Probably helped that we were outside and didn’t have stuff falling down on them. So it sort of didn’t kill our mood.

Some news: KPBS says…

The magnitude 7.2 quake was centered near Guadalupe Victoria in Baja California. The USGS reports it’s the largest earthquake to shake the region in 18 years.

There have been three large aftershocks so far, including one that registered a 5.5 magnitude, and other smaller temblors, USGS said.

We’ll see how things turn out tomorrow. The kicker is what the unseen damage has been – elevators, infrastructure, and so on.

Unbelievable. Another famous relative… From Wikipedia:

Hendrix was born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington, USA, while his father was stationed at an Army base in Oklahoma. He was named Johnny Allen Hendrix at birth by his mother, 17 year old Lucille Hendrix née Jeter.

Just thought I’d throw that one out there…

Labor Day 2008 | About Randy Pausch

For over a month now I’ve been trying to figure out how to post about Randy Pausch’s death last month from pancreatic cancer. What his final lecture meant to a lot of people, what it meant to me wasn’t about cancer, it was about how you live.

My dad passed away last year from complications from a pancreatic tumor. According to wikipedia, Randy underwent the same drastic surgery as my father. That’s a 13 hour surgery. No walk in the park. Both Randy and my father, however, lived well past the estimates of medical science. They had their own positive mental attitude (PMA) which burned within them.

That similarity wasn’t why Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture was so profound for me. Positive Mental Attitude: Randy had it in spades. His lecture was so profound six million views and counting were seen on YouTube.

My Lesson: Sacrifice and Responsibility

You learn a lot about yourself being the person responsible for someone. Whether as a parent or in caretaking a parent, it changes us when we are forced to accept or reject life and death responsibility for another human being.

I learned a lot about myself in the past four years and my opinion is that most people don’t know what’s important in their lives until they are confronted with life and death decisions. It’s not something that can be adequately described. It’s a large part of why I posted my essays on Martin Luther King Day and Memorial Day on this blog.

Communication, Education and Teamwork Balanced

It’s amazing what priorities we will set, what sacrifice is defined by when everything else becomes placed into proper perspective. My personal experiences in the past four years make me realize several things.

Lifelong learning is important. Passing those skills along through education is important. Communication with others and the tone and impact of my voice is equally as important. Both for my family and for my community as a whole. Passing a desire to learn rather than simply driving content – that is a finesse that is reserved for the best of teachers.

Whether in a workplace or in a family, teamwork, communication, and education will make or break the team. Randy had it nailed, and I’m still working on it with mixed but mostly good results. 

Randy’s Lecture Defines What’s Important

In a showcase for how to change video into eLearning, Gabe’s Word of Mouth Blog features Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture in Presenter format. The lecture, a YouTube top favorite, has a learning centered focus and is now viewable in smaller chunks and retention is increased due to the formatting and sidenotes.

If you want to learn from Randy Pausch the first time around and in the best eLearning format possible watch this rather than just the YouTube video. You will love both the content and the container it comes in.

See it today.

In my five part segment last year I examined how well the XBox 360 might be combined into eLearning and also Technical Communication in general over this new settop box / gaming system. Now even more aspects are becoming compelling and pushing the advantages of the Microsoft XBox 360.

“Xbox LIVE is the world’s fastest-growing online social network on TV,” said John Schappert, corporate vice president of Interactive Entertainment LIVE, Software and Services Business at Microsoft. “We doubled our membership the past two years, growing from 3 million to 6 million, and then from 6 million to 12 million.

The Old Is The New

Understand that the ‘New XBox’ is the old XBox 360 with updates. As a matter of course, I believe it’s a short step away from using Silverlight content if it’s not already doing so in this update.

Instead of revamping the hardware within the box, MSFT poured resources into programming updated content and…

…leveraged the hot trends in internet connectivity and technology.

Hot Tech Trend: New Interface Methods – Xbox Style

I’ve been researching new interface methods as a hot tech trend for 2008 and I’m not disappointed with the new XBox . New interface methods are demo’ed in the Xbox 360′s “In The Movies”. Here’s a quick clip:

Now I don’t need cable at all…!

Get this – NetFlix is in agreement to stream over 10,000 movies across the XBox 360. Very cool. I have a strong feeling that DivX has a lot to do with this revolution.

So for consumers that don’t like to pay the extra $100 for the DVR / HD package, how about a $40 antenna for local HD signal, Netflix as a Starz / Encore movie replacement, and downloading the series you like when they’re online or on DVD from NetFlix.

XBox 360: Leveraging Family Time

Karaoke takes on a new aspect with Lips – yet another social interactive game for your online and in real life (IRL) friends. The last time I was over at a friend’s house with teenage kids, we all sat around and played a trivia game which was really cool. I think it’s a great way to do the family entertainment thing, rather than the old Milton-Bradley boardgames which I still enjoy but the kids want to pass up.

Xbox 360 LIVE Party – Cheap Online Collaboration?

While there aren’t many people who aren’t on Skype, a great concept copied from Sony’s Playstation is leveraging social networking across platforms for gaming.

I’ve seem some super collaboration se.tups from HP that this could compete with on a super low cost and low-tech level. This has a potential for eLearning and Blended Learning that is way beyond the pale.

Microsoft’s XBox 360 Experience notes this about LIVE Party:

Entertainment without limits. With LIVE Party, bring your favorite games, TV shows, movies and pictures to life by sharing those experiences with friends, wherever they are around the world.

Now if I could only get my XBox fixed since it’s been down with that hardware problem since April and I’ve been too busy to call their support system back (they were down the day I called) I’ll be testing all this content.

For some reason this year has been nostalgic for me. Martin Luther King Day I wrote about my family. Memorial Day I write about my other family. I write about my Navy family, and in particular, those who didn’t make it home.

They are my family, my fallen brothers and a sister. I will tell my children about them and they will live on in name and story and in our hearts.

This is off topic and an indulgence. I would be however, as Shakespeare put it regarding St. Crispen’s Day and the Battle of Agincourt, holding my manhood cheap would I not honor those who I know who have fallen with at least a nod today, nearly eighteen years later.

    From this day to the ending of the world,
    But we in it shall be remembered-
    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
    Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
    This day shall gentle his condition;
    And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
    Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

From So Others May Live… My personal heroes

I’ve lost a few friends while in the service. There have been times that I didn’t know if I would make it myself – whatever scrape or close call occurred I made it out.

I recall five years ago I was at the gas pump at Costco here in San Diego and saw a helo patch and aircrew wings on the flight suit of the guy next to me.

I introduced myself, rattled off four names and he brightened when he recognized one. I told him that guy used to be my roommate off-base.

He stuck out his hand, saying, Good to meet you, Brother.

We all ran the seawall. We ran the obstacle course and the cross country course. We sweat together. We bled together. We learned our inner limits and then we pushed them farther than we thought possible.

In doing so, we grew up together and as such, we were brothers.

The first two fleet S-3 Viking AWs I ever met are both dead by violent means.

Both died outside the combat zone by violent means. One as the casualty of a robbery in progress, the other years later from self-inflicted wounds, perhaps from scars we all share.

Mongo, I wish I would have known the problems you had. When people wonder why I cry at the end of the movie Jarhead, it’s because I’m remembering you.

From So Others May Live | Personal Heroes Pt. 2

Today, Memorial Day 2008, I’m sitting here alone writing. The kids are with their mom. My friends have long left for barbeques. The television is off and has been all day.

Today for the first time in eighteen years, it’s about memorializing my friends who will never have kids, who will not see another barbeque or a beer. It’s also about realizing that I lost more friends in peacetime than some have in seven years of warfare.

My friends who died after living only a few years out of high school. They are my heroes.

As I’ve said before in the postscript of Bug’s Prayer and Core Values these are the types of people I want my boys to hear about when they ask what a hero is.

Rick Tafoya, I would have loved to learn snowboarding later that year. I had plenty of time before I transferred into my fleet squadron.

Joseph John Pycior, died at the Pentagon in room 1D457 on the morning of 9/11. Boats was less than four months from retirement.

I briefly met “Boats” at the ASWOC in San Diego between flights during a brief. I remember him because one of the other guys was teasing him about being a Boatswains Mate prior to becoming an AW, the score requirements for both jobs being diametrically opposed on the ASVAB test.

Brian Cerino, died in 1991 in the worst Naval air disaster. Cerino was the roommate of one of my closest friends, Duncan.

Berto “Pablo” Escobar and Billy Quinn, both in a helo accident just before I got out. I remember these guys, particularly Billy Quinn from my first cruise before they went to Japan with HS-14.

Robert “The General” Lee, whose death trapped underwater in a helo accident completely changed the design of emergency air bottles for the entire Navy and Marine Corps. Lee was in VS-41 with me as a student, but went back to the helo side of the base as an instructor.

All were brothers. I lost a sister as well.

Wendy Potter, a California girl who I knew only briefly. Wendy was the first all-AW pipeline West Coast student to become a Viking SENSO. Her S-3B Viking jet went down with all hands lost.

May they all rest in peace. We miss you. I will never forget you.

As if there wasn’t enough to worry about for parents with last year’s crisis of Chinese lead painted toys, now the ^7 recycling icon is considered a toxic symbol. 

If this isn’t a massive issue of Corporate Authenticity, I don’t know what is. All polycarbonate bottles and other containers are suspect to some degree because of something called bisphenol-A (BPA).

From The Health Dangers Of Reusing Plastic Bottles And Bags by the Environmental Working Group:

…researchers concerned with the evils of a common chemical known as bisphenol-A (BPA) suggest you should toss out these baby bottles along with any toys suspected of containing lead or dangerous magnets.

How toxic is BPA? Nobody really knows for sure.

In fact, it’s still debated as a scientific issue, however WalMart has pulled BPA baby bottles from the shelves.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that…

“[T]he possibility that bisphenol A may alter human development cannot be dismissed,” says this new draft report from the U.S. department of Health and Human Services.

Though the evidence isn’t entirely clear, it’s possible that exposure to the chemical during infancy could cause changes in prostate and mammary tissue that raise the risk of cancer later in life, the report suggests. The latest analysis goes beyond two others from last year, both of which concluded the chemical was safe in low doses.

I’m still researching this matter after a year and it’s almost inconclusive, yet safer to err on the side of caution.

BPA: A Call For Corporate Authenticity

I tend to side with this frustrated parent’s opinion:

What we want is actually quite simple. We want companies that produce products which come into contact with infants’ and toddlers’ mouths, and which are exposed to high heat due to washing and sterilization, to disclose the types of plastic they use in their products.

We want companies to inform consumers so that people like us don’t have to do their job for them. Labeling like this will only influence the choices of people who care. If people care, they should have a choice. If enough people care about materials that you’re afraid to label your products with the information, you’re using the wrong materials.

Listen up, chemical companies. We’re having a conversation. We’re trading information, we’re becoming organized.

And if what you’re doing is threatening our children’s safety, we’re coming to GET YOU.

Legally of course.

BPA Leaching: I’m feeling better

This week a senior FDA scientist recently told Congress that:

[A] large body of available evidence indicates that food contact materials containing BPA currently on the market are safe, and that exposure levels to BPA from these materials, including exposure to infants and children, are below those that may cause health effects.

According to the EWG article called Tips to Avoid BPA Exposures, I am fortunate because for my three children we dodged the major bullets:

We never heated the formula and poured it into the bottles. All three kids had cold formula, and two of them had powdered formula not canned. My oldest son had non-canned Similac (at a tremendous cost let me tell you) and the younger two had powdered formula served cold.

We cooked mostly fresh foods, avoiding canned foods for the most part. According to the EWG site, most BPA is dispensed within canned foods, and only trace amounts through polycarb drinking containers.

We used stainless steel or sippy cups which weren’t polycarbonate. The parenting blog Z Recommends has a great article called the Sippy Cup Showdown which details this even further.

Moreover, all the kids enjoyed fresh fruits and vegetables much more frequently than canned vegetables or pastas (ravioli or spaghetti-o’s type) which, according to the EWG, had the highest levels of BPA leaching.

I’ve also been hand washing the BPA containers, mainly because it does a better job of removing milk and I can’t wait for the dishwasher, however I did push for sterilizing all the containers at least twice a month by washing them in the dishwasher.

From The Health Dangers Of Reusing Plastic Bottles And Bags | Environmental Working Group:

One of the reasons opinion is divided over the older child is the range of sensitivity to BPA that scientists have observed among individuals.

Fortunately, there are now a number of BPA-free bottles on retailers’
shelves. If you want to make a switch but your child will not tolerate
another type of nipple, Deardorff suggests that you can still manage to
lower the risk of BPA exposure in these ways:

1. Avoid heating the plastic bottle. This means steering clear of a
dishwasher, sterilizer, or microwave. The incidence of leaching is much more severe from heated than unheated plastic bottles. One alternative is to heat milk in a pan on top of the stove, let it cool, then pour it into the bottle.

2. Discard any cracked bottles. Leaching increased after a bottle had been washed more than 20 times, went through prolonged daily use, or became scratched, researchers noted.

3. Switch to safer brands. Bottles manufactured from BPA-free polypropylene are still on the market. Some of the brands include Medela, Born Free, and Adiri Natural Nurses. Also be sure to check the recycling labels since many No. 7 bottles contain BPA. By contrast, most No. 2, 4, and 5 plastic bottles are made of polyethylene or polypropylene.

DeNoon suggests you can avoid the BPA problem altogether if your baby will tolerate a switch from canned formula to a powdered product. He cites reports from a March 2007 study by The Environmental Working Group in which national laboratory tested 97 cans of food purchased in Atlanta, GA; Oakland, CA, and Clinton, CT.

Tests proved cans of chicken soup, baby formula, and ravioli had the highest BPA level. A full one third of the cans with infant formula had BPA levels 200 times the Government’s safe exposure level.

Deardorff also cites Ari Brown, co-author of the 2005 book “Baby 411″. Brown urges parents to simply avoid using any polycarbonate bottles until researchers know more about the impact of BPA.

As for your little one, you can replace all your plastic bottles for just $50.00 to $100.00.

Baby 411, Third Edition: Clear Answers & Smart Advice for Your Baby’s First Year by Denise Fields, Ari Brown Read more about this book…

Further Research:

The Z Report: A Directory of Bisphenol-A In Baby Bottles and Sippy Cups

The Health Dangers Of Reusing Plastic Bottles And Bags | Environmental Working Group

Timeline: BPA from Invention to Phase-Out

Your BPA questions, answered 

Wall Street Journal: Health Blog

FDA: Bisphenol A in Plastic Bottles is Safe

Wal-Mart, Nalgene Move Away From Bisphenol A

Worries Grow Over Bisphenol A in Plastics

Consumer Product Safety RSS

US Consumer Product Safety Commission – Recent Child-Related Product Recalls

Thursday was A Very Bad Day. This week has been tough as well. Unfortunately I’m having to become an expert in virtually every single thing I’m doing because the ‘experts’ who I hire are completely incompetent in business. Welcome to construction / construction financing / engineering in California. Flakes run the show.

In fact, I’m catching up on my blogging is because since this April Fools Day I’ve been on hiatus while ‘other people’ decide to pull the trigger on my next round of financing.

Whatever.

April Fools Day. What a day to get the final sign-off from the county office for the project.

All of my issues seemed to gain perspective when I watched this guy’s story and listened to the Rich Dad – Poor Dad series creator talk about the resilience it takes in order to make it when, first you’ve made colossal mistakes and second, when everyone around you is criticizing you.

So at least I’m better off than this guy. In a lot of ways, but mainly because I didn’t make the colossal mistakes.

If all I have to do is weather this current storm of boredom and the potential of financial death by attrition, that’s doable. Bring it on…

Saving us from ourselves…

And then there’s this… Bailout backlash – Apr. 23, 2008

“There’s a huge segment of the country saying, ‘We don’t want our money used for a bailout,’” said Brandon.

“A third of the American public rents,” Brandon pointed out. “They’re saying ‘I’ve been saving for a mortgage for years. I could have jumped in on a subprime loan too. Now I’m going to have to pay for a government bailout.”

I happen to be one of those renters who saw this market correction coming, and I’ve been trying to position myself properly for the opportunity.

No, I didn’t go into flipping homes. Although one of my contractor advisors is a guy who did have three or four homes he was in the middle of flipping when the music stopped and everybody grabbed a chair in the California housing bomb.

I wanted to keep on renting when everyone else was buying homes higher and higher. As Kiyosaki said in the clip, the concept of buying in a high market is looking to make money on the ‘bigger fool’. After all, if all your friends are talking about it at the cocktail parties, you’ve just gotta get into it, right?!? Meh.

Thinking of it as a sabbatical from my software, training, and wireless background I decided to work on my strategic side of business in early 2005.

It started with a family project.

Back in 2004 when gas was $2 a gallon, I was researching the soon to be sudden Hubbert’s Peak which we now seem to have slam-danced into. The best part of this construction was that it would be energy efficient, and be an example of a rural wind farm done under $10k.

Below the fold I’ve just got more to say, so don’t go there unless you just have to have the real scoop on how tough the past 18 months have been.

This past year I’ve had the opportunity to live out tough out a project which was entirely outside my field of expertise: building a home. Not only building a home, but building it 500 miles away from my base of operations in San Diego.

Our project in a nutshell – Blended Learning type training in vineyard management combined with a residency program which takes advantage of zero footprint energy efficiency designed into the buildings and wind energy in a zone 4 area. Did I mention the military base just five miles down the road?

For lack of explaining an 80 page business plan, I just call our use ‘rental’ which makes the appraisers and other money guys nod appreciatively.

This was a creative option for improving a 40 acre property gifted to my brother and I by our aunt. The gift had a stipulation: build a house for our father who, at the time was in his late 80s and still very much the Berkeley activist.

Anyone who’s read my About page knows that I had my time of it back in 2001. Getting laid off following an IPO that underdelivered, then having everything go south in the initial wireless data consulting concept when our launch was set for Sept. 11, 2001. Well, we all know what happened on that day in history. Too bad it was also the day CTIA was supposed to launch.

Resiliency. That’s my core value

For the past year I’ve had to deal with people overpromising, and under-delivering, if they deliver at all. In fact, construction is so full of flakes it’s amazing anything ever gets built.

Things started out tough and just got tougher. Property that didn’t just come to us gift-wrapped, we’ve had to do so many improvements for compliance that it just boggles the mind. I still have pictures of what it used to look like prior to 2005. 

Not to mention my dad passing away a year ago after a brutal time of it in the hospitals. Ever since then I can just eyeball any passing nurse and tell you whether they’ll be good at their jobs or not.

Three months before that both my mom’s parents passed away within six months of each other.

Three in one year. Three in nine months, actually.

Meanwhile… back at the ranch…

Property that somehow attracted the strangest and most unhinged Berkeley crowd who felt that somehow they owned it, and attempted not once but twice to put felony ex-cons as squatters onto it.

Confrontations with squatters in the dead of night, pouring rain in January, one with an ex-con with two pit bulls. My private investigation background came in handy. So did the Mossberg 590 I had thought to bring that dark and rainy night, not to mention 911 on speed dial. Nobody got hurt. That’s a win in my book. Well, that and nobody every came back out to squat on the land again. Trouble rides a fast horse.

Like having our subcontracted engineer pull the pin on his boss and catch us and ten other poor homeowners in the frag pattern of his ambitions. He’s on my list of evil people who need to get sued and have their licenses pulled. My complaint’s been filed already.

The rest of the stories. Even worse. They would chill the blood of anyone remotely interested in getting a construction loan. I’ll leave those for telling on long dark winter evenings over beer and wings.

After all of that, having the county approval process turn out to be the easiest part of the situation has been a pleasant surprise. That was no picnic either. Just everything else in comparison was a lot harder.

Lessons Learned

You will hate your contractor. This is something that every single source of information I could grasp about construction gave to me.

So I got creative. I didn’t hire one.

At least not full time. And you know what? Most of my problems and dilemmas wouldn’t have been helped one single bit by having that extra $50k spent on the profit of a contractor.

I’m not saying that I didn’t need advice, but hiring a contractor as an advisor is a lot cheaper.

And I don’t hate him. He’s actually a really great guy.

One last thing. The same basic tenet I try to pass on to my children is that mistakes are okay and even necessary, but not being honest about your mistakes is a sin. Mistakes – I’ve made a few. But the hardest mistakes I’ve had to deal with are the ones that were made by other people which I have had to clean up.

This past April my father Howard Jeter passed away. This is the first year without him, and I’ve been thinking about his accomplishments a lot particularly with the MLK Day holiday.

My Personal Heritage

I am, like Derek Jeter, of mixed heritage. My dad was mainly African-American and Anglo with a considerable amount of Native American. We are direct descendants of Pocahontas and the Mataponai tribe in Virginia. The first Jeter in our family came over from England in the 1600s as an indentured servant. We’ve been around here for nearly 400 years. My mom is German-American on both sides and blonde. Her side of the family came over around the same time.

Family reunions are amazing. You can see virtually every color of the rainbow of people within them. The resemblance between distant family members was uncanny. You would see certain facial features even though you were separated by thousands of miles and in our case, multiple different ethnic backgrounds. One of my cousins married an Irishman, but her daughter looks a lot like my daughter born four years later.

I was approached at the 2000 family reunion held in DC by a man who told me, “…you look like my son.” I, being in the family spirit, replied that I’d been hearing that a lot that night. I pointed out two other cousins who I resembled.

We introduced ourselves, found we had the same name, and had a great conversation. Later one my cousins came up to me and asked me if I knew that man was Derek Jeter’s dad. 

But it didn’t matter. Dr. Charles Jeter had told me earlier when I asked why his son wasn’t there that he had to work and just couldn’t make it. I think he knew then that I had absolutely no idea who he was. Of course I was from the West Coast and baseball really doesn’t drive the hero worship that it does back east.

Now I’ve heard recently that Derek Jeter lives in Vista, north of San Diego. If true we should get together and play some XBox when he’s not gallivanting around with the Hollywood crowd.

The Jeter Family in Civil Rights

Our contributions to civil rights are surprising and I didn’t find out about most of my dad’s accomplishments until after he passed away. He was the first black substitute teacher in several Bay Area districts, like El Cerrito. He was also the first African-American permanent teacher hired into the San Francisco school district and taught at Balboa High School during the 1960s and 1970s.

There’s more about my dad Howard Jeter in his memorial blog if you’re interested, I’m just hitting the highlights here.

I remember reading several civil rights books and being able to meet Dick Gregory, the author of one, during a speech he was giving in the 1980s at UC Berkeley. He greeted my dad like an old friend, and this was something that I had noticed around Berkeley. People knew my father everywhere he went, but at the age of twelve I didn’t know that it was on a national level.

My dad ran against Ron Dellums in an early Democratic primary that Ron won in the late 1960s (or Wikipedia says 1970). Ron Dellums went on to serve over thirty years in office and now has a federal building named after him in Oakland. I met him in the 1980s, and he also greeted my dad by name.

Another member of our family, Mildred Jeter, was part of the groundbreaking civil rights decision that overruled the Virginia ban on interracial marriage in Loving v. State of Virginia. This occurred 40 years ago to the day that my father passed away.

My political stance is neutral. Having not experienced the same level of discrimination as my father I’m fortunate for the work that they laid for me yet I also retain a certain amount of belief that the pendulum can swing too far in areas like quotas and preferential treatment.

MLK Day 2008: Going Forward From Here

Prejudice of one kind or another continues in the heart of man. This isn’t something limited to regions, or political parties, or class structure. It’s just how we’re wired. We’re tribal by nature and tend to group into clans. My mom experienced the same sort of prejudice against her when she taught on the Navajo reservation.

Prejudice of any kind is overcome by long term exposure to a different culture and the earning of respect by professionalism in work and loyalty in personal friendships. It’s overcome by involving oneself in the community they live in.

As my aunt once said, we’ve been vocal for generations and one more struggle is a walk in the park. She’s had numerous lifetime achievements for over fifty years of community service given to her where she lives in New Jersey.

I am satisfied however that right now my children will grow up with the knowledge that our very legitimacy is due to the struggles of the 20th century. Our family was not a bystander in this struggle, rather we were directly involved.

That’s my family’s legacy. I’m proud to have known their personal involvement and been able to chronicle some of it. In honor of my dad and of Martin Luther King, I’m posting it today.

sip,structural insulated panel,construction,energy efficiency,solano county

I was recently asked by a friend how the construction project was going. Another blogreader asked how much I was involved.

A picture is worth a thousand words…

(jump beneath the fold for more)

When you can’t get things in a project completed properly you end up doing a lot yourself. I tried to get contractors to bid on this, nobody, not one, followed through with what I thought was professionalism. So… I took the time off and jumped in to complete the task.

Leadership By Example

Which led to me tied to a forklift thirty feet in the air jumping up and down on a hundred pound SIP to get it where it wasn’t going to go because someone else had redrawn the layout my contractor had previously done.

We used to call that ‘leadership by example’ in the Navy. You don’t want to ask others to do what you yourself wouldn’t want to do first.

Not my fault… not my problem that I created.. but ultimately it was my project, my responsibility.

And the risk associated with tying someone else up there was, in my opinion, not worth it. I had the equipment, and had spent months climbing rock walls in gyms and tying knots. Umm… Because I knew it would come in handy.

Well, in less than two months I and my intrepid band of high school dropouts, (aside from the contractor I brought in periodically) knowing nearly next to nothing about what we were doing took this…

and this..

and by manhandling these energy efficient structural insulated panels (which weigh a LOT more than you’d think) like this…

…We were able to accomplish this much in two months.

Not two months straight working mind you, there was Thanksgiving where we lost a week, and then every other week I was back in San Diego with my boys doing the Daddy thing. Something like 35 days total work sounds about right. With no more than five total people on the site at any time, best working group size was four IMHO.

We are now looking at this (and yes, it’s supposed to look like a barn, that’s what it is designed to be… just a really super energy efficient barn / office space).

Oh, and this…

and this…

We were on track to have our permit finaled at the end of this month however I’ve had just about every single Murphy’s Law item thrown at me during this project, (three relatives dying, one baby born, all sorts of family law issues) why not at the very end of it all just have yet. Another. Family law issue? (hate to vent, but after all, it is my blog).

Like I didn’t have my plate full already.

california,real estate

Luckily, this doesn’t impact the 21st Century Farm Project too much since we were appraised as a commercial property and only had a 5% appreciation value considered rather than the residential appreciation at 20% per year.

It does explain why Anthony Olivier may have printed his own currency when MadCap Software moved recently. It’s rumored that the savvy timing netted MadCap more than just a bigger space.

Quoted from California Real Estate Market Outlook Worse in 2008:

“We’re in a major slump here,” said Jas Deepak, a real estate agent with Help-U-Sell Affordable Homes. “It seems like it’s a freefall in this market.”

Deepak estimated that prices in the Fairfield area have fallen 10 to 15 percent from 2006, and last week only 10 homes were sold out of 1,300 on the market. Last October, about 30 homes were selling each week. Deepak is the agent for a nearly 1,500-square-foot ranch home on the desirable west side of Fairfield for $369,000. Four months ago, the property was listed for $415,000. If the price is reduced any more, it will be a “short sale” in which the seller must ask the lender to accept less money than what is owed.

baby friendly travel,airline complaint,XJT,ExpressJet,false advertising,airline advertising,nonstop flight,airline deception,deceptive advertising,handicapped accessibility

Wrapping up the ExpressJet debacle, it seems that my recent topic of corporate authenticity works well in analyzing the ongoing situation with ExpressJet (Nasdaq: XJT), the startup airline company in which I intended to invest heavily into this upcoming year.

Dr. Girlfriend reports that return flight was much worse than the departure, leaving me greatly disappointed in ExpressJet’s ground crew competence and customer service. In fact, after she had arrived at Tulsa she was impressed with the inflight service and had actually decided not to press the issue, but her return flight completely changed all that.

It Can Always Be Worse

While I hope for the best with any aviation venture it bears mentioning that the worst in aviation is always a smoking hole and broken dreams.

Therefore I apply the same critical analysis I would make if I were still flying in the Navy and had to evaluate a crew for mishap potential. Nobody gets a free pass or a gimme when the combined efforts or missteps of the entire team could result in tragedy, or in this case, unsat service. If my post brings light into situations that can be addressed, we are all better for it.

Analysis

Personally, I find the concept of untrained ground crew just downright scary. Pilot error or groundcrew error are two things not even top rated maintenance crews can help fix.

Maybe this jet is small enough for the pilot / flight crew to do all the preflight prep but if the ground crew are poorly trained and touching anything mission critical; that’s spooky and more important, human error is the most frequent cause of an aviation mishap.

You Snooze, You Lose!

Well, she gave them a full business day before I thought it best to post this message and see how many people’s lives it touched. As I mentioned in my Corporate Authenticity post, it’s time that corporations got real about what they represent.

As you may have become familiar with the events Dr. Girlfriend had boarding ExpressJet from my last post, it turns out that Dr. Girlfriend wrote a very detailed letter of her situation to ExpressJet.

Dr. Girlfriend gave me permission to post this after ExpressJet had a reasonable chance to respond to her. Here’s a copy of that letter, minus the identifiers, and plus the spell checking…

Note: Dr. Girlfriend is in the medical field, not technical communication.

________________________________

From: xxxxx@xxx.com
Sent: Friday, August 24, 2007 5:45 PM
To: CUSTOMERRELATIONS@EXPRESSJET.COM
Cc: xxxxxxxxx
Subject: COMPLAINT

August 24, 2007

Attention John Moses

Dear Mr. Moses,

I’m directing this e-mail to you on the instructions of Meekin in the Denver location. I know she has spoken to you via phone already about my experience with your airline and you requested this e-mail.

Let me start with giving you the background. On May 2, 2007 at the age of 37 I was blessed with the birth of my first child a little girl. The family on my side consists of my mother and myself here in California. The rest of the great grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins live in Kansas where I grew up. The extended family was expecting to meet [daughter's name] for the first time in November on our annual trip to celebrate thanksgiving. Not only was this the year for my first child but it was also my mother’s 60th birthday in August of this year.

On June 16, 2007 after the birth of my daughter and both of us seemed to be healthy and happy I decided to plan a surprise trip back home to take her to meet everyone and so my mother could celebrate her birthday with her parents that are both in their 80′s and her two sisters.

While shopping for good priced airline tickets online I discovered your new airline that I believe had only launched a month prior to my booking. Seeing that you not only flew from Sacramento to Tulsa but that it was non-stop (I felt that a non-stop flight would be the most convenient for myself and daughter since I could not predict how she would respond to flying) and the price was well below anyone else this peaked by curiosity.

While having your flight schedule on my screen I called your 800 number to verify a few things before I book. The first thing I asked was whether your airline was equipped to handle someone in a wheelchair.

My mother has been in a wheelchair for 37 years due to a car accident. I was assured that not only did you have the personnel but also the equipment to handle those needs. I continued to inform the person that not only would I be traveling with my mother and her special needs but I would have my 14 week old daughter.

Again I was assured that your airline was baby friendly and that you had all the personnel to handle all my needs.

My last question was about the non-stop status of the flight I was looking to book. I gave the flight number and was told that indeed it was a non-stop from Sacramento to Tulsa. I made my reservations online and then called a second time to confirm my booking and my accommodations.

I printed my itinerary with the confirmation number [deleted] leaving Sacramento Aug. 5, 2007 @ 9:25am flight # 0226 landing in Tulsa @ 3:50pm same day. Returning flight was 0227 leaving Tulsa Aug. 11, 2007 @ 2:30pm and landing in Sacramento @ 5:34pm on the 11th.

The day of leaving started out to be very routine for flying. My boyfriend took us to the airport to see me and his daughter off for her first airplane ride. Between my mother and myself I check 4 bags and my daughter’s car seat. I also took a portable chair for my daughter that fold down and had a carrying bag. It measures app. 14 inches by 14 inches and is as thick as a thin book. The lady @ the counter who was checking in our luggage and getting out boarding passes had us place the baby chair in the seat of her car seat and placed a large plastic bag over both.

She gave us our boarding passing along with a pass for my boyfriend to go up to the gate with us in order to help me with my mom and baby.

Here would be the unkept promises of a nonstop flight there…

It wasn’t until we were about to leave the counter that I has asked to confirm by final destination. I told her Tulsa and she said she would go remark my luggage for Tulsa not Albuquerque.

I thought that was a little strange but didn’t give it a second thought until I got to the gate and found out that there indeed was a 40 minute stop in Albuquerque on my non-stop flight to Tulsa. I was not happy! Right off I did not get what I paid for. Now I would be adding a landing and a take off to my trip and 40 minutes confined in a small plane all with a 14 week old baby. My future on this flight did not look promising.

At this point I asked for a manager to express my unhappiness with. A gentleman named Ryan can up to the counter to handle my complaint. I informed him of my steps and phone calls prior to booking and now that I’m ready to fly I find out that I didn’t get what I paid for. At this time he was kind enough to email me a voucher for my next flight.

So out on the tarmac I go to pre-board the plane with my mother and baby. Someone had already put the stairs up to the plane and the two ground crew members could not find or didn’t think that it even existed the aisle chair or the lift to load my mother into the plane.

After standing out in the wind and sun for 15 minutes and no one able to locate the necessary equipment to get my mother on the plane the security gentleman that escorted us to the plane picked my mother up (she weights 90 pounds) and took her up the stair on the plane and seated us in the first two seat row #3 even though that wasn’t out assignment.

Now I’m really not happy about the events considering I called ahead to make sure these things would not be issues. But guess what, they are!!!!

Finally arrive in Tulsa and start the week with the family.

Here we come back.

Problems start from the get go. Went to check in the exact same luggage, baby chair and car seat that I came with and was told that I would have to carry on the baby chair instead on placing it in the seat of the car seat as I did on the way out.

I explained that I had my mother, her wheelchair, my baby, and her diaper bag to carry and I could not manage to carry that also through the airport and security. I explain how Sacramento sent it out and was told they “broke the rules”.

They said it would cost me $50 to fly the chair back home. I told them that I wasn’t paying to fly that chair home, it came with me and it was going back, and if I had been told that it was breaking the rules I could have sent it home with her dad that was at Sacramento airport when I has leaving and not brought it.

They held me up at the ticket counter for 25 minutes saying they would have to call their supervisor down because they could not allow that chair to fly without charging me for it or me carrying it on. (Do I need to remind anyone how limited the space is on the plane and by me checking the chair with the car seat was much more convenient for both me and the airline).

As I waited for the supervisor to come speak to me our boarding passes were prepared. It was noted that my mother’s California ID had expired on her birthday while we were gone.

They couldn’t find my daughter’s reservation and told me I had not booked her. I told them that I had definitely booked her with my travel arrangements.

At this point I was being spoken to rudely and not as if I was a customer.

Still no supervisor has shown to speak to me about the baby chair issue.

With an attitude I was handed by boarding passes the baby chair was placed in the seat of the car seat and bagged and I was told that “you’re done here”.

Off to the gate I go. Now first I have to go through security (we all know how difficult that can be but do what you have to do) and when I get there with my mother, daughter, and extras in hand we are told that because my mother’s ID is expired that we should have been issued a special type of boarding pass and of course wasn’t.

If she does not have another government issued ID we are going back down to the counter where they are “done with us” to get it corrected. (Yes I will be required to haul everything and everyone single handed back down stairs to correct this mistake)

Luckily security took my mom’s social security card and a bank card with her picture on it.

We get to the gate to find out that guess what, my return flight is no non-stop as I thought I had purchased to begin with. Another landing and take off with a 40 minute wait on a small airplane in Albuquerque.

Go to load to leave, well this time they were able to find the aisle chair and platform lift to get my mother in the plane.

New problem, out of the 3 ground crew members only 1 knew how to operate your MANUAL crank lift and not very well. Myself holding my baby, my mother, and 1 ground crew member was placed on the platform of the lift. It is oh, about 120 degrees outside counting humidity.

It took the female ground crew member 3 times cranking by hand us up then down because she could not line up with the plane door correctly.

She asked another female ground crew member to crank it up the last time but that person was unable to because “this is new and no one has showed me how” the other girl replied “I know and I don’t know how to use it any better that you but I can’t do it again” by now all of us on the platform have a temperature of 120 just like outside including my 14 week old daughter.

I was starting to get anxious about the situation knowing I needed to get my baby and mother out of the direct sun and heat. Like they say third time must be the charm because we were finally on the plane.

Now according to the pilot when we are getting ready to take off we are about 20 late but there is a storm passing through Albuquerque so now we will miss it.

When we land in Albuquerque I change my daughter’s wet diaper on my lap and wrap it up.

A new flight attendant got on our plane. We were seated in row #3 again, I was closest to the window. [Note: this means her handicapped mother is in the aisle seat.]

As the new flight attendant passed by me I asked her if she could throw away the diaper for me.

She turned and speaking not very good English told me “no I won’t touch that. I don’t have to. Get up and go to the back of the plane and throw it away in the bathroom yourself” and walked away.

I noted her name by her badge as Sara Brooks.

Again I asked her for help because I had my baby on my lap and that would require me to crawl over my mother with her, go to the back on the plane and try to make my way back to my seat as the other 60 passengers were now trying to get on board. But again she refused to take it or bring me a plastic bag to put it in.

SHOCKED!!!!!

What happened to baby friendly?

Ok leave Albuquerque get to Sacramento everyone gets off the plane and there is Sara Brooks again telling me to go ahead and get off the plane. I told her I am waiting for them to bring an aisle chair for my mother to unload her.

Instead of fully listening she was already responding to me ” hold your own baby and I will walk her off” I explained that she could not walk and again she rudely informed me to “take your own baby I’ll take her”

I then raised by voice and told her she would not be walking her anywhere she hadn’t walked for 37 years that we needed an aisle chair and the lift.

Sara then said “oh was that your wheelchair I thought it was that other ladies”.

I look out the window only to see some stranger sitting in my mother’s wheelchair and being wheeled away in it. (like underwear and person’s wheelchair is a personal item that you don’t want other’s using. Those are her legs)

At this point I went to the pilot and told him that I would not nor could I continue to deal with Sara. Her English speaking skills were poor and no one could understand her, she was rude, she did not listen to her passengers, and due to that she did not know her passenger’s needs. (this conversation is taking place when Sara is off the plane getting some stranger out of my mother’s wheelchair).

Finally the proper equipment arrives to get my mother off the plane. I exit first and wait on the ground while they hand crank my mother down from the plane.

The ground crew called Ryan to operate the lift because “we only got these less than a week ago and no one has shown us how to use it”.

Thank god we are now off and the nightmare of Express Jet has ended.

There Is A Point To All Of This…

I write this complaint letter with hopes that you are interested in not only good service but also being better equipped to handle the needs of people with disabilities, elderly and mothers/fathers traveling with babies or small children.

None of these conditions are fun to deal with when traveling but are less fun and down right impossible when the airline you travel with does not make an attempt to meet basic federal guidelines or needs. In the same aspect when traveling with babies or small children their world and day is different everyday and is not predictable.

When the airline you travel is not baby friendly to relieve some of the anxiety and make you feel like no matter what they will go out of their way to help with issues, it makes you not want to fly with that airline.

Some think choice of airline is based solely on how much is the ticket, take it from someone who travels with someone that is handicapped and now a baby, I’ll pay extra for good service and help. My mother has traveled alone with other airlines in the past, I would not ever agree to have her travel without me on your airline.

I do not have any confidence your airline personal would have the desire or ability to help her.

It’s Not Just Me…

In reading several stories in the news and online I guess feel better about your non-friendly baby attitude towards me. It is apparent that my experience is not the first for a mother with an infant that the flight attendant had no desire to help, I thought it was just me. (A mother and her 19 month old son were removed in Dallas because her baby was talking and annoyed the flight attendant).

If you want your airline to fly only single adults with no needs or expectations of customer service then you are well on your way to having that reputation.

As I made reference to, I have read other stories on web sites about substandard experiences on your airline and have also added my story.

Doctor Girlfriend’s Final Request To ExpressJet

I would love to add a happy ending to this by letting everyone on my website know that ExpressJet has sent vouchers to me and my mother in the full ticket price for our nightmare travel and will be giving them a second chance in November 2007 on our annual trip home for thanksgiving. [We will keep you posted about how this turns out].

I will be happy to send future emails to educate you and your airline on tips on how to make traveling for disable, elderly (I’ve worked in a nursing home for 10 years) and babies easier for the average person. I look forward to the resolution of this matter.

I prefer not to take this matter to any higher or other levels unless ignored or not taken seriously. I will look for a response by email.

Once I receive vouchers from your company then I will be happy to post my happy response to this situation and book my travel arrangements in November.

Thank you for looking into this matter.

Sincerely,

[Dr. Girlfriend]

Quoted from http://viraj21283.wordpress.com/ :

Top 20 Qualities of Smart People

1. Make Decisions Intuitively

Smart people listen to and follow their intuition. They know how intuitions and insights come to them and are tuned-in internally to make wise decisions.

I read a book called ‘Think like a Genius’ which led off on the same track. All the book did for me was simply confirm my suspicions. I am a genius.

Kids and Genius

However, this list of twenty things makes me more aware of being a parent. I want to make sure that I’m able to encourage everything on this list whenever possible with my kids. There’s enough in the world that tells them they can’t do things, and encouraging exploration safely has been my focus on the time I spend with them.

Manners Cards

One of the nicest tech writers at a major client’s business gave me a set of home-designed Manners Cards she had made for my oldest son to use. He loves them.

When he says ‘Please’ or helps his brother, I tell him, “Manners Cards, you earned a Manners Card!” His face then cracks into a huge smile as he repeats it. “Manners Cards, I get Manners Cards!”

If more of us could mentally check off the twenty item list here like I do with his cards, I think we’d be on our way to creating the habit of encouraging and enabling our kids to think like a genius, and feel self rewarded at the same time.

I’ll be saying to myself, “Genius Cards, I get Genius Cards!”

parenting,kids,manners,techniques

BTS | Seven New Carriers Report On-Time Performance, Baggage Mishandling to DOT

The monthly report contains a list of regularly scheduled flights that were late at least 80 percent of the time. In February, the most frequently late flights were ExpressJet flight 2369 from Cleveland to Dallas-Fort Worth, late 91.67 percent of the time; ExpressJet flight 2796, also from Cleveland to Dallas-Fort Worth, late 90.91 percent of the time…

 Ouch. Back when I was a techie road warrier I used to screen flights in Travelocity and if they were historically above 20% late I wouldn’t touch that route. So I am wondering how that impacts their launch? 

ExpressJet Holdings Inc., Posts Loss on New Airline Costs 

The start up of their own airline led Houston based ExpressJet Holdings Inc. (XJT) to a $26.4 million quarterly loss.      

Update on Dr. Girlfriend’s trip

Doctor Girlfriend reported back after her late return to Sacramento this evening quite the story to relate. In Part 2 continuing my previous ExpressJet tale, I’ll be sure to post more however what she did relate to me did include:

1. Late takeoff because of a hand-cranking handicapped transfer done on the tarmac in 100 degree heat.

2. Something about the flight attendant (F/A) wanting Dr. Girlfriend to take a diaper all the way to the rear of the plane versus simply dumping it into the small waste bag two feet from the cabin door during the flight.

3. Dr. Girlfriend’s mother (said wheelchair passenger) got lost in the shuffle somehow when at the end of the trip the F/A grabbed an elderly passenger and, assuming they were the wheelchair pax, stuck that lady into the mother’s personal, custom wheelchair.

4. The confrontation with the flight attendant the F/A then wanted to “assist the wheelchair passenger down the steps” and Dr. Girlfriend refused to let her, asking for the proper equipment to be used. The F/A had evidently decided that Dr. Girlfriend’s mom could somehow walk, even though she hasn’t in over 35 years.

5. Dr. Girlfriend tried to put a stop to this madness by getting the pilot to mediate. This was her only option to keep the F/A from attempting to manhandle her mother down the steps, to which the pilot was heard to say that he didn’t understand the F/A’s accent or refusal either.

Um. I don’t know if maybe I’ve been too long outside of a jet, but I do recall that clear communication used to be a job requirement. How else will everyone understand what to do in case of emergency? Not to mention during this flight the F/A spent all that time jumping on the holy hand grenade of Federal Accessibility of Airline Service.

ExpressJet: Conjures Evil Flight Attendants To Save Money

Maybe it’s because ExpressJet forgot to screen their flight attendants for those who don’t have people skills… Or for those without a soul: 

Talking toddler and mother removed from flight in Houston

 (7/11/07 – KTRK/HOUSTON) – A passenger on a Houston flight says she and her child were thrown off the plane during an incident before takeoff. The question is — did a crew member go too far, or was the move justified? (ABC Affiliate) 

Flight Attendant Boots Gwinnett Mom, Baby From Plane

Kate Penland said she was glad to board the plane in Houston after an 11-hour delay to visit her father in Oklahoma. But she said a rude and aggressive flight attendant caused her to get to Oklahoma a day late. Penland thinks her 19-month-old son, Garren, has a bubbly personality. But Penland said when they were aboard a Continental Express plane, a flight attendant became annoyed by Garren’s personality when he kept saying three words. 

For those of you who clicked that ‘poorly trained personnel‘ link who aren’t in aviation, that’s 500 hours total time (TT) and 100 hours multi-engine. I’ve driven more than 100 hours in two months driving back and forth to the Bay Area. 

In basically 16 hours a week flight time for two months plus their internal 90 day wonder class and Presto! You’re an ExpressJet Pilot. I wonder what it takes to get the Flight Attendant job? 

I would trust neither the pilots or the FAs in an emergency situation. That kind of judgement just doesn’t grow on trees. Add to that the inexperienced ground crew and all you’ve got left are the mechanics. I hear they’re first rate, with only one Class A accident in the past 16 years to show for it.

xjt,expressjet,handicapped accessibility,toddler,airline,flight attendant,airline complaint

airline complaint,XJT,ExpressJet,false advertising,airline advertising,nonstop flight,airline deception,deceptive advertising,handicapped accessibility

I’m not usually upset with customer service issues with airline travel. However, in this instance I had a front row seat to the calamity that a new airline caused to my girfriend today. Without a doubt it was the worst monkey-motion / soup sandwich situation I’ve seen since I left Naval Aviation twelve years ago.

According to the US Gov Department of Transportation site regarding this matter, ‘Direct Flight’ may mean one or more stops enroute.

Yeah? Well I’ve got the right to post my opinion and document the facts behind this completely deceptive practice that I’ve never experienced from any airline carrier.

Click below the fold to read how my girl, our infant daughter, and her mom got screwed by ExpressJet’s nondisclosure.

The ExpressJet “Direct Flight” Debacle

A few months ago my girlfriend (I’ll call her Doctor Girlfriend) decided to check out the rates to book a flight from Sacramento to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Normally, she flys Southwest Airlines but as she was checking out Kayak.com, my favorite super-secret travel site, the one I bought my $200 nonstop r/t SAN – OGG Maui flight from last year, she came across a killer deal from an airline she had never heard of – ExpressJet (NYSE: XJT).

ExpressJet was offering nonstop service from Sacramento directly to Tulsa. Normally Southwest and other airlines require at least one stop, and having a layover really conflicts with her schedule as she would be traveling with her mother who requires a wheelchair. She was skeptical, but still ecstatic as this would be a birthday gift for her mother.

I’m Not Stupid… Direct Flight: What’s The Catch?

Doctor Girlfriend then asked me about ExpressJet. A quick Google found enough information for me to feel safe about recommending; in fact I was thinking about investing in this young upstart for several reasons. First, they have a good model in addressing secondary markets, and second, they have had a good record providing service as Continental Express and Delta Express in plenty of secondary markets across America.

Most importantly, ExpressJet had a very good safety record and have established ground crew maintenance routines. After all, what goes up must come down – it’s just not guaranteed to come down in one piece or at the right destination.

Doctor Girlfriend Examines ExpressJet

I told her it looked good but she is a cautious and wary consumer. Having been burned many times in the travel game she decides to take two crucial steps prior to booking the flight. First, she logged into the ExpressJet site to buy it directly from them.

She checked out their route chart online, and as I copied the screen from their flashy Flash presentation, it clearly shows a direct route from Sacramento to Tulsa. She was elated.

Remember -

1. She checked the flight details on kayak.com
2. She checked the flight details on xjet.com

Since Doctor Girlfriend works in the medical industry she’s very savvy when it comes to handicapped accessibility. Airlines even have specific government regulation about this matter. She actually called up the company to confirm they would be able to properly handle a wheelchair. I thought this a bit extreme – in this day and age, if it’s on the Internet, it’s accurate. Was I wrong.

Wheelchairs and Airlines – Let the Games Begin!

After dealing for the past thirty years or so with all sorts of stupid people tricks regarding handicapped access with ignorant customer service people, Doctor Girlfriend has become quite the
Verbal Jujitsu master. This means she doesn’t hesitate to cut someone who misses the cluetrain off at the knees. Dr. Girlfriend patiently expressed her concerns to me prior to her phone call to ExpressJet. Handicapped access, it turns out, is one thing she has plenty of horror stories about.

Flight Transfers with Wheelchairs

Ever had to transfer from one concourse to another to make a connecting flight? I remember DFW, I remember BWI, and even O’Hare. I used to fly quite a bit several years ago.

The good times just keep on rolling if you are in a wheelchair. Dr. Girlfriend and her mom have found out the hard way many times what it means to end up having to transfer to a completely different jet – late – and at the opposite end of the airport.

Dr: Girlfriend: “Imagine racing down an airline terminal with carryon baggage and a wheelchair because you didn’t have time to wait for the sad sack to load up his terminal buggy before your next flight comes. Oh, that’s not happening to me if I can help it. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.”

Her least favorite method of transportation on and off airplanes is when they are not parked at a gate. Either a crane lift is required for the whole wheelchair, which is then stowed in baggage after the person is seated, or (not so regularly) someone has to carry the handicapped person up the stairs, through the passageway, and settle them into the seat.

Obviously this has to be accomplished prior to everyone else boarding. Additionally, they may be the first off, or last off depending on how things go at the other end.

Since any carry-on luggage becomes a potential sandbag in the quarter-mile dash, most of the critical items are simply not able to be carried by any normal human. This is only second to that hated problem of lost luggage. Doctor Girlfriend’s family does not live in Tulsa; rather they are a few hours drive away.

The ExpressJet corporate headquarters happily confirmed all the great things about their airline.

1. Yes, the flight in question was nonstop and…
2. Yes, they did have wheelchair accessibility.
3. In fact, Doctor Girlfriend asked and was even told that yes, the jet would be at the gate so they could take the (normal) boarding ramp into the aircraft.

She buys the ticket and we forget about the matter for a few months.

“You’re flying to Tulsa?”

After heading out at zero dark thirty on Sunday morning, I’m excited. This should be a great trip for Doctor Girlfriend, her mom, and our infant daughter. All the MidWesterners get to see the new grand-daughter and today as usual she is very, very cute. Before this the main question they asked was something along the lines of:

“Is he really related to that Derek Jeter ballplayer?!?”

I’m curious about whether this new airline will have what it takes to survive the volatile market. After all, I’ve cashed in my LUV stock last year and I’m looking for getting back into the transportation market.It would be cool to see my expectations met by this

Our first warning was at the counter checking in baggage.

Girlfriend says to agent, immediately following checking the bags in, “You’ve got those bags going to Tulsa, right?

Agent: (deer in headlights look as she whips out a Sharpie and hand writes TUL onto the baggage tags) “You’re flying to Tulsa?”.

Why would she… write… Tulsa… onto the tags…? I’m not getting this – I mean, isn’t this a nonstop flight?

I put it out of my head as we go through the security chaos that ensues with every infant plus nonflying escort (me) plus wheelchair passenger. As Dr. Girlfriend and I start putting our shoes back on, I look around for Mom.

They have her in that frag deflection zone (you know, the blast-proof plexiglass shielded hand search area.

Me: “Good grief, are they actually reaching underneath her to frisk between her and the seat?!?”

General Quarters, General Quarters… ExpressJet and Dr. Girlfriend Go Head to Head

We get up to the gate only to find that the gate screen shows that this flight is going to Albuquerque, with a teeny additional script that says Tulsa. At this point Doctor Girlfriend is momentarily shocked into silent denial.

Dr. Girlfriend has a three month old infant and her mom in the chair, and everyone must get to the destination in one piece and with their bags.

Clearly her interest in a direct flight from SMF to TUL is justified, particularly since lost luggage will mean no baby items and her carry-on is the infant. After all, she already checked with the airline and they verbally confirmed it was a nonstop flight.

Clearly she’s about as tense as piano string. Clearly I’m really hoping that she doesn’t go postal before she gets on that plane.

One must know my girl to know that her silence is the calm before a really big storm.

Dr. Girlfriend: (calmly shaking her head) “No, it’s not stopping in Albuquerque first. This is a nonstop flight.”

I shake my head, thinking the ticket agent is going to become dogmeat. As soon as Doctor Girlfriend’s state of denial lifts she stalks the counter. Oh this gate girl is a real piece of work. Ever see Office Space? Remember Peggy, the Secretary? Yeah, think her but younger and prettier.

Doctor Girlfriend, artist of verbal jujitsu, closes in for the kill. I hear bits and pieces of the conversation…

Gate Girl: Well, you booked online through another company like Travelocity, right?

Dr. Girlfriend: No. I booked through YOUR site after I had called and YOUR headquarters told me this was a direct, nonstop flight!

Ah so! Takedown in less than ninety seconds. Doctor Girlfriend, the Jet Li of verbal jujitsu. Git some!

Gate Girl escalates the issue to the manager, but we waited about twenty minutes for him to come up. He’s all of twenty-five. He makes us wait another five minutes as he busy-works himself around the counter, then looks up and beckons her to come over. Obviously this is a delaying tactic. Eventually she has to leave and board the plane, he reasons, so why not reduce the amount of carnage he has to face.

She gets to the counter and starts in with him while we’re queuing up to get onto the plane. Me, holding the baby, pushing the wheelchair to the front of the line.

Dr. Girlfriend quickly assures the manager that, no, fifty dollars will not even come close to resolving the matter and that she will be in contact with the corporate office.

ExpressJet’s Ground Crew Monkey Motion

But I can’t help but notice that they haven’t pushed the arriving jet back from the gate. It’s been there with no activity for at least half an hour. And they have that exit door going to the stairs open… And the gate girl is escorting a little girl flying alone.. not down the access ramp… but to the exit door.

Me: (to gate girl) “Hey, we have to get boarded with a wheelchair. How’s that going to happen?

Gate Girl (into radio): We need security to gate 31 for a handicapped escort.

Girl’s Mom: (to me) Yeah, they’re going to need security for my daughter in about five minutes!

So the security guy gets here and now we’re going down the elevator.

All that stuff about boarding first? Well, it’s now a footrace across the tarmac to the jet parked about a hundred and fifty yards out.

Security pushing out Mom as Dr. Girlfriend walks alongside. Note infant in arms.

We get to the jet, and now we have another obstacle, we need to get her into it. Now I’m just standing there, carrying all the carry-on items. Standing next to the pilot.

So the pilot is about my age, maybe a few years younger. I’m not too thrilled about this since most of the airline pilots my age that I know have thousands of hours military and then go commercial.This guy looks about as old as the manager did and doesn’t have that military experienced look about him. He looks like a pay it yourself civilian pilot, one that puts about $30k into their training and comes out with about 500 hours in type and less than two thousand hours total flight time.

I don’t trust civilian pilots for a lot of reasons, some valid some not, but I don’t like to fly with them unless they’re rated for a lot more than your average Sunday Flyer. According to the blogs I’ve seen, ExpressJet isn’t exactly pulling the best of the best… of the best.

I checked online later to see what the entry requirements were for ExpressJet; oh, well, I feel much better. Not. I found out the online pilots groups have been saying, “ExpressJet’s hiring just about anyone“.

This pilot seems cool though. And I didn’t know at the time that he probably had less time in the air than I did twelve years ago. He was nice enough. Chats me up about the weather being cooler than yesterday. I practiced my verbal jujitsu on him by responding that cool weather’s a good thing; makes it a lot easier for him to take off with a full load, right?.

Note: This is due to air density / ground speed required, aviation stuff that can get you killed. If you don’t follow the changes during hot weather and overload the aircraft you go down just like Aaliyah did some years back…

So then after establishing my bona fides I ask him why they didn’t go up to the gate. He says there was another jet already there. I told him we had called and been assured that this flight would be at the gate and we wouldn’t have to worry about the wheelchair accessibility. He told me, first, that he hadn’t been informed, and that the other plane had two wheelchairs on it. He was nice about it, but I wasn’t getting that air operations competence vibe that I know matters. Everyone has to work together.

About the time the pilot says this I’m realizing that I’m not seeing as many ground crew working over both the jets at the same time as I would have expected. That made me feel like they were undermanned. Somebody’s cutting corners.

Like the number of wheelchairs on the previous flight even matters. One, two, it doesn’t matter. It’s not why there’s a bird parked at the gate. I’m not saying it, but I’m thinking… Monkey motion… Someone’s not gt their stuff wired tight in the ground crew organization.

First, a little of my background is important to know. I’ve got over 250 carrier traps and nearly nine hundred hours of flight time in a carrier based jet aircraft. I’m not a pilot but I know many military and commercial pilots and I’ve been around aircraft operations since 1989. So I’m familiar with how things are supposed to go. Here are a few pics of me in the jet.

They left one jet at the terminal, hooked up to the tow tractor. They left the other jet off the terminal, hooked up to the tow tractor. A reasonable operations approach with qualified ground crews would be to push back the jet not flying immediately in order to have the departing jet prepped and load at the gate.

Southwest Airlines is a master of this. Sit at any airport while you’re waiting for your next flight and you’ll see what I mean. It’s as close as you can get to the deck of any aircraft carrier in the US Navy’s fleet. It’s a ballet.

So today here at SMF (Sacramento) we’re looking at nonexistant ground crew. That means that not only do the passengers have to suffer a walk outdoors (the temperature was 100 degrees yesterday, but a breezy 67 degrees today) but we’re off and running to get in front of them.

Stairs don’t go well with wheelchairs. Click the image to see the blowup of the inset. Notice that everyone’s walking from that small doorway up to the jet. Real fun, right? Off camera to the left is the security guard, and about thirty other passengers waiting to board. The guard ended up carrying her up the stairs.

What fun. They got everyone on board, everyone made it alive at the other end. I was happy about that, but I’ve got serious doubts about ExpressJet’s ground crew.

My Analysis

Intermediate Maintenance may be top notch, but if they don’t have the right line crews to get this done, eventually something more important will be missed. Add that variable to the young, inexperienced pilots and you’ve got a lawn dart, waiting to happen.

What I want done

Here’s my remedy to this mess: I want her tickets refunded. Yes, refunded. It was a screw job all around, and it was XJET’s fault. It may not be technically illegal, but it was deceptive and/or it was a massive mistake. Either way I’m not so sure I would trust that airline based on what I saw. And you have the pictures to prove it.

If we chalk it up to an operations mistake, that’s understandable. Make it up to us.Prove it was a rare mistake. Give us a free set of tickets and we’ll try it again. But if I look at the monkey motion one more time and I’m not feeling good about the flight, I’ll pull chocks and never come back. I’m fair however. If XJT makes it right, I’ll post about that.

The 411 for you all if you should happen to share a similar personal nightmare:

CONTINENTAL AIRLINES & EXPRESSJET AIRLINES

Ms. Anne Munoz

Director, Customer Care

P.O. Box 4607, NHCCR

Houston, TX  77210-4607

(800) 932-2732

The Aviation Consumer Protection Division (ACPD) operates a complaint handling system for consumers who experience air travel service problems.

Why your state Attorney General’s office can’t help.

Where you can start your airline disability or discrimination complaint procedure.

Airline Accountability Blog- ExpressJet information

Summary

Fellow readers, I’ll keep you posted on what occurs after the letter is written by Dr. Girlfriend to the ExpressJet corporates. I’ll even send them a link to my blog post.

Maybe there will be some action on this. After all, Technorati tags are pretty compelling in the search engines. So are other unhappy ExpressJet customers.

“There are duties devolving on every human being—duties not small nor few, but vast and varied,–which spring from home and private life and all their sweet relations. 

The support or care of the humblest household is a function worthy of men, women and angels…From these duties none must shrink, neither man nor woman; the loftiest genius cannot ignore them; the sublimest charity must begin with them. 

They are their own exceeding great reward; their self-sacrifice is infinite joy; and the selfishness which discards them is repaid by loneliness and a desolate old age. 

Yet these, though the most tender and intimate portion of human life, do not form its whole.  It is given to noble souls to crave other interests also, added spheres, not necessarily alien from these:  larger knowledge, larger action also; duties, responsibilities, anxieties, dangers, all the aliment that history has given to its heroes.  Not home less, but humanity more…”

There’s an argument for what responsible parenting is all about. 

Love,

Mom