I Just Had to Put This One On the Internet...

At the tail end of last week I had one of our District maintenance workers come to our office in the early morning. The guy was on fire about something that happened the afternoon before. The Boss and I were off at a meeting that afternoon and were unaware of what had happened.

Apparently one of our secretaries called maintenance in the afternoon to report an issue in our boy's bathroom. The maintenance worker arrived to find one of the toilets clogged. This is not an unusual issue, however, this one was a special circumstance.

The unknown perpetrator had taken a yogurt cup, opened it, and then proceeded to splash the yogurt over the walls, floor, and toilet. What constitutes the clog you ask? The guilty party then proceeded to "drop a deuce" in the cup and then shove it into the toilet. How did the maintenance worker know they "pinched a loaf" in the plastic container? The worker also found human Lincoln logs laying in piles on the floor and smeared into the tile. Needless to say he was quite upset.

Just another day in public education.

Family Winter Holiday Part 3

Our return to the Port of Los Angeles was uneventful and smooth. We arrived at 7 am and were scheduled to disembark at 8:30 in the morning. Our troop ventured up to the buffet and had a quick breakfast before heading off to our disembarkation areas.

Senior Dad and I headed off to the Internet Cafe where all wheel chair assisted people were to report while The Wife and the rest of the group headed off to one of the dining rooms on the lower floor of the ship. We were ten minutes early and waited in the area while other wheel chair bound senior citizens arrived.

Our disembarkation time came and went and we were left waiting for an our past our scheduled time. Finally one of the porters came and stood near me and I asked what the problem was. He stated US Immigration was holding up the process much as they did when we were trying to get on board ship at the start of our vacation. The Wife and the rest of the family got off before Senior Dad and I and were in the immigration line as we were escorted to the handicapped line for customs.

Senior Dad and I were left waiting in the cold and wind along with ten other senior citizens while hordes of people were allowed to go in front of us. We waited for 30 minutes with the excuse being only US Immigration personnel could push a wheelchair through the line. Only three people were working the line and there were more than 20 seniors piled up after 30 minutes. At that point I had enough of the delays.

I stepped into the door of the immigration building and began yelling and dropping F-bombs. I yelled the seniors were freezing, etc, etc. The very same bitchy woman who yelled at passengers and workers at the start of our vacation came up to me and told me to go ahead and push Senior Dad into the line. I told her all the others behind me were doing the same not just me. A line of Seniors were queued up behind me inside the building.

By the way, US Immigration is a freaking joke. They scanned our passports and nothing else. If the federal government is so worried about smuggling, terrorists, etc., you would think they would check a bag upon coming back into the country. Nope. The bored agent just shuttled us through the line. We were escorted into an elevator and down to the baggage area where a porter and the family were waiting with our bags. Our troop was walked out into the rain and wind and deposited on a bench to await our hotel shuttle.

Of course the shuttle was late and was only running one van. The hotel had me on hold for over ten minutes and never connected me to the shuttle desk. Apparently the hotel forgot to read their own literature about continuous shuttle service every ten minutes to the cruise terminal. We were finally picked up by a rushed and haggard driver and taken back to the hotel and our cars. We finally made it onto the road at 10:42 am, over an hour later than we were supposed to depart from LA.

The drive home was fine and we completed the 400 miles in seven hours. It was good to be home and we all quickly settled in to unpack and do laundry.

In summary, Princess Cruises Lines was again fantastic. The Port of Los Angeles at San Pedro, the dock workers at San Pedro, and US Immigration at San Pedro were hideous. Their incompetence, disregard, and disrespect of the public was shameful. They made no apologies for their terrible service and, like most protected unionized workers, simply put in the utter minimum and collect a paycheck with no care for the quality of work or service.

I will never embark on a cruise from that port again. From our conversations with many other passengers these issues do NOT exist at Long Beach, San Francisco, Miami, or Seattle. Only at San Pedro.

Overall, our terribly negative experience with the port only serves to reinforce my negative attitude towards Los Angeles as a whole. I thank the gods I do not live there and would never entertain thoughts of visiting again. The only allure to the area is Disneyland. I may make an exception for that but not anytime soon.

I'm off to enjoy the last hours of my vacation and nurse the cold acquired from being left outside in LA before returning to work on Monday. Have a great Sunday!

Family Winter Holiday Part 2

Our family trip to the Mexican Riviera was comprised of three stops. Our first stop was Puerto Vallarta. The weather at this stop was fantastic. We disembarked and met our tour guide, Raul, who directed us to our tour bus. Soon enough our tour took off on a very long and meandering voyage to a hacienda. After a forty minute ride we finally stopped at the Hacienda Don Engracia Tequila Factory.

It was here we tasted six different tequilas. Senior Mom, The Wife and The Girl also participated in the tasting event. Of course I got all the tequila they did not like. I left the tasting room a bit buzzed and headed out to the buffet luncheon. There we watched dancing and listened to music. Eventually I was dragged up with two other men to participate in a tequila shooting contest. We were to down a triple shot of tequila and make a Mexican shout. I came in second and received a Cohiba cigar. The Girl won first place in a tortilla making contest and both The Boy and The Girl participated in a traditional dance. We then headed off to some rushed shopping and back to the ship.

The next day we were in Mazatlan and toured on a double decker bus. Mazatlan was filthy. Gang graffiti was on every single available wall and surface. The only thing not tagged were the religious monuments and cathedral. Even the massive statues and exhibits were tagged. It was sad. After a quick visit to the local cathedral we were stopped at an intersection because of a traffic accident. Actually, some woman was hit by a car and lying partially in the one lane road. A local police officer was on scene and then pulled away leaving the woman and some citizens with the woman. Our bus driver pressed forward and squeezed by the woman lying in the road barely missing her head. We saw quite a few local attractions before being shuttled for more rushed shopping at the local downtown. The best shopping was at the shops near the port terminal. Mazatlan was a filthy dirty town and I would not want to return. I can get the same flavor for gangs and filth by visiting my own inner city.

The final stop was in Cabo San Lucas. We were shuttled from the ship on a tender. The marina was far too small for any cruise ships to dock. We embarked on a whale watching expedition and saw many gray and humpback whales with their calves. The whales were awesome as was the free beer and food on the double decker catamaran. After returning to the marina we walked into town and shopped for a few hours, visiting Sammy Hagar's Cabo Wabo and many other local shops. The stop in Cabo was a short one. All of us agreed Cabo San Lucas was the best of the three stops and we enjoyed it immensely. The Wife and I are entertaining the idea of returning to Cabo for a vacation on our own so we can explore and see all the sights.

Back on the ship we continued our hedonistic food orgy, partaking in the nightly dinners and enjoying the morning room service. We also enjoyed the many shows and comedians aboard ship. Our return to Los Angeles was uneventful which belied the issues we were about to encounter upon leaving the ship.

However, more of that later...it is time to watch some America's Most Wanted to see if any of my relatives appear. I could use a decent reward...

The Family's Winter Holiday

The contents of The Homestead, The Wife, The Boy, The Girl, The Seniors, and myself, chose to forgo the madness of holiday consumption and do something a bit different. We decided to book ourselves a cruise to the Mexican Riviera aboard the Princess Cruise Lines. The Wife and I so loved our last cruise that we wanted to share the experience with the rest of the family.

The date arrived and we made our departure. The cruise left out of the port of Los Angeles which required us to drive from The Homestead to board our ship. Since we were six, we had to take both the Cross Country Cruiser and Senior Mom's little Toyota Carolla. Both vehicles were loaded and with KtMDD boarded at our groomers, we set off on our holiday adventure.

We checked the weather and saw skies were clear until we approached the Los Angeles area. Four hundred miles, three pit stops, and seven hours later our intrepid travelers arrived at the hotel we booked to stay the night before the cruise. The overnight package allowed us to store our cars for the duration of the cruise in their secured lot rather than out at the unsecured port parking lot.

Boarding day was rainy and wet. We were dropped off at the port of LA by our shuttle. There was no protection from the rain for us or our bags. A porter, James, took my bags to the security facility while the family and I made our way to the terminal to check in. The facility was quite large and spacious, a good thing since there were two other cruises departing that day. We were on the Sapphire Princess. The Golden Princess was headed to Hawaii for 14 days and the Crystal Cruise lines' Crystal Symphony was also headed to Mexico.

The US Immigration and Port personnel were nice except for one woman. She yelled at passengers, other work personnel, and admonished many workers when conflicting information was given to passengers in front of everyone. She was quite unpleasant and the immigration worker assigned to Senior Dad and his wheelchair said he was afraid of her and didn't want to get fired since it was his first day.

By eleven, an hour later we were on board and in our staterooms. All that was left to do was wait for our luggage to be delivered. From our last experience it took only half an hour to get our things. We all waited...and waited. From my balcony room I could see loading bins filled with luggage sitting out in the pouring rain not being loaded. The same bins sat there for FOUR hours before any were placed on the ship.

The Seniors received their luggage first. The Boy and Girl had part of their luggage delivered. The Wife and I received our luggage six hours later with some of it wet. The Girl finally got her clothes delivered. Her suit case was utterly soaked, as if it were held underwater for hours. Everything was wet. Other than one dress and the clothes on her back, she had nothing to wear. Everything required drying. Thank goodness for her cabin steward who jumped her things to the front of the line and got it all to her the next day.

Once handed off from the rude, incompetent union dock workers and equally rude US Immigration people, Princess Cruise personnel took great care of us. We later found out some people NEVER got their luggage. The incompetent dock workers loaded some of the luggage on the ship bound for Hawaii while totally destroying or outright losing others.

The trip on the Sapphire Princess was great. The accommodations were outstanding and the food was five star. Our waiter, Rui (pronounced Roo-ee) from Portugal was the best. We all exchanged stories and we learned a lot about his native Portugal and Lisbon. Upon departure he gave us his contact information and invited us to stay with his family in his village near Lisbon if we ever visited Portugal.

I'm going to stop here for now. The next post will contain accounts of Mexico including family tequila shots, whales, and more incompetence from US Immigration.

Time for coffee and breakfast! Later...

Bow Ties and Bezels Redone

Last week I had the chance to get the front and rear Chevrolet bow ties and chrome tail light bezels wrapped in gloss black vinyl to match my car color. I had been waiting to make this appointment for about three months after meeting a bunch of other local Camaro owners.

I took the recommendation of one of the owners and contacted a local shop about half an hour to the South of The Homestead. The shop owner and operator is a one man show and flies all over the country doing vinyl wraps on a wide variety of cars. I played phone tag with him over the course of two weeks before finding a day and time I could bring my car to his shop.

The day arrived and I took off work an hour or so early to make my appointment. Of course it was the hottest day of the year thus far. His shop office and waiting room was a twelve foot cube luckily positioned to receive every ray of sunlight from noon to sunset. The outside temperature was over 95 degrees with the internal temperature of his waiting room easily surpassing the 100 degree mark. I spent the majority of the two hour wait outside in the parking lot cooling off in the shade of a nearby tree.

Two hours later the shop owner proclaimed he had finished the job of wrapping the tail light bezels and bow ties. He used a vinyl product from 3M to do the job. The vinyl was cut according to a template, wrapped around the parts, and then heated with a heat gun to shrink wrap the parts. The vinyl wrap is good for 8 to 10 years and can be washed without restrictions.

I am thrilled the chrome bezels were finally covered along with the bow ties. It has substantially changed the look of the car and was simple to do. The tail light bezels look like they came from the factory already black and the bow ties look fantastic with the chrome outline.

My next modification will have to wait until next summer. I am planning on installing a Competition Cat-Back exhaust from Magnaflow. The exhaust note is rich and deep without the ping or blat of other exhaust systems. Getting the parts are easy. The hard part is finding a place to do the install.

I'm looking forward to taking a nice drive with The Wife on Labor Day. See you on the road! Later...

...And There Was Joy in the World

Today I drove my sad little rental car, a 2010 Chevrolet HHR LT, to work. The car looks like a station wagon with a decidedly boxy appearance. The interior was lacking in comfort but was functional for its class. I did not enjoy driving it but I took it to school none the less.

I arrived and carved out some time to make a phone call to General Motors. I received a contact number from a fellow Camaro owner on the Camaro5.com message boards. The member is an employee of GM and instructed me to contact the company, explain the situation, and get a reference number to escalate the issue.

The recorded information on the line stated I had reached the Employee Referred Complaint Department. I spoke to woman named Susan who was extremely apologetic about the issue. I explained I had brought the car in for service after something detonated under the hood. I then told her the dealership swapped out the throttle body but as still getting an error code. They consulted the engineers who recommended swapping out the ECM. Since the ECM was a restricted part there were some hoops to jump through.

I also explained I understood all those things and what really bothered me was the shop representative telling me they had no time line for the part t arrive and said it could be up to two weeks until I got my car back. Susan documented my issue and then asked me what the dealership name was and if I had the phone number. I gave her both and she put me on hold.

A few minutes later Susan returned to the line and said she spoke with the service representative at the dealership. They had received the part this morning and a technician was working on the car as we were speaking. I thanked Susan for her help. She told me that the service rep had contacted GM and raised a little Hell to get my part in ASAP. I was surprised since she was so cavalier and dismissive on Friday.

Susan stated she would call me back on Thursday to see if things were alright with the car and to let her know if there were any other issues that I wanted addressed so she could resolve them immediately. I was so happy after completing my phone call to GM. About an hour and a half later I received a phone call from the rep at the dealership telling me my car was all fixed and that they were "washing" it for me.

I picked the car up and drove it home with no issues. It felt great to get back into my car especially after having to drive the anemic rental for a couple of days. The Wife and I have already planned for a short day trip to our favorite spot on Earth this coming Saturday. I can't wait!

I'm off to surf the web and putter around before heading off to bed. Hasta manana...

Finally Replaced My HP Laptop

The time had come for me to replace my trusty HP laptop. I had received the dv6000t (see picture) about five years ago from work. At the time it was close to the top of the line in laptops. It was running a 1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 1 GB of DDR2 RAM and an 80 GB HDD. The laptop was screaming fast at the time and was a total departure from my other work issued laptop.

Over the years it had served me well both in the home and on the road. In fact, it was the last Windows based machine in my house since The Wife replaced her aged desktop with an Apple iMac.

Two years ago I upgraded the RAM to 2 GB of DDR2, the maximum it could hold. The performance increased and it was still serving me well. My phone was synchronized to it along with my original iTunes library. I was so happy!

One day last year I noticed a distinct pink hue to the LCD screen upon start up. It would last a few minutes and eventually give way to the normal color. I researched the issue and found that the issue happens when the CCFL bulb begins to reach end of life.

Then the unthinkable happened. Somehow a nasty computer Ebola virus struck. I was able to knock it out but severely killed a number of registry items. The issue was so severe I had to reinstall the XP OS after transferring all my pertinent files to an external drive. After a day or two of futzing with the reinstall the HP was resurrected. Again I was happy, pink colored LCD or not.

This summer two issues struck almost simultaneously. The sound card died on the machine without warning. Nothing I did in terms of drivers, downloads or canned air could solve the problem. Again I researched the issue and found this was another common occurrence as a laptop approaches end of life. Also, the laptop was having issues starting up when I pushed the power button. It would take three attempts, each more forceful than the other, to get the computer to realize I wanted to power on. More research revealed this was close to the last straw.

The Boss and another co-worker had the same laptops, all of which had these same issues and died horrible deaths within two years of ownership. It was time to find a replacement.

I looked and found an HP Pavilion dm4. It is smaller than the dv6000t which had a 15.4 inch screen. However, the dm4 is far superior in a number of ways. It is running Windows 7 which is nearly a direct copy of Apple OSX 10.6. The difference between the two is almost disappearing. It also has a 500 GB HDD, an Intel i5 2.27 GHz processor and 4 GB of DDR3 RAM. It is 4.4 pounds and light as a feather. It even looks like a MacBook from a distance.

It took a while to do a full file transfer over to the new machine from the dv6000t using my external HDD but now all pertinent information is in its new home. It was a sad day when I packed up my dv6000t for storage. It will become my backup laptop in the event something happens to the new one. Like an old horse, the dv6000t has been put out to pasture. I did not have the heart to send it to the glue factory so it will spend the rest of its days in a cyber field grazing on silicon grass.

I'm off to go find myself some lunch and enjoy the brief respite from the gloomy weather. Later...