January 2008

Leave The Reaming To Us…

Well, the Marine caught the Greyhound yesterday morning. He was supposed to ride to Raleigh, NC to the airport and then was going to catch some Z’s at the USO until his flight to Palm Springs, California left this morning. Long flight as he had a two hour layover in Chicago as well. He’s supposed to check in at Twentynine Palms by midnight tonight. There’s a glitch now. NO UNIFORMS, thanks to Greyhound Lines.

Apparently his bus broke down in Norcross (about 20 minutes after it left the station). When they got another one there the driver would not allow anyone to get their luggage, claiming that it was too dangerous. He said that Greyhound employees had to do it. When my son got to Raleigh he found that his luggage had not come along for the ride and stayed up all night trying to locate it.

He let us know this morning and my wife has spent something like twelve hours on the phone with no results. Some woman finally told her she would put a ‘tracer’ out for it, not that it does the boy any good. Upon checking in at Twentynine Palms he’s going to have to buy new uniforms. He probably had over a thousand dollars in uniforms, knick knacks and irreplaceable stuff from his mom inside the things. It’s a damn good thing that he decided to leave the X-Box 360 here for me to ship to him.

So far their customer service reps have called my wife “baby” “and honey” and some of them have been downright rude to her. As someone in the customer service industry, this is a no-no. If anyone knows the email address for the CEO for Greyhound, Dave Leach, please email or contact me. I have already tried the obvious ones  so maybe one of those will work. Also, Digg and Fark this if you guys have accounts. Thanks!

Currently the wife is discussing with a woman on the phone about his luggage. She says that the best they can do is send his luggage to Palm Springs. They won’t even send a courier to Twenty Nine Palms if/when they find the luggage. No refunds, no delivery. Fuck them. I have emailed about 40 Greyhound employees so far as well as folks from parent company Laidlaw, Inc and hopefully will get an answer tomorrow.

All I can tell you is unless you want to get ass-fucked, DON’T leave the driving to Greyhound.

Here’s the body of the rude-ass email I am sending to everyone with any vested interest in Greyhound I can find.

“The party that was traveling was my son Marine Pvt Christopher Miles. His bus out of Atlanta broke down in Norcross, GA yesterday morning and when they transferred everyone to a new bus they were not allowed to get their luggage. It was shipped back to Atlanta and no one has seen it since. My wife (contact information above) has spoken with at least ten different people who were no help whatsoever including one that was entirely rude. I expect this to be dealt with in a timely and efficient manner. I can understand things being lost but your customer service is clueless, understaffed and filled with people that don’t even have ‘stock’ answers, much less the real ones.

My son checks into the Marine base at Twentynine Palms, California tonight. If they let him check in at all without a uniform, since they are at an undisclosed location, maybe on a bus, he will be forced to purchase a new set of uniforms. which is quite expensive.

I’ve now been told by a gentleman named Jeff in your Raleigh, NC terminal that the next step is to file a claim. That certainly doesn’t help my son who is going to have to purchase well over a thousand dollars in uniforms, a laptop, camera, various odds and ends and keepsakes from his mother. I do not have the time to drive to the nearest bus station which is 40 minutes away in Atlanta, just to help your employees do the job they should have been doing in the first place.

Please contact my wife or myself at the soonest time that you locate my son’s two sea bags and his large clothing bag. I fully expect reimbursement for the expense incurred as a result of not having proper uniform upon showing up at the Marine camp, as well as a refund or an airline voucher, not a greyhound voucher, as we will not be using your service ever again.

Richard Miles
address and company information removed.”

 

Apparently quite a few people have been having problems with Greyhound. Check out this article from ConsumerAffairs.com (in the extended entry because it is so long)

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Heath Ledger is Dead

Actor Heath Ledger, famous for movies including Brokeback Mountain, has died in a Manhattan apartment according to New York Police. CNN is reporting that he died of a possible drug overdose. Ledger is 28. Police spokesman Paul Browne said that there were pills found in the vicinity of the bed.

In addition to Brokeback Mountain and several other forgettable movies, Ledger is also supposed to be starring as the Joker in the Dark Knight, the Batman sequel.

Damn, I need a Smoke…

I am on the ninth day of the Chantix and yesterday was supposed to be the day that I quit smoking. I did OK I suppose. From the time I got up at 4:30 a.m. until I got home from work last night and went to bed 18 hours later I smoked maybe ten cigarettes. You may think that’s a lot but considering that I generally smoke at least 2-2.5 packs a day just cutting down to ten is like quitting smoking for two of you. 🙂

Yeah, maybe my warped sense of logic is stupid but it is mine.

I feel like cutting the heads off of people and crapping down their throat right now.

Haven’t had a smoke yet and I have been up for about 45 minutes. I made sure not to bring any home last night because I want to try and go as long as possible today. Undoubtedly I will end up smoking at some point but if I can improve or cut yesterday’s in half I will consider that a win.

I think perhaps the Chantix isn’t quite so good if you are/have to deal with depression. A friend of our’s was taking it and had to stop and of course I am crazy as a shithouse rat myself but the last three or four days I have really been a bastard to everyone.

I’ve been trying to be quiet and keep to myself and when it’s really bad I just nap but I don’t have those options at work, which is where the real short bus fuckers reside. I am right on the edge and am really afraid I am going to snap on one of them. Luckily today and tomorrow I am at my best store and if I ask them to leave me alone they pretty much will.

Traded my off days with one of my manager’s who wants to go skiing the weekend prior to my vacation. That puts me working eight days straight this week but I did manage to take this coming weekend off, which is cool. That means I can go meet up with some blogger types Saturday night and have a few beers. You know, like the Bar Social Butterfly does…

It’s All About Demographics…

This really has nothing to do with demographics (maybe a wee bit) but I came across this blog quiz at Michelle’s and dropped by to take it. Like you do.

The first question is the the group thing. Damn, I am now in an entirely different age grouping. 41-50. I fucking think not. I have almost an entire decade before you can group me with fifty year olds by GOD!

Anyway, here’s the quiz.

What type of partier are you?

Your Result: Bar Social Butterfly

Not quite as bad as the ‘bar slut’, you like to get a bit ripped and become everyone’s new best friend. You talk to everyone and anyone, keep people laughing, and with enough liquor you become the professional comedian. You get into deep-thought topics with fellow drunks, get people crying on your shoulder when they vent to you, and end up with hundreds of phone numbers of people that you simply can’t recall in your cell-phone all the time.

The Socialite
Bar Slut
Hardcore drunk
The rock-star party animal
The Lurker
The designated driver
What type of partier are you?
Make Your Own Quiz

 

WTF?  Bar Social Butterfly? At least I’m not the Bar Slut.

This Might Be A Long One…

The day that is…

It’s sprinkling outside at the moment and the local news says that it’s supposed to change over to snow later in the morning and we should get 1-3″ of snow by this afternoon.

Darn, I am not particularly looking forward to that.

Snow always means quite a bit of the staff calls in because they are afraid to get out on the roads and I have to pick up the other half and bring them to work as well as find them a way home.

It’s great for business if it’s during the week but it actually hurts my weekend business because that is when we are normally busy anyway. People are in less of a hurry and it takes a crowbar to get them out of the booths, particularly if it’s snowing hard.

The last time I think we really had any amount of snow at all was January 2005 or maybe even 2004. Although I drove back and forth from my house I ended up getting a hotel room across the street from the store for my employees. If the roads get ugly today I will do the same thing this year.

The bad part is that after it snows it’s supposed to get really cold which means the stuff will stick around another day and also freeze anything left on the roads.

Hilton Suspected in Slaying of Fourth Hiker/Bits & Pieces

While it’s still somewhat tenuous right now there are some similarities between the disappearance of 29-year-old Rossana Miliani in December 2005 and the deaths of Meredith Emerson and Cheryl Dunlap.

Rossana was last seen in Bryson City, North Carolina on December 7th 2005. A store clerk from Bryson City told a private investigator that Miliani came into her store with a white man in his 60s and appeared extremely nervous when they bought a backpack. She also rented a storage space there. The State Bureau of Investigation is considering the possibility of a connection but won’t comment any further.

Miliani had been vacationing in Cherokee, North Carolina at the time of her disappearance. She called her father on that day and had spoken of hiking the Appalachian Trail.

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The 2nd white van belonging to Gary Michael Hilton has also been found. It had been abandoned on a road in White County and towed to a scrap-metal yard. Apparently the van has been stripped and is in bad shape but investigators will be processing it for evidence next week.

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One bit of information I was unaware of is that Transylvania County Sheriff David Mahoney (where the Bryants disappeared/died) confirmed that the North Carolina license plate on the back of Hilton’s van when he was arrested had been stolen from a vehicle registered in Transylvania County.

 

Darn, That Was Fast

I arrived home this afternoon to find that my passport had arrived. That was quick. The check hasn’t even cleared the bank yet!

I just applied for it like a week ago I believe. Maybe I am a dumbass and it’s been two weeks but even so that was extremely fast. I paid for expedited service and the woman that processed it told me it would take three weeks. Hopefully the wife will get her’s soon as well. She actually applied the day prior to me.

29 days ’til the Bahamas…

Bush to Rob Government Coffers One More Time…

…prior to leaving office next January.

President George Bush has proposed a temporary tax package designed to spur the nation’s slowing economy. During a White House press conference President Bush and his economic advisers said that the U.S. economy is at risk for a downturn and Congress must act to head off trouble.

This growth package must be big enough to make a difference in an economy as large and dynamic as ours.

By passing a growth package quickly, we can provide a shot in the arm to keep a fundamentally strong economy healthy, and it will help keep economic sectors that are going through adjustments, such as the housing market, from adversely affecting other parts of our economy.

The president did not offer any kind of specific details of the proposed package but did insist that it include tax incentives for business.

Two Democratic leadership aides made it clear that the growth package wouldn’t win support from the Democrats unless it includes relief for low and middle income earners.

I am all for tax cuts and spurring the economy but personally think that we should all just suck it up right now and pitch in to do our share. Cutting taxes is a great thing, I would just as soon get rid of the federal income tax entirely but it has to be replaced by something else, preferably a sales tax.

The Wall Street Journal interviewed folks in New York, Chicago and San Francisco to see how people would spend their rebate. These are some of the interviews.

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Just a Blah Day…

Have to get back to work today. With the interruption of a bit of snow and having to go in for a couple of hours yesterday it sure seems like my days off were awful short.

My boss is on vacation this week so that means not quite as many meeting I hope. The talking heads are mumbling about more snow on Saturday but that doesn’t particularly bother me as I already have to work anyway.

I really don’t have a hell of a lot to say this morning. I’m still trying to drag my head out of the sleeping fog and having a hard time of it. A shower should cure that.

Have a wonderful day everyone…

Even More Snow Pictures

I ended up having to go in to work this morning for a few hours to make sure that everyone was staffed. I managed to get out of there shortly before 9 and stopped to shoot a few pictures prior to going to the doctor for a flu shot. I know it’s late in the season for it but better late than never.

After the flu shot I had to go get chest X-Rays. I am on my fourth day of the Chantix and the urge to smoke seems as if it’s lessening. I have smoked for 28 years now, most of it around three packs a day and my doctor wanted to see what my chest looked like I guess. Four more days and then I quit.

 

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