RIMaxwell

Friday....

2006-03-10T16:14:00.000-05:00

Brain not working...... Must be a Friday.... I'm ready to go home.....

Have you seen this chicken?

2006-03-05T16:37:00.000-05:00

After doing some Google searching, I located a picture of the Elvis Chicken! Have you seen this chicken?

Please keep your cult away from me!

2006-03-05T16:25:00.000-05:00

Attention Scientologists… Guess what?... It’s called a cult…..

Please stop trying to hand out pamphlets to me on the street corner, I’m not interested!

Cluck...Cluck....Thank you, thank you very much...Cluck….

2006-03-04T01:34:00.000-05:00

Still no sign of the Elvis Chicken…..

Watching TV we thought we saw him in a hospital gift shop…. We rewound to check and realized that it wasn’t the Elvis Chicken, it was actually a number of other stuffed animals…..

Elvis has left the building.......

2006-03-03T09:14:00.000-05:00

Where did this Elvis Chicken go?

2006.02.21 - Watch This.....

2006-02-21T10:11:00.000-05:00

Watch This: "Lost Highway" - David Lynch

30 hours a day….

2006-02-21T09:20:00.000-05:00

Today on the drive into work I was thinking about my utilizing of the hours throughout the day… I can divide the day into 3 main parts:

1. Sleep – Something I like
2. Work – Something I have to do
3. Everything else – For the most part stuff that I like.

The problem is that a 24 hour day just does not seem to support all of these activities and sacrifices seem to be made, especially in the area of sleep..... Too often I find that I am going to bed before I’m really tired, just because I need to get enough sleep before I wake up to the alarm clock at a fixed time in the morning.

So here is what I propose: We will slow down the rotation of the earth so that we have 30 hour days instead of 24. With this new lengthened day, I would divide it up as follows:

1. Sleep – 10 hours
2. Work – 8 to 10 hours
3. Everything else – 10 to 12 hours

Also, with this new 30 hour day weekends will be great because it will mean that they can be divided up as:

1. Sleep – 10 hours
2. Eerything else – 20 hours

Unfortunately the strategy to actually slow down the earth is still up in the air..... In the movie Superman, he actually reversed the spin of the earth. So if Hollywood doesn’t lie, then there might be a possibility......

Mondays

2006-02-20T12:18:00.000-05:00

"I Don't Like Monday's" - The Boomtown Rats

The silicon chip inside her head
Gets switched to overload.
And nobody's gonna go to school today,
She's going to make them stay at home.
And daddy doesn't understand it,
He always said she was as good as gold.
And he can see no reason
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be shown?

Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
I want to shoot
The whole day down.

The telex machine is kept so clean
As it types to a waiting world.
And mother feels so shocked,
Father's world is rocked,
And their thoughts turn to
Their own little girl.
Sweet 16 ain't so peachy keen,
No, it ain't so neat to admit defeat.
They can see no reasons
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be shown?

Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
I want to shoot
The whole day down.

All the playing's stopped in the playground now
She wants to play with her toys a while.
And school's out early and soon we'll be learning
And the lesson today is how to die.
And then the bullhorn crackles,
And the captain crackles,
With the problems and the how's and why's.
And he can see no reasons
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to die?

Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
I want to shoot
The whole day down.

2006.02.20 - Read this.....

2006-02-20T10:57:00.000-05:00

Read This: "All Families Are Psychotic" - Douglas Coupland

2006-02-20T10:52:00.000-05:00

As long as I'm complaining about the airlines today, then I might as well dig up an old email that I wrote to Delta airlines in 2003:

---

2003-10-02

Attention: Delta Airlines, Customer Service
Subject : A Delta policy that I might as well call the “Delta would rather loose money and customers policy”

I’d like to provide an example of how your airline is loosing money and ultimately customers due to its processes surrounding customer service and the ability to change flight bookings.

Today I am sitting in the Jacksonville Florida airport awaiting a flight to Atlanta in order to catch a connecting flight to Toronto. The commute between Toronto and Florida is one that I have done every week for a year now. I have switched back and forth between other airlines and Delta several times, no airline has proven that they can get me back and forth each week with a high success rate. As I sit here I am considering moving back to one of the other airlines again because of the situation that I’ve encountered.

My flights for today :
- DL587 – departing Jacksonville at 7:40pm (up until this week has been 7:30pm), arriving at 8:50pm
- DL5520 – departing Atlanta at 9:40pm

The history of my frustrations with this particular connection :

Among other issues which I won’t get into in this particular letter (and believe me, with the amount of traveling I do I could go on for pages about the issues with Delta and other airlines), the flight leaving Jacksonville has been historically late leaving. This often has caused me to actually land in the Atlanta airport after they start boarding my connecting flight to Toronto, causing many problems with actually trying to make the connection. Although this is listed as a valid connection, the statistics show that there is a high probability that there are issues in making this connection. This is especially true when the flight is now as of this week to be scheduled to leave 10 minutes later then it used to.

My Frustrations Tonight :

So why am I so frustrated tonight? I’m not frustrated over the fact that I run the chance of getting stuck, this is the risk that I have every week that I take this flight. I am frustrated that with the clear ability to be able to do something about my connection today to reduce the risk of missing my flight, Delta airlines has decided not to.

I was at the airport early enough tonight that I could have taken a 6:10pm flight to Atlanta, and was willing to pay the $25 change fee (I could write a whole other letter about change fees). This earlier flight would not get me home to Toronto sooner because my second segment would remain the same, which was ok with me because at least it would reduce the risk of a missed connection. Upon requesting this at the check-in desk I was told that they could only make changes to my flight if the second segment could also be moved to an earlier flight (Due to a Delta policy that I might as well call the “Delta would rather loose money and customers policy”). This seems ridiculous that Delta would not attempt to :
1. Provide customer satisfaction
2. Receive a $25 change fee
3. Reduce the risk of having to pay additional money to put me up in a hotel for the night if the connection is missed
4. Retain a customer who travels every week (I wonder how much money that is that has been lost)

It seems to me that Delta tonight threw away a win-win situation. Maybe I’m just one customer, maybe my flight from Jacksonville will arrive on-time tonight (I’m keeping my fingers crossed) but they have lost any amount of customer satisfaction that I had left with them, possibly lost me as a customer as I continue to travel this route every week and lost the opportunity to make money off of me on a change fee.

In today’s economy and the state that the airlines all seem to find themselves in, I would think that Delta would be attempting to keep customer satisfaction, keep customers from going to an alternate airline and take every opportunity to make money and reduce the risk of having to spend more money (hotel accommodations).

A final thought :

Next week as I travel once again from Jacksonville to Toronto I’ll be checking in at the check-in desk of a different airline instead, but I’ll be sure to wave hello to the customer service agents at the Delta desk who dealt with me this week, the customer service agents who could not provide customer service, who lost a customer, who lost some money for Delta.
I suggest you review your policy and examine how it effects your bottom line.

The airline industry

2006-02-20T09:56:00.000-05:00

Have you noticed that with the airlines these days we seem to be paying more to get less….

I think that there is someone sitting around in the airline offices trying to figure out ways to make people pay for the things that they were already giving….. Here are some thoughts on more items that the airlines could start charging us for:

- You can pay an extra $50 to get a seat that comes with a life-vest.
- You can pay an extra $30 to get a seat that has an emergency air-mask.
- You can pay an extra $75 to have an arm-rest on your seat.
- Don’t forget about the special offer of $25 to have the reclining mechanism on your seat activated
- Why not a $1 charge to access the washroom?

-----------

The airline industry:

You buy one thing,
But you get something else….

You complain,
But they just smile and tell you to f$#% off….

The penguin camera....

2006-02-19T22:38:00.000-05:00

Visit the penguins via the live penguin camera at the Montererey Bay Aquarium.... :)

Get the live feed: http://www.mbayaq.org//media/STRM/mba_peng.asx

Visit the web site (Sometimes it is live and some times it is pre-recorded): http://www.mbayaq.org/efc/efc_splash/splash_cam.asp

Green

2006-02-19T22:28:00.000-05:00

I like the colour green.......

Tailgating

2006-02-17T16:40:00.000-05:00

Stop tailgating! What are you trying to prove? All I'm asking for is at least a few car-lengths of distance behind me on the highway....... arghhhhhhhhhhhhh!

2006.02.17 - Read......

2006-02-17T16:36:00.000-05:00

Read This: "American Psycho" - Bret Easton Ellis

2006.02.11 - Read, Listen, Watch....

2006-02-11T00:28:00.000-05:00

Read This: "Whale Music" - Paul Quarrington

Listen To This: "Shag Tabacco" - Gavin Friday

Watch This: "Primer"

Man Walking Dog......

2006-02-10T23:29:00.000-05:00

Some "Why?" Questions....

2006-02-10T23:18:00.000-05:00

Why are the police allowed to ride around the city on horses and let them crap all over the streets?.... It's disgusting!..... Excuse me Officer Crap Around, clean up after your animals or slap a diaper on them!

Smokers.... Guess what, throwing your cigarette butts out onto the street is littering.... Why is it that smokers think that they are exempt from common sense and common decency when it comes to keeping our world clean?

2006.02.10 - Read, Listen, Watch

2006-02-10T22:35:00.000-05:00

Read This:
"The Catcher In The Rye" - J.D. Salinger

Listen To This:
"The Joshua Tree" - U2

Watch This:
"Wings Of Desire" - Wim Wenders