Isn't it great?

The Republican debate was last night.

Mitt was going on and on about how we need to cut entitlement programs....like social security, medicare etc. And we need to spend more money on defense, the military and who knows what else.

Let's see.....I've taken a 50% pay cut, lost my retirement; just like millions and millions of Americans. Oil is $100/barrel. The economy sucks. People are losing their homes. And the guy who wants to cut our hard earned, paid for benefits...especially when we don't get squat that was promised to us from our employers is worth how much?

That's right.....$250 million...at least.

I bet he has one of those Staples Office store buttons. "That was easy". Sure is when you're worth $250 million.

I feel your pain

I hate flying. I really do. I like being the pilot and flying the airplane. I do not like being a passenger. Most of the time when I do fly in the back of the airplane I'm deadheading. That means I am a working crew member who is being positioned from one place to another and I don't have to put up with some of the BS that you, a lowly paying passenger, has to endure.

The beach picture is from my recent vacation in the Caribbean. What a place. Unfortunately, you can't drive there. And the loads were so heavy going down there that instead of flying for free.....which wouldn't have worked since all of you paying passengers were taking up every seat....we bought tickets like real people.

The big problem happened on the way back.

Each bag can only weigh 50lbs or you are charged an extra $50.

We had three bags. Two weighed exactly 50lbs each. The third weighed about 35 lbs. How do I know this. Because I weighed them on my home scale before we left. If I weigh 400 lbs standing on the scale without the bag and 450 lbs standing on the scale with the bag...then the bag weighs 50 lbs. See how smart I am? And yes I know that's alot of stuff to bring on vacation. But if you read one of my previous blogs, you would know that when I travel I have to have several appliances and comfort items. Like my pillow, sound machine, extension cord etc. I would like to bring my TIVO, juice man juicer, light box but that would really be too much.

So here's the problem.

When we came back, I guess we didn't pack each bag exactly the same way. One bag wieghed 54 lbs and the other 53 lbs. The third bag was something like 30 lbs. The robot who was working the check-in said that either we pay $100 for excess weight or we move some of this stuff to the light bag. Now if I get 50 lbs per bag and am alloted 4 bags for two people...then to me that equates to 200 lbs total. Who the &*&^ cares how it is distributed? Evidently the Delta robot does. So now in front of everyone, we get to open our bags, expose our unmentionables and move 6 lbs of stuff from the two bags into the lighter bag. The robot is now satisfied and we can now proceed to the TSA harrassment line where we were scolded for not noticing the sign that said "wait behind this sign until called" even though we were the only two people in line.

The $50 excess charge is especially egregious to me because the robot knew that I was an employee and that the evil doers had already dropped my pay by 50% and stolen my pension. And they want $50 per bag? You have got to be kidding me. Well, to be fair, I'm sure the 19 year old robot did not know that. He was a robot after all.

To continue my complaining, we will now move to the non-luxurious 757.

We are crammed into a aisle (thank God) and a middle seat. There is no leg room. I repeat, no leg room. Especially when the person in front of me in the blink of an eye goes from seat fully up to full back. Ouch. It was a soldier going back to Iraq, so my horror was somewhat mitigated. People would be trying to blow her up soon. Not good.

Food? On a 4 hour flight? What food? If there had been something edible at the airport, I would have bought it. But there wasn't. So the cheese crackers, that I hate more than anything, were the best tasting morsals I've ever had. Yum.

See the problem is that when I deadhead, I'm in uniform. So after, and I use this word very loosly, the "service" is completed, I usually go to the back, hide in the galley and talk to the flight attendants. You as a lowly passenger do not have such priviledges. If you do this you will be scowled at or verbally told to return to your very uncomfortable "seat".

So after this rotten flight.....believe me...and I knew this already but some of the bad memories of previous flights had faded.....I feel your pain.

I am a bad Widget

Delta is the first US customer to get the Boeing 777LR. LR stands for long range. Like 17-18 hours of flying time.....non-stop. Yuk. Below is the transcript from the Senior VP of Flight Operation's code a phone.


From the 1/25 code a phone.....

Delta is the launch customer of the Boeing 777LR and we'll be taking delivery of the first jet on February 29th. The aircraft will be named ‘The Spirit of Delta’ and will be dedicated to Delta employees worldwide. The flight crew selected for this special flight will be the #1 pilot on the seniority list Captain ***** and the first officer will be First Officer *******. *** is currently a 777 line check airman and is formerly the ATL International Chief Pilot. He has more than 31 years of service flying the line and almost 40 years with Delta. **** is a United States Marine Corps Reserve Brigadier General and the Corps highest ranking reserve aviator with over 20 years of active service with Delta.

Incredibly, with over 51 years of combined aviation service neither of these fine men believe it or not has used one hour of sick time. I can not think of two better qualified leaders who exemplify the Delta spirit more effectively. Congratulations ******!!!!

The last paragraph is what really gets me.

To exemplify the "Spirit of Delta", I have to control all of the involuntary things that happen to my body and not become ill. Now it's a complete crock that in 51 years of flying these two guys have never flown sick. Simply not true. They are the kind of guys who get me sick. Either I fly with them directly or I fly sometime after they have contaminated the cockpit.

One thing these two guys have going for them is that if the Captain was the Chief Pilot, that means an office job. So for some period of time time he wasn't flying like all the rest of us. And for the First Officer to become a general in the Marine Corps Reserve, he took even more time off for military leave.

So I guess I cannot aspire to be lauded by the VP of Flight Ops like these two super-humans. Because he will never say about me, "I can not think of two better qualified leaders who exemplify the Delta spirit more effectively." Because I've sicked out a bunch. Know why? Because I was sick!

Racist?

I don't know what to think. Read the two paragraphs from CNN below.

Obama's appeal to fellow African Americans was not in vain. According to the exit polls released by CNN, he won more than 80 percent of the black vote in South Carolina, in stark contrast to Clinton's 17 percent.

Out of the total votes given to Obama, 78 percent were from black voters and about 20percent were from whites, the polls showed.

I thought that in our country race wasn't supposed to matter. Evidently it does.

Am I supposed to conclude that 80% of African Americans voted for Obama based only on his political positions and not because of his race? I don't think so.

If a white person were to not vote for Obama only because of his race, I definitely think that would be wrong. But what if a black person votes for Obama only because of his race? Is that wrong? I don't know. Whites were never slaves and there never has been a black man in the White House. If I were black, I can guarantee you I would vote for Obama pretty much whatever he stood for. Unless it was completely crazy, I would vote for the black candidate. Absolutely. Is that wrong? Probably in a perfect world but we don't live in a perfect world.

It's very difficult to not be attracted to or feel some natural affinity to those like you. It's high school all over again. The jocks stick together. The nerds over here, the band people over there. And in high school they naturally separate by races for the most part. Why? I don't know.

They especially separate by race in prison. I guess that's for self preservation. But why not all the short people over here and the tall people over there in prison? No, it's all about race. Just like the gangs.

I think that if African Americans want equality then it's time to get rid of the NAACP. And the black airline pilots organization. And any other organization that strictly segregates by race. But in this instance.....I think it's OK for all of the African Americans to pull the Obama lever. If they want to. Or not. I'm so confused.

Now that's hard to do

Rudy Giuliani has successfully dorked up his run for United States President.

He was the front runner for the past year and now came in a dismal third place in Florida.

His strategy was to blow off Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina and pretend that nothing happens until Florida. I wish I could be paid whatever his campaign manager is paid to think up that genius scheme. Rudy spent all of his time, money and effort in Florida. He did really bad in all of the other states and then did really bad in Florida. I guess he's never heard of momentum.

Wouldn't that just really make you angry to go through all of the BS that he has had to go through for the last year campaigning and then just self-destruct? Well it would make me angry. Maybe he just likes being in the spotlight with his hot new wife. Of course he does. That's why he runs for President. You have to have a healthy ego that needs to be sufficiently stroked to go out there day after day.

Oh well. Poor Rudy. He's still a gazillionaire and will continue to make speeches for a lot of money.

But that ego thing.

He really looks stupid coming in third.

What's So Funny?

President Bush gave his State of the Union speech last night. Thankfully, it is his last. Yipeeee.

During the speech, Bush would occasionally look down at someone, point and giggle like he was 12 years old and just told a dirty joke.

Bush can't be serious while giving the State of the Union speech?

What's so funny? I sure don't see anything funny about the state of our Union.

The speech went on forever. And nothing of substance was said.

The Republicans stood and clapped at almost every sentence while the Democrats sat and scowled.

The speech would have been much better if this happened:

Announcer: We interrupt this program for the State of the Union speech from the President of the United States.

Bush comes on the TV.

Bush: "My fellow Americans. Hee hee hee. The State of the Union sucks. Hee hee hee"

Announcer: We now return you to the Golden Girls Marathon already in progress.

I guess they think we're stupid

A few days ago, Delta announced that it was in merger/acquisition discussions with Northwest and United Airlines. This was not a surprise to any Delta employee. Although they denied it from the start, we knew that when Richard Anderson, our new Dick, was brought over from Northwest that something fishy was going on.

Now, on the Delta employee website (that I, of course, have no access to because I don't work for Delta) there was this story.

Nearly 3,000 Delta leaders worldwide, from front line managers to officers and directors, met in Atlanta this week to hear details of Delta’s 2008 Flight Plan. The plan lays out division-specific goals that will guide and direct the company’s performance for this year.

Richard Anderson led the presentations by the corporate leadership team and other senior executives.

He outlined four central goals for Delta’s long-term growth that underlie the 2008 Flight Plan:

maximize stakeholder value, which includes employees as well as shareholders

continue to build a world-class brand

create the broadest network, either through our own growth or through our alliance relationships

and attain the structural sustainability necessary to weather fluctuations in the economy.

Did they hand out buckets to the poor minions who had to attend this drivel so that when they did start to wretch and vomit it didn't get all of the pretty Delta carpeting?

This is unbelievable. Look at our four central goals for 2008. Continue to build a world-class brand through our own growth. Hey, Dick, what about the purchase of United or Northwest you're orchestrating now? That is the antithesis of building your own brand and certainly not growing from within.

How can anyone stay focused on anything when they are either selling us or buying someone right now? When, not if, that happens, you can take those corporate goals and shred them. They are worthless. Why put on the charade that everything is normal? It ain't. The merger is imminent. People are not stupid. How patronizing to act like everything is normal and lay out these stupid goals that have nothing to do with what is going on at Delta right now.

It would be like a Dr. coming in and telling you that you had 4 weeks to live. Then he says, I would like to call in a life coach so that you can plan the next 30 years with your spouse. What? I don't have 30 years I have 4 weeks. The same is true at Delta.

Why are they expending one ounce of effort on the appearance of normalcy?

Knitting

Hillary is an interesting person.

I love to ask people what they think of the primary race. I can usually work in a "what do you think about Hillary" question.

Some think that she and Bill have had their chance and that she should stay at home and knit.

Some talk about political dynasties. If Hillary were to be elected and win a second term, we would have a Bush or a Clinton in the White House for 28 consecutive years. That does seem a little much.

One guy listed all things that he thought the current Bush had done wrong as President. Then I listed some of the things that Obama and Hillary say they want to do. He was in favor of each of those points. I said, who are you going to vote for then? He said, probably McCain. Why not Hillary or Obama? Well, duh, they're Democrats!

Another woman told me that Hillary says things just to get votes. She doesn't really mean what she says. If you look in the dictionary, that is the definition of a politician.

And some just absolutely hate Hillary. Why? Who knows. But they do. And vehemently. I can never get a straight answer from the haters. Most Hillary haters are right wing, very conservative people. I would think that Hillary would get bonus points for forgiving Bill and still being married. But they think that it is all a charade explicitly for political gain.

I really think they want her to go home and knit.

Oooooh! Cooties!

My 8 year old nephew had a friend over to spend the night a few days ago. My sister gets an email the following day from the kid's mother saying that her son has head lice. Yukkkkk!

My nephew, two neices and my sister all have head lice!

They have to shampoo with this lice stuff.....clean everything...a big mess.

She wanted to know if she could bring the kids over to say hi?

Uhhhh.....no thanks....maybe for Halloween.....

What is Wrong with America.

I just drank a strawberry smoothie that I made and I think I might vomit at any minute.

The man in the picture above is a criminal.

He is Angelo R. Mozilo. The CEO of Countrywide Mortgage.

In recent months, Countrywide's stock has declined 75% due to their buffoonery in giving people mortgages that never should have had them in the first place.

Angelo Mozilo's compensation in 2005 was 57 million dollars.

From 2000-2005 his total compensation was 96 million dollars.

In 2006 he made 72 million dollars.

In 2007 he made 97 million dollars.

Bank of America just bought Countrywide today.

Now...how much is Angelo leaving with? After he orchestrated, led and commanded this enormous decline in stock price and company value?

Over 100 million dollars.

Unbelievable.

Hellllloooo politicians?

Want to talk about change?

See anything wrong with this picture?

My Healthcare Plan

First, let me say that I am very grateful that the evil doers at the company I work for, grant to me, a lowly peasant, the healthcare plan that I have.

Now to the fun part.

This year, of course, our healthplans completely changed. It took many hours of study, phone calls, etc to figure out....

1. What these new plans entailed, ie, what the many pages of martian that they sent me explaining each plan actually meant.

2. Which plan would be the least expensive for me and give me the care that I needed.

Delta Airlines is self-insured. That means that every dollar they pay for my medical treatment comes right out of the Delta coffers. They use United Healthcare to administer the plan and try to make it as confusing as humanly possible for me. When I called during the open enrollment process to ask questions about each plan, United Healthcare knew as much as I did about the plans. That's not good.

Now I am spending even more time try to:

-get them to reimburse medical expenses I've already had this year from the correct account

-figure out why this dern credit card they gave me to pay for copays etc doesn't work

Last year I told the lady on the phone after my 5th call about the same bill that if one didn't know better, one would assume that there was a concerted effort to never pay any claims. She didn't like that. Too bad.

There has got to be a better way than this.

Who Sets the Election Issues?

Do you remember Al Gore's Social Security lunchbox, I mean lockbox? That was 8 years ago. Social Security was a huge issue in the 2000 Presidential campaign. Gore said that Social Security was very broken and if not fixed immediately then we were all in big trouble. And soon. There were various estimates of when the sky would actually fall on top of us. Has anything been done about SS in the last 8 years? No. Is it still a huge problem? To listen to the candidates now....I guess not. Not one person has said a word about it.

What are today's Democrat issues?

1. Change.

What in the world does that mean? Change from the Bush? Of course that's good. But does anyone really believe that anything meaningful will change in Washington? I don't. The next President will get elected, Congress will immediately get about the business of doing nothing and being obstructionist, and the new first lady or man will feverishly begin to redecorate the White House.

2. Immigration

Now that's a good one. It actually should be called border security. Immigration isn't the problem. The people entering the country illegally aren't immigrating. They are sneaking in. The issue is securing the borders. Then what to do with the 12 million people and counting who came here and aren't supposed to be here.

3. Health Care

We have a national health care plan. It's called medicare. You just have to be 65 years or older to play. So why can't we have it for everybody?

What are the issues that no one talks about?

1. What ever happened to the family marriage amendment that was so popular in 2004? Bush promised that he was going to make that happen. That had people all in a tizzy. Never hear about it anymore. I guess the gays all moved away.

2. Abortion....weren't we going to do away with that or at least imprison women who chose to have an abortion. I guess that idea fell by the wayside.

3. Social Security

4. Our huge national debt

5. The worthless US dollar

6. Our very broken tax system

7. Corporate welfare and greed

8. The disappearance of the middle class

9. Deficit Spending

10. The War (remember the one that's still going on and has killed thousands of our young men and women)

11. All of the other security issues.....like port security, the security of our water systems, power grid and nuclear power plants.

12. Our crumbling national infrastructure. Remember when the bridge collapsed in Minneapolis and the hysteria that created. "They" were going to do something to rebuild our national infrastructure. Hear anything about that anymore?

13. Our dependence on $100/barrel oil. Do you hear any candidate with a plan to get us off of oil?

The list could go on and on.

Who sets the issues that the candidates think are important? It must be pollsters and focus groups. They try different things on them and see which ones ring the bell.

Hillary and McCain Win! Yippeeee!

I am ecstatic that Hillary and McCain won in New Hampshire.

Why?

Because after the Iowa caucuses, where 10 people met in a barn with a goat and a pig, the media was all but declaring Hillary dead in the water. What about the other 300 million people in the USA that haven't voted yet?

So now that Hillary won New Hampshire, we can go on with our election fun. The people can vote and decide who we want to run for President. Not the media.

Huckleberry didn't win New Hampshire. He wasn't supposed to. I think it was a fluke that he won in Iowa. He's probably done now. McCain is re energized, Giuliani is waiting for Florida, Edwards is waiting for South Carolina and Obama is just cruising. I hope none of it gets decided for a long time and the conventions are like the old days. Lots of smoking and back room deals. Ted Kennedy drinking liquor openly on the convention floor, Bill Clinton cavorting with young girls, Senator Larry Craig in stall two of the men's restroom. That's what I'm talking about. Get this country back on the right track. Talk about change.

Do You Remember the Diorama?

The Diorama is a torture device perpetrated upon children, usually of Jr High age.

The purpose of this device is to traumatize children who have no artistic ability.

You are supposed to take a shoebox and make a scene from whatever the assignment is.
Pearl Harbor, Indian living, cavemen, whatever. You then get twigs, toothpicks etc and make this scene.

The problem with this assignment is that when I see a shoebox, I see a shoebox. Nothing else. When I see a toothpick, I see a toothpick. Maybe a leaf or a small branch I could make believe to be a tree or something. But that's about it. So guess who got to help me make the diorama with me and be equally terrorized? My mom. She's made many a diorama between three kids. And she's also made those stupid flour and salt maps.

If I were going through Jr. High now, I would turn in my shoebox with a photocopy of my hand and the middle finger extended. Then I would have to go see the Principal. So it's good that I had a different brain back then.

Obama and Huckabee Win Iowa

I'm surprised that Obama won. Hillary was the long time favorite and she was kicking Obama's butt. Maybe Oprah did it for Obama. Who knows?

I'm shocked that Huckabee won. Romney is pretty, spent lots and lots of money and looks like a President that was ordered from central casting.

The problem is that he belongs to that cult. He's a Mormon.

And that's why he lost.

Which I think is really absurd but I do admire the conservative Christians who stuck to their guns and voted for the conservative Christian. I think it's mindless but good for them. At least they weren't two faced.

We aren't electing a Pope here boys and girls. We are electing a President. Being a moral person with integrity and values absolutely is important. But to take into account what denomination or specific religion a person belongs to is coo-koo. Ding dong. Bush is a conservative Christian and Bush as the President has been a train wreck. Not good.

Well this is just round one.

Stand by for more fun.

And PS to the networks......stop interrupting my mindless shows to tell me what the reults are. If I wanted to know I would watch CNN or MSNBC.

Oh and I forgot to tell you. This was so great. When Bhutto got assassinated, I was watching MSNBC for their coverage. One of our high level politicians or delegations was over there when it happened. The anchor from MSNBC asked the American who was over in Pakistan, "how did you first find out that she had been killed?" Now remember this is a MSNBC channel asking this. The guy says, " I saw it on CNN".

Oooops. The silence was deafening.

What do you think?

If the constitution did not have term limits for the President and Bush was able to run for a third term....do you think he would be running this time for a third term?

Does he have more to do that he hasn't accomplished yet? Tie up some loose ends?

Or is he just plain worn out and that's it....I'm outa here?

On the right side of the page is a poll.

Tell me what you think he would do....stay or go?

Layover Pictures

It's time to empty my phone's camera of my layover pictures.

The first one is the beach at Santa Monica in LA. I can't remember what group was doing this but each cross on the beach represents a soldier killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Each soldier's name was below each cross.





The next two are in Rockefeller Center in NYC. They were just putting up this humongous Christmas Tree. In person it was so huge.





The remaining pictures are from a layover in Springfield, Massachusettes. This a very depressed town. At least the downtown is. But they have amazing old architechture. I love old buildings. The picture of the bridge is in Springfield. What a great bridge. And the fallout shelter sign must be from the 50s or 60s. How many people today even know what that is?

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

Last night I stayed up until 10:30. That's the best I could do after the 2:30am ER fun the night before.