Who picked up Sidney Crosby’s mouthguard after the celebration and how much money will it fetch on eBay.ca?

Last week (Feb 4), I flew United Airlines to DC for a meeting with a client.  I was then planning on going up to my sister’s to spend the night and fly back home.  After much deliberation about the impending snowstorm due on Friday, I turned back around from driving to my sister’s and headed back to Dulles to try to get on a flight Thursday night.  After standing in line for several hours, I finally got a standby ticket back to RDU on a 10:30 flight.  Thus, I trudged through the terminal and happily camped out waiting to be called.  Lo and behold, my name was called and I got the very last seat on the plane, and in first class no less, or so I thought.  Next thing you know, I see the gate agent come in and I hear the flight attendants whispering.  Yep, you got it.  They yanked me for another traveler.  Wait, check that.  Not just any traveler, but a United Employee.  In fact, a Flight Attendant in training who needed to be in Raleigh in the morning for training.  So I got pulled.  And, since the stupid DC area was in a frenzy already over the mere thought of snow, there were no flights out on Friday due to them preemptively canceling them, even though it didn’t start snowing until at least 2 hours after my flight was supposed to leave.  Sigh.  So, now I’m stuck in Baltimore.  Not a horrible thing, mind you, since I was at my sisters, but frustrating when you know you’ve got things to do at home that you can only get done on the weekend.

The bigger thing, however, is that I still can’t get over the fact that United would bump a paying customer in favor of an employee, especially since she was more than likely going to be stuck in Raleigh b/c all flights in to DC were canceled.  On top of it, they wouldn’t even compensate me because I was standby, never mind that getting me out sooner would mean one more seat to give to a stranded traveler.  Oh well.  Note to self:  Don’t fly United anymore, if you can possibly help it.

FWIW, I finally got home on Sunday (missing most of the Super Bowl) by renting a car and driving with all of the DC/Baltimore idiot drivers.  It took me an extra 1.5 hours, but it was worth it.  By the way, DC drivers, please take a class in physics.  Maybe then you will realize that ice and snow are slippery and that you can’t stop on it in the same manner that you stop on dry pavement.

Microsoft’s browser flaw exposed Google to hackers – Yahoo! News.

Hmm, you think Microsoft will now pull out of China?

My lovely wife has started blogging about Nutrition and Health, so if you’re into that thing, check out her blog: Nutrition and Health.  It’s often about alternate approaches to eating and disease.

Enjoy!

How do I know it’s winter?  Besides, the cold temps, that is?  The number one search on my blog right now is my algorithm for: How to shovel your driveway.

Good luck to everyone with their snow removal!

I can’t help but wonder if one of the reasons newspapers are in decline is due to the tired old, fill in the blank articles they crank out on a regular basis each year for some annual event.  For instance, and by no means limited to just this, every NHL preseason, Raleigh’s News and Observer trots out some article about how Rod Brind’amour is once again the most fit Cane in camp (I guess in a year or two they will have to think of something new).  Yawn.   Then, every year about this time, we get a in-depth article on the “real reason” College Football coaches like making Bowl games is not the huge payday, but the fact that they get 2-3 extra weeks of practice.  Wow, how insightful.

Obviously, with more and more consolidation and cost-cutting in the industry, it is all the more likely to happen.  Sigh.