And, not that it really mattered, going up earlier also makes it about 20 bucks cheaper.

Back in early November, I figured that I'd be ready for a few days in a warm climate by mid-February. I found a reasonable airfare on American to Nassau, Bahamas for President's Day weekend and booked it. About two days after booking, I got a schedule change notice indicating that I'd have a much longer layover in Miami on the way back than what I'd booked. The only option the reservations department gave me was to cancel the whole thing - although I was willing to take an earlier flight from Nassau to Miami. (This appears to be contrary to their written policies, but it is next to impossible to argue the point successfully. They claimed that the time of the connecting flight had changed, making the connection time in Miami illegal.)

Anyway, I had no hassles getting to Nassau. I stayed at the British Colonial Hilton which I would not actually recommend. The location is very convenient, but the room had entirely inadequate soundproofing. I really did not appreciate the person in the next room blasting the television at 5 in the morning on Sunday. More significantly, the service was not up to what I expect of a Hilton. I wasn't surprised that I couldn't check in when I arrived at about 11 a.m., but they shouldn't have told me to come back at 2 p.m. if the room wasn't going to be ready until 3:30. And the concierge staff gave me conflicting stories on activities. One man told me to check for a spot on the semisubmersible submarine in the morning - and the guy on staff in the morning told me the company had pulled out of the Bahamas completely as of the beginning of the year.

As for things to do, I'm not a lie around on the beach and do nothing person at any time. Yes, I did walk on the beach and swim, but I also did a fair bit of exploring. The old part of Nassau has some fine architecture. Balcony House, the oldest wooden house on New Providence Island, is more interesting from the outside, but you can get a tour inside to see the mahogany staircase, the balcony after which it is names, and a lot of early 20th century furniture. The climb up the Queen's staircase to Fort Fincastle provides a good workout with a nice view over the city from the top. I also stopped in at the Bahamas Historical Society Museum, the highlight of which is a series of painted panels depicting major events. The Pirate Museum looked too cheesy to be worth 12 bucks.

Outside of downtown, Ardastra Gardens is mostly a rather pathetic zoo, but the marching flamingos are moderately amusing. I took a jitney there, but enjoyed walking back along the Western Esplanade, with its attractive beachfront. I'd probably have liked the Botanical Gardens, but they were closed on Sunday when I was out in that direction.

Then there's Paradise Island. The Atlantis folks own 75% of the island and have managed to build it up into a massive resort. (Other landowners include Mick Jagger, Nicolas Cage, and Sean Connery, by the way, and the ferry boat conductor pointed out their houses.) There is no shortage of pricy shops and restaurants. A rain storm provided a good reason to take refuge in the casino where I proved that I am not exempt from the laws of probability.

Nassau also has lots of shopping, catering largely to the giant cruise ships which call in. The straw market is famous, though the straw goods (mostly bags and hats) would look nicer in my opinion without having Disney princesses and the like embroidered on them. At the low end, you can find plenty of tacky t-shirts, while the high end runs to jewelry. The settings tend towards the overly glitzy, with too many tiny diamonds surrounding mediocre gemstones instead of actual quality metalwork.

Anyway, the weekend accomplished pretty much what I intended - a quick getaway to a warm place. (And, not that I'm a serious country collector, but I can add another check mark.) The trip home was more irritating since, when I got into Miami, I discovered that my original flight left later than the time it had been at on my itinerary, making the illegal connection time claim an outrageous lie. The gate agent was unwilling to do anything but put me on the standby list, though he gave seats to two people who had voluntarily changed to the later flight. It also took some effort for me to extract contact info on customer service from them. I figure they should: 1) reimburse me for the difference between what I had to pay for a taxi home and the metro fare, since the flight they changed me to arrived too late for the metro and 2) give me some compensation for lying to me about the change. (This makes United look good. I may have had numerous schedule changes with them, but those were at least all due to legitimate flight cancellations. And they have done their best to rearrange things to minimize the inconvenience.)

Getting home after 1 in the morning also means I will be even more zombie-ish for the start of the week than usual. Get the IV drip of caffeine ready!

For the most part, I like having FIOS (fiber to the home) for the speed and quality of the internet service. The phone service is more problematic, but acceptable. But every now and then, the service goes out, with a busy signal on the phone line and no (or very very slow) internet connectivity. Usually, this fixes itself within an hour or so. But it was out when I got home Monday and still out when I got up Tuesday morning, so I called Verizon.

I had to make my way through the typical annoying phone tree. Their automated tests claimed a problem with my battery backup. So, when I finally talked to a human, she insisted the problem was that I didn't have power. Except that, of course, not only did I have power, I had not had even a momentary outage. (I can tell because the clock on my oven is very sensitive to power outages and was not flashing.) She insisted that I must have tripped a circuit breaker. I checked the circuit breakers and none were tripped. She then decided the problem was with a battery backup unit and I asked where it was. She said it would be in my basement or garage. Having neither a basement nor a garage (well, I have a spot in the complex garage), this was not exactly a satisfactory answer. She would not believe that I have a condo in a complex that was wired for FIOS before I moved in.

Anyway, I had to leave (with the problem unresolved). When I got home, I asked the condo management office where the battery backup is. They didn't know, but told me two of my neighbors were also having FIOS problems and called Verizon. And when I got back from the evening event I was going to, my service was back.

But I am convinced that Verizon has subcontracted their customer services to a call center on Htrea, the Bizarro world from the Superman comics.

Dear (whoever the right higher up at Budget Car Rental is),

I believe that businesses would like to satisfy their customers. I have been satisfied with car rentals from Budget in the past, but my experience in Denver, Colorado this weekend is an exception.

I reserved an economy car to be picked up at the Denver International Airport at 10:30 a.m.. My flight was slightly early and I stopped at the Budget desk inside the airport. The clerk at the Budget desk inside the airport told me that she took no information but would check that my reservation was in the system, which it was. I then took the bus to the rental car lot.

The line to pick up cars was the longest I have ever seen in my life. Only 4 clerks were working and it was over an hour before I reached the head of the line. The clerk who took my details asked me if I still wanted a small car and I said that I did, due to gas prices and the difficulty of finding parking spaces for larger vehicles. He then walked off for approximately 10 minutes. When he returned, he told me they were giving me a Toyota Highlander. This is not, in fact, a small car. When I objected, he told me I could wait to speak to his manager, but that would be another half hour. Given the length of time to get to the rental car lot and the time I had waited in line, I reluctantly accepted the car. I then waited another 15 minutes for a porter to actually bring the car, during which time I saw several small cars in the lot. The total length of time from when I arrived at Budget's desk at the airport until I had the vehicle was nearly 2 hours. The clerk insisted this is not unusual for Denver. I have rented cars approximately 200 times at the Denver airport and the longest I have ever waited in the past is 30 minutes.

There is nothing I can do about the length of the wait (other than inform you so you can revisit your staffing at that location). Nor can I do anything about the inconvenience of parking a large vehicle. But I can and do object to having to pay for the additional cost of fuel because of a clerk's deception and/or incompetence.

The EPA estimates a Toyota Highlander gets 18 mpg in city driving and 24 mpg in highway driving and that a Hyundai Accent (the car identified as on my reservation) gets 24 mpg in city driving and 33 mpg in highway driving. Therefore, the car I was given uses approximately 35% more gasoline than the car I reserved.

I paid $33.70 to refill the car before returning it. Had I been given the car I reserved (and which was, in fact, available despite the clerk's claims) it would have cost me approximately $24.96. I would, therefore, like you to refund the $8.74 for expenses I would not have incurred had I been given what I asked for.

In addition, your on-line reservation system includes a guarantee that the total price will be as quoted in the reservation. The quoted taxes were $5.39, but I was actually charged $12.06 in taxes. This is a difference of $6.67, which I would also like refunded.

I have attached copies of the original reservation, my transaction record from returning the car, and my receipt from the gas purchase. Please refund the total unexpected expenses of $15.41 within the next 30 days.

Now, all I have to do is figure out who to actually send this to.