www.ac4lt.org

In the beginning of March, Lauri and I bought a new refrigerator to replace a roughly thirty year old unit. The old fridge still ran but was beginning to make odd noises and the door wouldn’t always stay shut. It seemed likely that it was running on borrowed time and we began to search for a replacement. It was the last of the original appliances in our condo to go.

We settled on a 20 cubic foot LG french door style refrigerator in Stainless Steel from Sears. Our space for the fridge was very small and we didn’t have many options, particularly for nicer units. The woman at Sears in Fair Oaks pointed out this unit and after a couple of weeks of checking around and doing some research we decided that was the unit we wanted. Home Depot had it at a cheaper price but we wanted to give the commission to the woman who pointed out the unit to us. Sears matched Home Depot’s price and we set a delivery date for March 23rd.

On the afternoon of the 23rd, the new fridge was delivered and all seemed well. The next morning we began to realize that something might be wrong. Both the refrigerator and freezer sections seemed warm. We cranked down the temperature control to their coldest settings and hoped that things would cool down. Later that afternoon, Lauri called me to say that the food in the freezer had thawed out. We definitely had a problem.

We called the woman who sold us the unit and explained the problem. She directed us to another number where they would arrange an exchange. All went well until we asked about the lost food. They offered us $50. This was only a 1/3 of the actual value. They said they would have to send a technician out to verify the loss. Also, it would take two days for us to get a new fridge.

The next day the tech came out and asked if I wanted him to try to fix the unit. I said that I was willing to accept a repaired unit so long as we had confidence that the unit would continue to run. He opened the back panel and exclaimed, “Oh my god!”

The compressor was completely off its mount. It was clear the refrigerator had been subject to some pretty strong physical forces. He tried to set things right but the compressor would not work. He verified our food loss and in a few weeks I should get a check.

The next morning the new fridge came and it worked. The only problem is that the delivery guys have scuffed up and in a couple places gouged the walls in the stairwell. The stairway is tight but the first delivery crew made it without incident. No other delivery crew has caused damage. It’s fixable but this new purchase has had a lot of collateral damage associated with it.

I am a bit peeved that Sears would transfer us around to three different people to deal with getting a replacement and then question us on the cost of the food loss. Particularly when the tech who “verified” the loss simply asked me for the number. Now I have to contact Sears again to let them know the damage their delivery people have done to the walls.

It will be a long time before Sears gets my business after this.

As the news media enters a frenzy of action heading towards the November election, I am left wondering if, collectively, they are doing their jobs properly. Not that I’m accusing most journalists of bias, but I am wondering if they report on the actions of politicians differently than they report on other types of news.

It seems to me that when a politicians stands on a stage and makes a claim, whether it’s about an opponent or a a group or an issue, the media has some responsibility to validate the claim before they report it. Otherwise they are not reporting news; they are becoming proxies of the politician’s campaign. Politicians know that the statements they make don’t need to be true. They do know that if they proclaim them loudly enough and often enough that the statement will take on a life of their own, even after the truth comes out. To allow this practice to continue in the misguided application of “reporting the news” does a major disservice to all of us who are trying to actually learn what is going on.

I’m not talking about policy decisions but about claims of fact, of history. If a politicians says his or her opponent did something, the media should validate that claim before they report it. If the claim is true, then report it. If the claim is false, then it seems to me the story is the lie (or mistake). Granted, there is a lot of gray area there but there ought to be more to journalism than putting a microphone in front of a politician.

Take some of the hype out of the process. Stop being used and start doing your jobs as journalists!

It seems to me that one of the primary purposes of a building is to protect its inhabitants from the outside weather. Whatever the outside weather, the building is supposed to keep us comfortable. So, then why can’t the typical office building manage to keep the temperature regulated?

The building where I work has had a temperature that is suitable for polar bears for the last three weeks, at least. I can only recall two days where the temperature in the quadrant of the building where I sit hasn’t been uncomfortably cold. There’s something wrong when you walk into a building and put on a jacket or sweater to protect yourself from the building’s environment. Indeed, even that sweater or jacket hasn’t been sufficient. My hands have been getting so cold that they hurt. I go to the restroom to run warm water over them.

I’m beginning to understand why people go postal (with apologies to postal workers). We tell the building staff over and over and over and over, yet nothing happens. Perhaps if we start calling in frozen then something will get done.

Mistakes happen. That may be the one rule of human civilization. I can accept that. I’ve made my share. I sympathize when they happen. Unfortunately, at AirTran mistakes seem to be the business model.

Last Friday I tried to fly to Seattle for a weekend trip. I say “tried” because the flight leaving BWI was so delayed that it became impossible to make the connecting flight. I decided that leaving for a weekend trip to Seattle on Saturday didn’t make any sense so asked for a refund and my checked bag. I got the refund.

Even though I asked for my bag before the plane I was to have boarded even arrived, it never came back. Eventually they had me fill out a lost bag claim and told me they would call me. On Monday I called them. They thought my bag was still in Seattle. and would call me back when that along with it’s return booking was confirmed. That call came at 11:35PM Tuesday night. Who calls a residence at 11:35PM? Although I appreciated knowing that my bag had been found, it wasn’t so urgent that I needed to be woken up.

Finally, about 2PM my bag arrived here at work. That is almost six days to the hour since I left work to go to BWI last Friday. At least a quick check looks like it has all the stuff in it. I’ll verify that in detail tongiht, but nothing is obviously gone.

I still can’t figure out how a company can be so incompetent. Granted, the weather in Boston caused the initial flight delay and that wasn’t AirTran’s fault but everything from that point on was. I sure won’t be going out of my way to fly that airline again. More the other way around.

As I write this I am supposed to be on an airplane headed northwest to Seattle. Instead, I am at home contemplating just how easily plans can be disrupted.

My flight was supposed to leave BWI at 6:40pm. I left work at 245pm. Even with awful traffic, I would still get there in plenty of time. Of course, traffic was just that: awful. A trip that should have taken 45 minutes, and certainly no more than an hour took nearly two hours equating to an average speed of about 20 miles an hour. Still, I was paranoid about traffic and got to the airport about 4:30. It was about 5pm by the time I parked and took the shuttle bus over to the terminal.

I check my bag and get my boarding pass, get my dose of being made to feel like a criminal going through security and then I’m on to the gate. At this point, I learned my flight is 50 minutes late. No problem because Kaitlyn was running even later than I was and that would give her a bit more time to make it. She did eventually arrive at the gate just as they were finally getting the 2:30pm flight out only about four hours late or so.

Of course then they announce that our plane coming from Boston was late leaving and isn’t even going to arrive until 7:50pm and is scheduled to leave at 8:15pm. It has now become impossible to make the connecting flight to Seattle. Since I was going for th weekend, it didn’t seem worthwhile to lose 14 hours until I would get there so I got a refund and asked for my luggage back. Kaitlyn was going for a week and has to be there so she’s scheduled to go out tomorrow evening.

We are told it will be 30-40 minutes until our luggage is ready to pick up so we stop off and have a drink and gab. We go to pick up our luggage and hers is there but mine isn’t. Half an hour of waiting and it becomes clear that my luggage got on the plane even though I didn’t. I hope my bag enjoys Seattle. I’m wondering just how long it will take AirTran to get it back to me.

To make it worse, it rained like mad on the drive back home with visibility dropping to barely drivable levels at some points.

So much for flying out of BWI to save a few dollars compared to flying out of Dulles. Actually, I guess I did save a few dollars since I didn’t get to fly at all. But I did get the joy of sitting in traffic for nearly two hours, wading through airport security, filling out lost baggage forms, and driving back through a deluge. How much more fun can any one evening hold?