FlowerDust.net | Anne Jackson

american airlines is the devil

for some reason, the travel gods have blessed me with smooth travels my whole life.

i have flown hundreds and hundreds of times - to almost every state (minus the northeast and northwest corners) and to several foreign countries - and i have never lost a piece of luggage or suffered any inconvenience, sans a few weather or other delays.

i have never even imagined i would reach across a ticketing counter to punch someone.

but i almost did.

(almost).

this weekend was great. i flew into alabama, drove to atlanta, hung out with ragamuffinsoul and whittakerwoman, even ended up crashing on their couch friday night because it was too stormy to trek three hours back to alabama. i was in my friend lynse’s wedding, spent some great time talking to boomama, slept in, went to the airport, checked in for my flight home and…

no ticket is available.

um, i’m sorry?

i proceeded to the woman at the american airlines ticketing counter who also confirmed i had no flight home.

my confirmation number on my blackberry will prove you wrong.

she looks again. nope. gone.

evidently, a few weeks ago when i had called to bump my arrival flight up several hours, the reservations “specialist” forgot to re-confirm my flight home.

and thus it disappeared.

the woman got her supervisor, who got her supervisor. they told me to call reservations to straighten it out. i did. the lady on the phone confirmed the things i already knew and told me to work it out with the ticket counter.

so, back to the ticket counter i went.

however, in the 30 seconds it took for me to walk back, the most recent reservations “specialist” put my ticket back into the system.

(please note that my flight, at this time, had just departed).

a lady in a red sweater told to call another 800 number to work it out.

i said no. you fix your mistake. not me.

the next ticket counter agent (and i suppose the queen bee of them all, sporting a different blue sweater than the rest) said she saw my ticket in the system, and told me now that there was not a problem. i had simply just missed my flight.

excuse me?

there was nothing they could do but put me on the standby list with the other 837 standby customers for the next flight, six hours later.

she literally scolded me as if it were my fault.

it was at this point i jumped over the counter and began screaming obscenities.

ok, not really. but i was fiercely twittering my frustration (whilst forgetting my tattoo that says “grace” ever-so-visible on my wrist).

the previous ticket counter agent told her that there was, indeed, a problem, and the blue-sweater-queen-bee grumpily agrued with her a while. i kept twittering.

finally, blue-sweater-queen-bee went to another phone to fix it. twenty minutes later, she printed out some boarding passes for the next flight, and without a single apology handed me my tickets.

most of you don’t know me. i do not get angry. it is a very rare occurrence when i do. i probably did not handle this situation with as much grace and tact as i should have.

bobby already has a contract he has made with himself to never fly american.

i can now see why.

accept responsibility for your mistakes. apologize. perhaps even try to redeem yourself with a meal voucher or upgrade or something.

and as long as i can help it, i will avoid you, american-airlines-devil-people.

your worst travel story?

Be. Shirts

For those of you who ordered the “be.” t-shirts, they were a little late in arriving than I had originally planned. We do have them and are preparing to mail them (it’s a lot of shirts!) however some brilliant person out there used my PayPal account to take money out of the savings account (to which it is linked) and until this “investigation” is done, I can’t access my PayPal account - which means - I CAN’T ACCESS YOUR SHIRT SIZE ORDERED, QUANTITY ORDERED, or MAILING ADDRESS.

If you are cool with waiting a while, let me know but if you feel comfortable sending me that information, please use the contact me link on the right either way.

Sorry about this. And I must say as frustrating as it is having your (small) savings account wiped out, Bank of America is handling the process quite professionally.

baby?

over the last few weeks, unbeknownst to me, i was developing an infection throughout my abdomen. pleasant sounding, isn’t it? before knowing of this illness, despite feeling a little sick to my stomach, my main concern was that chris and i would be surprised by our own little bundle of joy (not of the feline descent).

wednesday afternoon i was busy in my office when i felt like someone had stabbed me in the stomach. i doubled over in pain in my chair and tried to catch my breath. after the sharpness of the pain resolved, i informed my coworkers i’d be heading over to the doctor. after a CT scan to make sure it wasn’t my appendix (and also learning i was not pregnant…big sigh of relief!) they found some funky results on one of my other tests and given my symptoms, diagnosed me with a general infection that had taken over my lower abdomen.

so, i am still around. i’ve gotten a couple emails and IMs begging for an update but honestly i haven’t had much energy. the antibiotics are wiping me out and tearing apart my intestines. poor chris has been the dearest man, fetching me gatorade and movies and listening to my tantrums. i am not a fun girl to be around when i’m sick.

i have to be on these dumb pills (note the affection in my tone) for the next two weeks; which, by the way, contains one of the strangest instructions i have ever read: DO NOT LIE DOWN for 30 MINUTES after taking this pill.

seriously? what am i going to do? explode? levitate? that would be really cool i think (the levitating, not exploding)…if there are any doctors out there that could tell me why doxycycline will disrupt my very important nap schedule, i would really appreciate it.

so, sorry there has been a lack of blogging the past few days. whereas i am relieved we are not expecting any babies, i am enjoying the rest that me being a big baby is bringing.

much love…and i hope you all have a splendid weekend.

death and taxes

everyone knows today is tax day. this is the first year in eleven that i have waited until the last minute to file. why? because i know i owe and i was afraid to see how much, as well as i knew it would be a complicated return. both chris and i worked in kansas (which has a state tax), we moved, we both were self-employed, we both worked in texas (which has no state tax), we bought office equipment for our self-employment, we traveled for it and i knew it was just going to be a mess.

this year, i got turbo tax deduction maximizer for our tax woes. i have always done them manually (and kind of enjoyed it) but not this time. i purchased a copy on eBay for $15 (which is a tax-preparation write off, however, you might actually owe tax for things you purchased online…) i found this little piece of software to be a magical charm. with all of the self-employment items, the deduction maximizer walked me through every possible thing we could deduct. it was amazing. it filled in every blank on the 67 page return we are filing. yes. 67 pages. although we still owe on our federal return, it is a very small amount. on the kansas state return, we are getting a pretty hefty refund. they almost balance each other out perfectly.

i did log on to e-file.com to get some information from my taxes last year and saw the ticking clock. now that stressed me out! we decided to mail our return in this year. i’d rather pay $4 for priority mail than the fees they charge you online (which is also a tax-preparation write off).

did you get your taxes done?

Hopefully I Won’t Get Sued

Cisco is suing Apple and seeking an injunction to prevent Apple from using Cisco’s “iPhone” US trademark. As of yesterday, Cisco representatives said that a deal was close for licensing the trademark to Apple, however it appears as though Apple’s announcement before a deal was reached may have forced Cisco into the courts.

“Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco’s iPhone name,” said Mark Chandler, senior vice president and general counsel, Cisco. “There is no doubt that Apple’s new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission.

“Today’s iPhone is not tomorrow’s iPhone. The potential for convergence of the home phone, cell phone, work phone and PC is limitless, which is why it is so important for us to protect our brand,” Chandler concluded.

With its lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Cisco is seeking an injunction to prevent Apple from copying Cisco’s iPhone trademark.

Note: While Cisco has the US trademark for “iPhone,” Apple does have the trademark for “iPhone” in some other countries.

(link MacRumors; thanks Jared)

ALSO…a new feature added to the iPhone. Meet the iPhone Quattro - Now you can shave while you talk! (thanks to my husband for the link)

OH MY GOSH…an iPhone?!?!

Does everyone HAVE to blog about the iPhone? It has been announced for the last 24 hours and I am already sick of it. It’s like a new Nickelback song. You get in your car, Nickelback’s on. You go to the grocery store, it’s on again. You pick up your dry cleaning, good ol’ Chad’s singing. You go to TGIFriday’s, “Been farrrr away furrr farrr too lonnng”. You simply cannot escape it. And at the end of the day you want to stab your eyes out.

So is the same with the new iPhone and bloggers! I know half the people in my Google Reader blogged about it (and I love each and every one of you) but it’s just getting silly! :)

Every party has a pooper and yes, I am pooping on this party. Apple is innovative… We’ve all known that for a while. They are the kings of buzz and I give them props. But it is obvious they have 98% of the blogging community under mind control.