Tag us airways nickel and dime

After finishing up my blog on Sunday morning I packed up quickly to head up to Troy’s place in Lancaster.  As expected, my two day parking bill under Liberty Place was quite steep, $82.  As I was making my way out of the city I got to see a cool feature of the Tom Tom in action, building view.  In major metropolitan areas not only do you get a clear view of the streets, you get an accurate view of the buildings along the street.  I thought that was neat.

The drive up to Lancaster was a bit on the lengthy side, taking me nearly two hours.  I knocked on Troy and Melissa’s door right around noon. I last saw Troy when he came down to visit me last year.  I last saw his girlfriend when I was up there to go to a Raven’s game 3-4 years ago.

There has been a new addition to their family since I was last there, Lydia, a high energy, friendly Boston Terrier.  Within 5 minutes the shorts I was wearing were covered in dirty paw prints as we hung in the back yard.  I didn’t care, she was happy to have someone else to play with her.

Troy suggested that we take Lydia down to the awesome new dog park they built recently, of course I liked that idea.  He told me that some local girl won the dog park by entering some contest held by Beneful, the dog food company.  For winning this contest Beneful built a half million dollar dog park for the city, wow.

The park is in a word AWESOME.  Instead of grass which requires lots of upkeep and water, the dog park is lined with RealTurf, the high tech artificial turf that is used throughout the sports industry.  For human beings there is a huge deck made out of composite lumber that never wears out.  On top of that are a number of Adirondack chairs that are under huge shade sails.

For the dogs there are wide open spaces to run, water features that can be activated with the press of a button, a tree that doubles as a tennis ball launcher, and even water fountains that have one level for people and another for their furry friends.  It was easily the best dog park I ever saw in my life. Lydia was a social butterfly, going around to tons of dogs and people introducing herself although she was a bit submissive when it came to dealing with a dog that wanted to aggressively play.  It was great hanging out there for awhile watching the dogs play.

When we got back Melissa had made us a nice lunch that we enjoyed in their back yard.  Troy did some solid work out there since I was last at the place, making a small eating area with landscape blocks that is covered with a small shade sail.  Troy suggested that we head out to a nearby bar with outdoor seating.  They had some sort of blues band playing, starting at 3PM.  Sure, I was up for anything. Like most things when you live in a small city, the bar was only a few minutes away.

I was surprised that there was a $10 cover to walk in considering I saw exactly 4 people in the outdoor seating area with maybe another 10 under the roof.  Troy generously picked up my cover. Now of course I am not a big fan of blues but as I said, I didn’t really care.  The band was a bunch of older guys fronted by a big black guy with what looked to be an ACL injury style knee brace.  He remained seated during the entire performance.  He mostly just sang but could play a mean harmonica occasionally.

The three of us kept a very steady flow of Miller Lite drafts flowing during the couple hours we were there.  The beer helped me enjoy both the music and my observational ability of the audience around us which happened to include two dancers from the original Soul Train show.  There was something interesting to see at every one of the few tables that were populated.  Melissa was enjoying the show.  The lead singer picked up on her enthusiasm during the performance and called her out more than once.  When it was all over he was more than happy to pose for a quick picture.

On Sunday night we just stayed at Troys place where Melissa made another nice meal, a pasta dish this time.  We decided to just hang there and work on the 30 pack of Miller Lites Troy had in the fridge.  Boy did we work on them.  By the time the evening was over the box was empty between the three of us.  I do not have an exact total of how many beers I drank between the blues fest and out of the 30 pack but I am absolutely sure I set a personal beer record, consuming well into the teens without a doubt.

As we were drinking we took turns reviewing some pictures Troy and Melissa had stored on some SD cards and then watching various Howard Stern content on YouTube which Troy and I found hilarious, Melissa, not so much.  I collapsed into bed somewhere close to midnight, it was a fun but exhausting session.

I awoke Sunday feeling dehydrated and a bit hazy but not nearly as bad as I would have predicted after drinking so much beer.  I had no nausea, headache or other debilitating issues.   Poor Melissa had to actually get up and go back to work, Troy had luckily taken Monday off.  Troy and I were throwing around ideas of what to do on Monday.  We started the day pulling Troy’s Mustang out of storage.

Troy has had this Mustang for nearly 20 years but I only had seen it in the flesh once, back when he still lived in Robesonia.  After turning it over for a little while the Mustang roared to life and he pulled it out of the garage.  Overall the car is in good shape considering it is 40+ years old.

Troy had me look at his brake lights before we took it out.  Some garage had done some work on the brakes awhile ago.  The end result was his brake pedal grabs VERY high.  Because of this his brake lights do not get activated unless he pushes very hard on the pedal, a dangerous problem for sure.  Since we were just taking the car on a relatively short trip to the diner we rolled the dice.

Hopping in the Mustang brought me back to the last old car I owned, my 71 Buick convertible that burned up in the early 2000’s.  Original muscle cars smell old, they creak and roll and make all sorts of noise as they rumble down the road.  At this point in my life though I am totally fine just riding in someone else’s old car.  I have no desire to  dip my toe back in that pool whatsoever.

The diner we had breakfast at was huge and pretty busy.  When we walked in the hostess told us if we didn’t mind sitting in a two person booth she could make sure we were in the section of a very pretty waitress.  I am not quite sure why she went there but we saw no harm in sitting in a two seater. It almost seemed like we would be rude to decline.  The waitress was attractive by diner standards I guess but not quite what I expected. We had a good but large breakfast, I couldn’t finish the egg white omelet I ordered, maybe because I dusted off the large side of tater tots and toast as well.

While we were eating we decided we go to Gettysburg, a place I recall visiting once as a child but with little to no recollection of the trip otherwise.  Troy is an American history buff with even more knowledge regarding the Civil War and Gettysburg.  He said on average he goes to Gettysburg a half dozen times a year.  He is so into it that he even took the test to be a part time Gettysburg tour guide.  I was surprised when he described just how difficult the test was and even more surprised that he did not pass the test, even with his near encyclopedic knowledge of the place. I thought it would be cool going there with Troy, it would be like having a personal tour guide to fill in the massive canyons in my Gettysburg knowledge.

After returning the Mustang and grabbing a few things at his place we headed out for the battlefield which was roughly an hour away.  The skies looked sort of menacing but a little rain wouldn’t have bothered me.  We wound up staying dry the entire time.

We began a combination by car and by foot tour of the entire battlefield region.  Everywhere you looked there were statues and monuments scattered about at key positions of the battle.  No matter which one I pointed at Troy knew who it was as well as an extensive back ground of this persons role in the war.  To me, it was really quite incredible.  I knew Troy knew Civil War history well, I didn’t know he knew it this well.

Having him by my side explaining things made the visit exponentially more interesting.  I imagine if I would have toured Gettysburg solo I would have tired of it much more quickly.

Some of the quick facts about the battle I didn’t know was that it lasted 3 days, not one and a total of over 51,000 troops died during the battle, the largest amount of casualties ever on American soil. I also found it interesting that up until closer to the mid 1900’s, the park was soley dedicated to the victorious northern soldiers.  They only added tributes to the southern forces much later.

A number of the grave markers had coins on them, one of the few things that Troy actually did not know the explanation for.  A Google search revealed that depending on the type of coin left it signified different things.  A penny means they knew the dead soldier, a nickel means they went to boot camp with the soldier, a dime means they served in the same company, and a quarter means they were in battle where the soldier died.  There were a lot of pennies out there.

Troy and I scaled several large sets of steps during our visit.  The Pennsylvania monument has a steep spiral staircase leading to the top observation deck.  We also climbed to free standing observation towers one with 120 steps and another with 100 that had pretty much everyone sucking wind by the time they reached the top.

In total we spent around 4 hours touring the place with Troy easily navigating the many roads that connect the various areas.  The trip made it very clear that ultimately he really should be doing something that taps into his passion for history.  He said he doesn’t think he would make a great tour guide, I told him based on what I saw first hand he would be a perfect fit.

On the way back we stopped at a Subway to grab some lunch.  Behind the counter was a an obviously younger freckled face girl whom we found out was 19.  I had made some comment when I was ordering my sandwich how I was trying to recover from a lot of drinking the night before.  All of a sudden she tells us how she prefers to drink whiskey, primarily Jack Daniels and Windsor.  I told her that she didn’t look old enough to drink.  She said she wouldn’t be for two more years.  She continued, telling us how she normally only drinks whiskey at home like somehow that makes it better.

Despite what surely were odd looks on my face regarding this revelation she continued.  She described her love of heavy metal groups and going to heavy metal concerts.  This mostly one way conversation continued even after Troy and I sat down to eat our food.  She came out from behind the counter cleaning tables while relating more stories about the 20 concerts she has attended, her most and least favorite concerts and how she has never been any further back from a stage than fourth row.  Both Troy and I exchanged looks of confusion during this exchange, I’m not sure how we got there.

On Monday evening Troy, Melissa and I headed to a nearby sports bar place that served brick oven pizza.  Neither Troy or I got what we expected in our pizzas.  Troy order the four cheese variety, little did he know that meant it was exclusively cheese with no sauce.  He described it as eating a big piece of garlic bread.  My “shrimp and roasted tomato” pizza was just the opposite, it had no cheese at all, odd. Prior to dinner we went on another Wixon shoo fly pie search which again turned up unsuccessful.  I did find a store made pie that seemed like a pretty close equivilent however.

Monday night we again just hung out since I had to get up early Tuesday to drive back to the airport.  No beer was on the menu however, all three of us had our fill the night before.  We did watch Gravity on HBO.  Yes I saw it before but watching it again was enjoyable enough.

I set my alarm on Tuesday for 5:15 AM.  Troy got up before I left at 6 but I was able to get out without waking Melissa or Lydia.  I thanked Troy for the good time and encouraged him to come back down to Florida whenever he could.  I always enjoy hanging with him regardless of the environment.

The drive down to the airport went smoothly as did the rental car return.  I was back inside the terminal by 7:45, plenty of time considering my flight to PA was not until 10AM.  The security lines in Philly can be tortuously slow so I didn’t wan to take any chances.  It didn’t take long until I had my first annoying experience of the day, which turned out to be filled with them.  As I checked into the kiosk I got the prompt to insert my credit card to pay my $25 bag fee.  I find bag fees along with the other once complimentary items/services that many airlines now charge for to be infuriating.  To me it’s just a pure money grab even though initially the change was blamed on fuel prices.

I had a lot of time to kill so I spent it doing some souvenir shopping and grabbing a large DD coffee to enjoy.  I also was on the search for an open electrical outlet to charge my phone which was drained quite a bit from the Bluetooth connection with the Tom Tom on the drive down.   It was harder than you would think to do so.  The charger I had along did not have real long prongs on the plug meaning it did not make a good connection if an outlet was already loose from years of use.   In total I tried 5 different spots until I found one that worked.

I had an interesting sighting as I was entering the men’s room.  Charlie Crist, the former Florida governor and current candidate to become governor once again, was headed into the store across the hall.  I thought it was quite odd to see him in Philadelphia but I assume he was taking a flight back to Tampa which was in the same general area.  When I exited the mens room I walked around the gate, trying to find him.  I would have liked to shake his hand and wish him luck in defeating Rick Scott, the biggest asshole governor in Florida history.  A selfie to share with Jeremy would have been even better.  Unfortunately I think by the time I was looking for him he had already boarded with the other first class passengers on the Tampa flight.

So I boarded my plane on time around 9:40 or so.  Although I wasn’t flying first class this time, I was lucky enough to be seated in an exit row which offers nearly first class amounts of leg room.  We were told our 10:05 departure was going to be delayed around 10 minutes to address a “minor maintenance issue” .  I heard a stewardess say the issue was simply a tray table lock that was broken.  The 10 minute delay was in fact a 33 minute delay as we got in the air at 10:38. This started a very long and annoying trend of overpromising and underdelivering, something that bugs the living shit out of me.

As I said earlier, US Airways is VERY big on nickel and diming it’s customers in coach.  The ONLY thing you get is drink service, even though this was scheduled to be nearly a 3 hour flight.  And if you do get a drink you do not get an entire drink, instead you get a cup filled half with ice, there is no way they would let you have an ENTIRE 12 ounce can of soda or a complete bottle of water.  Nope, you get one small cup and nothing more.  It’s ridiculous.

I mostly passed the time playing more PvZ on my Galaxy tablet.  I find the game to be a great way to make long boring trips less long and less boring as I lose myself in endless waves of zombie attacks.    As we approached Fort Myers we were descending and then suddenly felt a big surge with the engines along with an obvious changing of directions.  After 5 minutes or so the pilot came on and said there was some storms near the airport so we were going to have to circle for around 3-4 minutes before being able to land.  Ok, no big deal.

Well that 3-4 minutes turned into 45 minutes of maddening looping, during which a couple times we again were told we should be landing “very shortly”.  Then the captain comes on and says that he really wanted to get us to Fort Myers but the weather wasn’t moving.  He said protocol dictated that the fuel level on the plane was low enough that it required us to now divert to Miami to refuel.

Instantly a huge groan flowed across the cabin area as the passengers that were already sick of waiting realized that not only was their wait going to get much longer, anyone that had travel arrangements made for Fort Myers (like me having Cindy waiting to pick me up) had to wait until landing in Miami to let the other party know.  The captain told us we should be landing in Miami in 15 minutes, instead it was more like 45 until we completed yet another maddening holding pattern.

By this time I was really fcking annoyed.  Of course the pilot could not control the weather and nobody would expect to land is conditions that were dangerous.  I was annoyed that we left a half hour late for a tray table.  Those 30 minutes probably would have been the difference between a normal landing and the Miami diversion.  I was also extremely annoyed at the pilot for being one of those guys that threw out overly optimistic numbers instead of realistic ones.  Don’t tell me something will take 3-4 minutes if it could take 45, don’t tell me you will be on the ground in Miami in 15 minutes if it will take triple that, don’t tell me the flight back to Naples is 20 minutes when it was more than double that. Time and time and time again the pilot threw out timeframes that were nowhere close to being accurate.  I mean come on, use some common sense.  Underpromising and overdelivering is the way to manage a situation like this, not vice versa, idiot.

Of course the refueling pit stop in Miami took much longer than the captain indicated as well.  We were not allowed to leave the plane so there was a line that stretched the full aisle of people waiting to relieve themselves in the tiny on board bathrooms.  By the time we landed back at Fort Myers it was almost 6PM, almost exactly double the amount of time the flight was scheduled for.

Yet another annoying item was that despite the delays and consistently poor reporting of expected times, none of the airplane staff saw it appropriate to offer passengers any additional food or drinks. (unless you were paying for it of course)  This seemed utterly ridiculous to me and lacked simple common sense and courtesy.  People are frustrated, aggravated and annoyed.  A bottle of water or, gasp, an ENTIRE can of soda is a small price to pay to express “sorry, we know this is a pain in the ass”.  Once again it cemented my opinion of US Airways as being penny squeezing idiots. The cherry on top was the bags taking nearly 30 minutes to arrive at baggage claim, it was truly a travel day from hell.

Cindy was able to find out about the delays and rerouting after the fact.  Evidently the information online was well behind the actual timeline.  She wound up eating lunch and reading to pass the time.  I felt bad she had to twiddle her thumbs for so long.  She picked me up in the SSR.  It felt good to be in control of my own destination for the first time in 6 hours.

It was quite nice to return home to the comfort of another home cooked Cindy meal and the familiarity of the 47th  avenue estate.  Cindy worked hard to maintain the house in my absence, a duty I will be once again resuming this weekend.

Last night I did take the time to pay my bills and fire off this blurb to the customer complaint section of US Airways.com.

If you would like to see all of my pics from the trip they can be found here.