Category: Rant

Posted on

Are airline’s really making the money from selling services?

In the past month I have been across the country a couple of times to California. And have noticed some changes (I have not flown in the US for over a year, outside the US more than in the US.)

First off let me start with US Airways. They charge for EVERYTHING now. Check a bag, $15. Check 2 bags $40, check 3 bags $140. So naturally everyone tries to back as much as they can in to their carryon bags now. Which leaves less and less room in the overhead bins. So now assume that every one on a Airbus A320 checks one bag that will give them $318 more than they had before. Now doesn’t seem like that big of a deal on money wise, the probably burn up that much in fuel just taxing to the runway and the inital take off (approximatly 2 barrels of Jet A fuel). The one that gets me is that they started charging $2 for softdrinks and water on their flights. This is supposed to be one of their money generating ideas too for getting money for fuel. How cool is that, if every one on the plane did buy a single drink they would only make $162. Likely again to be burned off of the taxi from the runway. The funny thing about this is that now that they have started charging for beverages, they are probably using more fuel now than they did before.. Some people may ask why, but it is simple. If you are like me, once they started doing this I started taking a couple of 24oz bottles of water/soda on the flight with me. (You can’t go for 6 hours with out a drink..) So now if everyone is like me and does the same (some don’t but if they all did) you would now have an extra 468.4 pounds of weight on the plane. That is in addition to the soda/beverages they already pack (approx 234 pounds, 2 x 12oz cans per person estimate) that no one is going to buy.

It seems to me that it would be cheaper for them not to allow people to bring drinks on board and give the free drinks, than it would be for them to allow people to bring stuff on board and stock stuff that no one is going to use.

Now I see today that United is going to start doubling its fee for a second checked bag from $25 to $50 starting tomorrow for flights after November 1. This is only going to encourage people to try and stuff more and more in to their first checked bag. What is even more crazy is that you could conceivably pay more for your luggage to travel than you are paying for your self. Especially if you have a family. There was a family of four in front of me the other day with at least 8 suitcases (2 per person) that they were checking. On USAir that would be $160 just for your luggage to travel. If it was United, it would be $260.

I guess gone are the days of the “free” ammentities of air travel, free checked bags, free drinks, free food, free snacks.. At least for the airlines I have to fly.

Posted on

Residence Inn San Diego Rancho Bernardo/Scripps Poway

I spent a week at the Residence Inn San Diego Rancho Bernardo/Scripps Poway. For the most part it was ok, with the exception of 2 nights… From the looks of the hotel it appears pretty new so I will give it a little slack. However on two different nights I ended up having water coming from the ceiling light in the kitchen and going every were. The first time it was after we had been outside shooting the breeze for a couple of hours and playing monopoly. I came in to hear a dripping sound and looked and the floor was soaked and water was coming from the ceiling light fixture. I tried calling the main desk, but no one answered. So I went down there and got Kyle (the night asst manager). He sent up the houseman who ended up getting soaked when he tried to move the plate of plastic that covers the light. So we went and got towels and then went back to the desk. In the meantime Kyle is trying to get ahold of the manager to find out what to do. They ended up calling in a maintenance person, but by the time the person got there (nearly 12:30AM) the water had stopped dripping so there was nothing they could do, they did however go to the room above me and wake them up to see if they could see any water up there.

So I ended up going to bed around 1:30 AM or so (and I was still on East Coast time so I was like 4:30 to me.) I came back the next night and they had put the light plate back in and painted over the wet spots on the ceiling. I had thought that they had fixed the problem, but low and behold, friday night it returned.

I had went to bed early on friday night because we had to be at the airport at 4AM saturday morning to fly back to the east coast. About 1130 or so, I woke up to the sound of water. Surely it couldn’t have happened a second time? Yup, this time it was worse, it was every where. I could even hear it going down in between the kitchen and bathroom walls and hitting the pipes. I called the front desk, and she said they could not do anything till the next morning, I then said, well I am leaving at 4 so I guess I will try and get some sleep. about 4 hours later I was up, having not slept hardly at all and we were on our way to the airport.

Overall the hotel was good, but they have some maintenace problems they seriously need to take care of. I had black mold growing on the ceiling in the bathroom, signs of water hitting the ceiling from above and setting there along with the high humidity of the bathroom. They really needed to take the entire 19 number rooms out of service and rip the ceilings out to find out where the problem actually is.

The first night I was there they at least called the Springhill Suites next door to see if they had any open rooms, which they didn’t. But other than that, nothing was done, other than throwing some towels on the floor and kitchen counter.

Here are some pictures of the ceiling with mold and the water dripping.

Posted on

State of health care in small towns

I spent the better part of my day today at the hospital with my mom. It was the first time I had been in this particular hospital in probably more than 15 years. It was recently taken over by some new group and was ‘supposed’ to be making all these improvements. I can say for sure, the only improvement they have made is the lobby.. Once you get past the lobby, everything looks the same as it did the last time I was in the hospital back in the 80’s. The wall paper border around the ceiling is coming down, and you can see where they have used scotch tape to try to hold it up. There was dust all over the place, on top of the support bar on the bed, on the walls, everywhere… There was places on the wall where they plastered  over holes, but never repainted it, so just plain raw plaster there (and I am not talking little holes, this plaster area was about 3 foot in diameter). There were marks all over the walls. Like I said, not much has changed since I last was there, the tv’s and beds were still the same. Even has the same phones that were there too…

The interesting part about the whole thing is, there is probably only one floor in the hospital that they have patients on. Just walking around the floor there were plenty of rooms open. But yet they still put another woman in the same room as my mom, even though there were plenty free.. Ok, I can see this since they may be short staffed on the nurse side, but no, there are separate nurses for my mom and the other woman.  What is even worse, is my mom can’t get any sleep because of the nurses coming in every 30 minutes to check on the other woman, and the other woman snores extremely loud.

Which gets me back to the state of health care… This hospital is really only used for minor things any more and any thing major they transfer them to other hospitals either in the state or out of the state. So why do they even try to keep it open if for major things they send people to other hospitals. Granted the other hospitals are a minimum of 20 miles away. But I feel that the care given in those would probably be a little better then here.

When I was still living at home the hospital kept talking about how they were going to expand this, and do that, and buy up this land to build that… Well they bought up some of the houses, but just tore them down to make gravel parking lots. The hospital keeps getting little additions added to it, (which none of the additions match the architecture or even use the same brick or try to match the color as the previous addition does) but then they keep cutting back on other areas.

What really got me a little fired up is that they have a room that have signs all over the door, that every one entering must have gowns, gloves and face masks on, yet they have the door wide open and it is in a room right behind where my mom is at. If they have to put 3 or 4 signs on the door about precautions, why don’t they have better isolation between the patients. And why aren’t all the room’s private rooms? One of the local hospitals here is remodeling and putting an addition on and every single room is a private room with a flat screen tv, and it almost looks like a hotel. The hospital my mom is in, almost looks like something you might find in someplace a little better than a third world country.

I do hope they are able to fix a lot of the problems that are there, but there is a long way to go.. And customer (patient) service seems to be the first place they need to start. Whenever you are in so much pain that you can’t sit down and you have to end up standing for almost an hour for some one to see you in an emergency room…. says a lot about the state of the hospital.

The only thing I did see that was good (in part till I got home) was that they are now locking the patients charts in boxes out side of the rooms. This was good, but when I got home and was looking at the hospitals web site, they have a physican portal, which you guessed it, does not even have SSL encryption on it. Just Lovely…. I just hope they don’t have access to patient records through that portal.

And according to their web site the hospital is a : a 73 bed acute care hospital.  Founded in 1907, the hospital has a long tradition of providing quality health services to our community.

Posted on

Comcast changing their lineup

Just happen to be watching the weather channel this morning and saw a scrolling ticker that said a bunch of channels were changing.. Said to go to comcastdigitalworld.com to find out more. Well went there and found this:

Guess we will be getting a couple of new HD channels… I wish they would fix the stuff they have first. My HD DVR box cuts out the audio almost every couple of minutes… Going to have to call to get it replaced. Funny thing about the channels changing, they have not sent out any info on it so far, and the only reason I saw it was because I was watching the weather channel, which looks like it is moving too. Also looks like they are removing HGTV from the line up? (They are putting the Weather channel on channel 58, which is where HGTV currently is, but no signs of where HGTV is going to.)

Posted on

Comcast again

I have started to get really mad at comcast lately. I had set the DVR to record a show on Mojo the other night. Went to watch it tonight, and guess what…. Comcast pre-empted the show with FOX Sports again! So I decided to use their Chat thing tonight and chat with them to see why they are doing that, here was the outcome:


Me(Sat May 24 2008 19:33:59 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

Why is FOX Sports Pittsburgh HD showing up on the Mojo channel?

analyst James has entered room

James(Sat May 24 2008 19:34:03 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

Hello Me_, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is James. Please give me one moment to review your information.

James(Sat May 24 2008 19:34:11 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

Good Evening

Me_(Sat May 24 2008 19:34:23 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

hello

James(Sat May 24 2008 19:35:07 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

That happens because Comcast does not carry FSN Pittsburgh in HD, but the Penguins games are aired in HD on that channel.

Me_(Sat May 24 2008 19:36:07 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

Uh, yeah they do...channel 769 is "FSPHD" which is Fox sports Pittsburgh in HD. It is currently airing the exact same thing as in on Mojo.

James(Sat May 24 2008 19:36:28 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

We do not carry that channel in every area.

Me_(Sat May 24 2008 19:36:48 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

It is frustrating because when I try to tape something on mojo, 9 times out of 10 I get something else.

James(Sat May 24 2008 19:36:58 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

I am sorry for the inconvenience.

Me_(Sat May 24 2008 19:37:49 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

can they not change the channel guide to show when they are going to pre-empt a show that is supposed to be on mojo with what ever they are going to simulacast from FSP?

Me_(Sat May 24 2008 19:38:19 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

like right now it says London Live should be on, but it is a pittsburgh pirates game.

James(Sat May 24 2008 19:38:21 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

The channel guide is controlled and maintained by TV Guide

Me_(Sat May 24 2008 19:39:03 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

So there is really no way to ever know if I am going to get what I set to get recorded?

James(Sat May 24 2008 19:39:36 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

I am very sorry for the inconvenience, Comcast does not control the information that is displayed in the Program Guide.

Me_(Sat May 24 2008 19:40:48 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

ok, just very frustrating that my bill keeps going up and up, and when I want to watch something, it is usually what is not there. Don't understand why there are 30+ Test channels that they could use for the same purpose, but they end up pre-empting some other channel.

James(Sat May 24 2008 19:41:33 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

I apologize for the frustration.

Me_(Sat May 24 2008 19:43:02 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

is there any possiblity that this may be "fixed" in the future?

James(Sat May 24 2008 19:43:45 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

Yes there is a possibility of it being fixed. Unfortunately, I am not able to provide a time frame on when it will be resolved.

Me_(Sat May 24 2008 19:46:05 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

ok, just getting tired of the service price going up and up, and the quality of service going down. Paying almost $200 a month for cable and it is almost exactly the same amount of content that I was getting 5 years ago and paying half the price. Is there any where to submit formal complaints about things like this?

James(Sat May 24 2008 19:47:09 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

I can see what I can do to lower your bill for you if you like.

Me_(Sat May 24 2008 19:47:27 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

that would be great....

Me_(Sat May 24 2008 19:48:19 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

the only thing extra I have even gotten in the last 5 years has been the HD+DVR.

James(Sat May 24 2008 19:49:22 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

I can bring your bill down to 159.84 plus taxes for a period of 6 months for you.

James(Sat May 24 2008 19:50:44 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

You currently pay 171.85 plus taxes

Me_(Sat May 24 2008 19:51:33 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

yeah and I received a letter the other day saying it was going to be going up even more.

Me_(Sat May 24 2008 19:51:47 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

after taxes I will be paying almost $190 a month

Me_(Sat May 24 2008 19:52:03 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

what is the deal with the 159.84?

James(Sat May 24 2008 19:53:46 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

That is everything you have now, although the only promotion I am able to provide you with is an Internet promotion that is $19.99 a month for 6 months. You would be gaining some channels as well. You would be removed from the Adelphia grandfathered package and put into the Digital Premier package (that includes Digital Preferred and all the movie channels) and the Sports and Entertainment Package.

Me_(Sat May 24 2008 19:54:59 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

that is what I have now, I have nearly every single channel except the new sports ones added in the last week, and I am not interested in any more sports channels as I don't watch the ones that are there now.

James(Sat May 24 2008 19:55:43 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

Without the sports package it would be 151.89 plus taxes per month, for a period of 6 months.

Me_(Sat May 24 2008 19:56:25 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

and that keeps everything I currently have access to?

James(Sat May 24 2008 19:57:16 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

You will loose some channels without having the Sports and Entertainment package, those channels that you will loose will be listed in the mailing you received.

Me_(Sat May 24 2008 19:59:13 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

and what would the price go up to after the 6months?

James(Sat May 24 2008 19:59:37 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

174.85 plus taxes

Me_(Sat May 24 2008 20:01:49 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

well thanks for the help, but since it would only change it for 6 months it is not really worth me changing anything I will just keep what I have now and reevaluate whether I will switch to dish or not.

James(Sat May 24 2008 20:02:18 GMT-0400 (EDT))>

Ok, I am sorry I was not able to assist you any further today.

Then as I was reading through the news tonight I see this article: Comcast trying to sell 46 outlying cable systems

Which is funny as now our system will probably be sold to Time Warner… I am so so so tempted to go get a Dish Network system. But I still need the cable modem, so it is almost not worth it yet.

What makes me mad about the whole conversation with the comcast dude is that he kept using the cost not including taxes. But by the time you add in all the taxes, it is almost another $10+ to the bill. Let alone that just this year so far my bill has went up $10 since january (with no change to service) and will go up another $3.00 in June with get this a lost of service.. Right now I have every Movie channel on the system (HBO/Cinemax/ShowTime/The Movie Channel/etc), after June I have to pay more just to get The Movie Channel. The best part is that “no action is required!” my bill will go up, I will lose channels, and more than likly I will cancel more of the service. What is where is if they can keep giving these “promotions” why don’t they use that for the price all the time.

It would be cool if we had something like FreeView or SkyTV here in the US. I would gladly pay for the hardware if the service was free. Sort of like back in the early 80’s when we had the BUD (big ugly dish) at my parents house. We could get nearly every channel for free off of the satellites before they started encrypting them.