Fly The Friendly…Never Mind. Instead: Drag Your Butt Offa My Plane.

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Overbooking is a way of life in the hotel and airline industries. Statistically, it’s about 100% sure that not everyone who has a reservation will show up. Empty rooms and empty seats mean potential revenue lost. Do that often enough and people will be doing Google searches for Braniff & (insert name here) airlines.

Consequently, and you’ve experienced this if you fly very often, the airlines overbook flights all the time. Most of the time, it means that the standby passengers get to go to Cleveland like they want, and nobody is the wiser. Occasionally it means that the gate crew asks for volunteers to skip the flight in return for a voucher for another flight (often just a few hours later), meals, hotels if it’s overnight, and a big smile. I’ve contemplated the offers on occasion, but have never been asked to do so/taken up on my offer to do it for a higher fee. (Hint: if you hold out a while, the price goes way up. I usually am very quiet until we approach the $500 bonus round. Never been taken up on it, but someday…)

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I’m usually reluctant to leap into the fray before all the facts are in on an incident. Today, however, I will combine two of my pet peeves and do a blog.

Pet peeve #1 is the sophisticated manipulation of customers the airlines carry out to maximize their profits. I’m good with it right up until the point where my purchased ticket is no longer good because they have to shuffle crew. I have a couple friends who are crew. Great folks. But if the airline isn’t able to jump-seat them, they shouldn’t be kicking paying cargo off to make it happen. And, yes, I have been impacted by this in the past. I was a finalist in a competition a few years back and chose to fly in for the awards that morning, instead of the night before, for the evening banquet. The airline didn’t have a crew for my airplane – because they were bringing them in for the flight from Chicago. So I sat in airports, and missed my pre-paid shuttle in the bonus round, for 5 hours. I found out on Facebook who won the competition while I was still 20 miles from the banquet hall.

The second hot-button issue is the increasing proclivity of law enforcement agencies to act as corporate goons, or as para-military forces. If you can tell me how that poor man on the United flight broke any LAW, I’ll apologize to the airline and the police involved. Yes, they have a right to tell you to get off their plane. But it’s a good thing for them to have cause. Poor logistics scheduling is not a valid reason to drag a customer from their seat and off the plane.

“But Joe, you defend this kind of thing all the time!” I defend righteous police action. I defend righteous corporate action. IN this case, from what has been released so far, the airline failed to observe the market economics I mentioned above. I don’t know what value they put on getting their crew to Louisville, but it couldn’t possibly be the amount that this bad publicity will cost them. Given the number of flights that they could have moved the passengers to, I’m guessing that they would have spent no more than $1500 per passenger to move those 4 crew. Quite the bargain, as I’m now on the “no way I’m flying United” list, and I’ve taken the time to write a blog about it.

Perhaps the doctor was a jerk. I have seen no indication of that, but it’s possible. He may have had to go for some other reason. But United has feet of clay if that’s the case, and they have lost the publicity round.

The police. Point 2 – there has to come a point where Law Enforcement simply says, “No. That’s not a crime. You need to resolve it civilly.” The cops then back away and force the airline to spend money to fix the problem, instead of putting the cops into the role of corporate thugs. Sounds harsh even to my ears to say it, but sometimes we get into the habit of using the militarized police forces in a way the Founding Fathers would have found to be the equivalent of British Redcoats – a permanent standing force.

My brothers and sisters in blue will understand, if they’ve read this blog before, that I’m in their corner. I am not in the corner of cops who use excessive force, or who blindly follow orders. Lawful orders. They have to be lawful. There was no terrorist threat here. United could have put those people on a competitor’s bird and got them to the destination. They could have rented a van and driven them to Louisville. I checked. I’ll double the price, just to be safe: $800. Throw in another $500 to pay someone to drive there and back, and a meal (it’s only 5 hours driving time) and you’re still under $1,500.00 to move those four crew to where they need to be.

So, for the sake of under $1500, United has garnered a ton of bad publicity, the airport police look awful (and will undoubtedly be investigated and sued) and the good doctor is traumatized.

United, I have just one question: Was it worth it?
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Assault on Saint Agnes is available here. Just click this link!

When you finish reading any book (especially mine) please review it at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and www.goodreads.com. Your review increases the chances of someone looking for a new book greatly. Authors appreciate your review, even if it is just “I thought this was a good read and will give it to my dog to chew. I especially liked the ending, because it made me feel better when he killed all of the main characters. (no spoilers, please)” Those few words (more than 20, fewer than 1,000 is ideal), and a 1-5 rating, make or break how the search engines find us. Thanks in advance.

The Oath Never Expires.

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One of the things that most veterans agree on, is that the oath of office/enlistment never expires. I remember mine, and it didn’t have any clause that said, “And this commitment expires five years from today unless you re-enlist.”

That’s why we “pop-tall” when the flag goes by, stop in our tracks and salute when the Star Spangled Banner is played, or doff our caps and bow our heads when Taps rolls over the countryside on Memorial day.

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For me, personally, it also means that when I’m asked to lend a hand with military projects I don’t even blink. I just ask what the deadline is, and how they need it served up. Some of them will be quietly remembered by people involved, but few will be trumpeted. My good friend George knows of one project I did years ago that meant a lot to him and his Marines. So glad I was there for them when I was too old/deaf/fat to go myself.

Sometimes that means that a Santa visit is needed to a family when their military member is deployed. Sometimes it’s a unit party. Sometimes it’s a hospital visit with Toys-For-Tots. Whatever it is, I’m in for the duration.

Recently, a friend of mine in the Wisconsin National Guard asked me to help out with a project commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the WING entering into service in World War I. As a history buff, that tickled me to no end. I think there are additional project pieces to come over the next few months, but the first one is in public view as of today. It’s a video about the Declaration of War, and the role of the WING in the surge of troops.

I portray Woodrow Wilson‘s voice in the video. Now, you probably wonder what a guy from Minnesota is doing voicing a President from Virginia. Not a problem. I studied up by listening to some recordings of his voice I found on the web. Turns out he had no discernible accent, and instead spoke in a soothing, professorial voice. Very calming.

So, here’s the video. I’m rather proud of the work. And I must compliment the WING on bringing this history to our attention.

And, most importantly, thank you, Lieutenant Colonel Gary Thompson, for asking me to contribute my time. It was an honor. More information at their website, www.dawnoftheredarrow.com.

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Assault on Saint Agnes is available here. Just click this link!

When you finish reading any book (especially mine) please review it at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and www.goodreads.com. Your review increases the chances of someone looking for a new book greatly. Authors appreciate your review, even if it is just “I thought this was a good read and will give it to my dog to chew. I especially liked the ending, because it made me feel better when he killed all of the main characters. (no spoilers, please)” Those few words (more than 20, fewer than 1,000 is ideal), and a 1-5 rating, make or break how the search engines find us. Thanks in advance.

Man, That Ad Really Stunk.

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I don’t watch a lot of broadcast television these days. Time just doesn’t allow that luxury. (More on that soon…) But when I do catch the local ad inserts in the cable news shows, I’m torn between laughter and pity. This also applies to radio.

Let’s start with radio. If you are doing a spot on radio, the local station might talk you into doing your own spot as a play to your vanity. Restrain yourself. It will stink. You will sound stilted and stupid unless you’re a professional voice over talent.

The station might offer you the services of their own vocal talent. Again, run from that offer unless it’s a known quantity. Many spots are cut by Jeffy and Tameesha, the station part-time engineers. Both of them really want to be on radio and have taken great care to offer to do every ad possible for $50 each. They need the money, the station bills your company $200, and reminds you that not only do you have a “professional” doing the work, but you saved $300 over what a voice over artist would charge through an agency.

There is a reason Tameesha and Jeffy aren’t on the air. They are rotten. They don’t care about the product. They care about doing 20 spots a month so that they can pay for their e-cigarettes and super-cool Mini Cooper. It’s not their fault, but there’s a reason they work so cheap.

So, what should you do? I’m totally prejudiced, but I think you should hire a professional. You see, we are gifted liars. We lie on your behalf and sound convincing. We can actually read copy and make it sound natural. If we do it right, you will never even know it was on a script. Moreover, for an additional few hundred bucks, you have a commercial that won’t make people gag.

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Television. This one is going to be short. It applies largely to car dealers. I don’t care if you and your kids are zany. I don’t care if you have a giant iguana as your mascot. I do care about where you are located and what your service hours are. I would like to see interior shots of your maintenance bays and showroom. I would like to see your consumer ratings on a crawler at the bottom of the screen. I do not want to see you sitting in a director’s chair talking to the giant iguana about your new hot tub.

Which brings me to the final ad that drives me nuts: the hot tub place. I know a lot of it is manufacturer stock footage you use to show what the hot tub does. I even admire the models you use. As a guy, it’s always a pleasure to see fetching females, especially ones my age, in bikinis. Yes, sexist. But I don’t care about their husbands and grandchildren frolicking nearby. However, that is not why I would buy your product. I want to, again, know about your delivery program, maintenance crew, consumer reviews, and a good map of where you are located. The silver-haired woman in the bikini is nice, but I’ve got a wife and last I looked she’s not letting me go shopping for a new mate. Nor do I want to do that. But a hot tub is always a possibility.

Put your website on the commercial. Put your product on the commercial. Lose Jeffy, the giant iguana, and the bikini clad AARP member. I might just listen and check out your product.

Oh, and remember: I am available to do all of the above next time you shoot a commercial. I don’t look that good in a bikini, but if the check cashes I’d certainly consider the offer. Contact my agents.

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Assault on Saint Agnes is available here. Just click this link!

When you finish reading any book (especially mine) please review it at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and www.goodreads.com. Your review increases the chances of someone looking for a new book greatly. Authors appreciate your review, even if it is just “I thought this was a good read and will give it to my dog to chew. I especially liked the ending, because it made me feel better when he killed all of the main characters. (no spoilers, please)” Those few words (more than 20, fewer than 1,000 is ideal), and a 1-5 rating, make or break how the search engines find us. Thanks in advance.

The Crinkle Of Paper, And Other Sounds I Have Missed.

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Several years ago I was in the mandatory diversity class that most employers force you to take. My concept of diversity is not being too big an idiot with anyone. Color, creed, gender, none of it matters: just be polite to everyone.

So, to make a longish story short, my coworker, who is still my friend to this day, was sitting next to me when the instructor asked if anyone at the table would like to disclose that they were disabled. I raised my hand, and felt an immediate jab in my ribs. My friend, who is Latina, gave me the full Elaine Benes treatment: “No way. Knock it off. You are not disabled.”

I slapped my disabled veteran identification card down on the table in front of her with a smile on my face. She was horrified. “I have hearing loss from my time in the Navy. It’s not bad, but I do have serious ringing in my ears.”

The instructor was now in a quandary of Biblical proportions: do I chastise the Latina or apologize to the disabled vet? We were both laughing now, so it passed without need to act. That’s how friends deal with awkward stuff.

I mention it only because I could still hear pretty well back then. The intervening two decades have not been so good on that front.

jPlease follow me on Twitter, and “Like” the Facebook author page. Don’t forget to subscribe (the box is on the right side of the page) to be eligible for free e-books and other benefits! Oh yeah – grab a copy of Assault on Saint Agnes if you’re of a mind.

Many years ago, the V.A. adjudged me to have tinnitus, and gave me hearing aids to help deal with that issue. A few years after that, they said it was worse, and gave me a disability rating of 0% on the hearing issue as well. That meant that they knew it was service connected, and it would get worse. This past month, I had a full exam, and the hearing was much worse. New hearing aids were ordered – and they had Bluetooth capability.

I’ve had them now for 10 days. You may have seen this ad. It’s exactly how it is when you have hearing loss. Including the look on his face. More than that, there is a lot of anger because you can’t hear and obviously other people should be speaking more loudly. Here it is:

My problems were exacerbated by the fact that I worked in a place that was very noisy. Lots of ventilation racket and white noise generators. For those of you with hearing loss, you know how awful that can be. As a result, I quit wearing my hearing aids at work years ago. Since I wasn’t wearing them at work, I quit wearing them altogether after a time. Yeah, nobody’s fault but my own. Yet it began to isolate me even more. I got a lot of names wrong, heard things that were crazy sometimes – but it was just my brain trying to piece together the fragments of the sounds around me.

Last year we moved to a new building. A quiet building. I began to really notice the loss of hearing when the vents weren’t roaring all the time. I resolved to get my hearing rechecked and get new hearing aids.

In the past ten days, I now realize that one of my female coworkers isn’t totally silent. I can hear her soft voice over the divider.

My dog, whom I love dearly, makes music as she walks: I’d lost track of the fact that her tags jingle.

Paper crinkles. My God, what a simple thing to forget.

The floorboards in my old house creak all the time. I love that new noise.

I can hear jets in the sky again.

I can hear my wife without being angry that she speaks so softly. Her soft voice is a gentle caress on my soul in times of darkness. I need that voice.

I can hear clocks ticking.

Most of all, I can hear the blessing of my actions again. Coffee cups clinking, drops from the shower hitting the curtain as I warm it up, the rattle of popcorn in my snack bowl at night.

If you have hearing loss, or live with someone that seems to have that problem, go get an exam. Or get them to an exam. Hearing aids are very small now, and do amazing things. Most people are completely unaware that I even wear them. Heck, I forget I have them on – they are that comfortable.

I’m thankful for my newly restored hearing. It’s nice to be back in the world of jangling keys and sparrows.

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Assault on Saint Agnes is available here. Just click this link!

When you finish reading any book (especially mine) please review it at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and www.goodreads.com. Your review increases the chances of someone looking for a new book greatly. Authors appreciate your review, even if it is just “I thought this was a good read and will give it to my dog to chew. I especially liked the ending, because it made me feel better when he killed all of the main characters. (no spoilers, please)” Those few words (more than 20, fewer than 1,000 is ideal), and a 1-5 rating, make or break how the search engines find us. Thanks in advance.

Get Those “Unfriend/Unfollow” Fingers Limbered Up!

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I have a confession to make: I make a lousy Christian author by many standards. At least, the standards of social media. I don’t love everyone. My books reflect that. (Just one published so far, but I promise to hate on new people in the new books. They’re written, but not yet available.)

Nope. Jesus said I had to love everyone, but I’m quite sure that He’ll take me to the woodshed when I get there (hopefully) and have to account. I have a short list of people I don’t love, including killers and rapists. And terrorists. A few others. For the most part, I’m good to go. But evidently I’m a lousy Christian, and probably a lousy author of Christian fiction, because I judge people and lifestyles.

Recently there has been a great deal of back and forth in social media among my fellow Christian authors about the new Disney version of Beauty and the Beast. No links, sorry. (You have to do some of the work!) I have been told, if I read the tea leaves properly, that I’m a hater and a jerk for thinking that I can skip the movie based on the revelation that it has a gay subplot.

I wasn’t going to see it anyway, but yeah, I’d probably skip it for the same reason that I rather regret seeing The Crying Game: I thought it sucked.

Yes, I wasn’t enamored of the plot, characters, social point, or the musical score. In addition, it wasn’t something that I’d go see now: I used to try and keep an open mind about such things, but no longer. I was told I needed to do so, or I was a bigot and a jerk. Seems I still am. Hollywood has fallen a long way since The Maltese Falcon, an elegant movie with a serious homosexual subplot. But it was subtle enough to be missed, and that made it a fabulous addition to an excellent film.

More importantly, I’d rather spend my money on Mexican bakery. Yes, that’s probably cultural piracy as well, but man, I love churros. And those red/white/green cookies that are supposed to be Mexican flags. Don’t even get me started on the cheese Danish that they make. And for what it costs to go to a movie I won’t enjoy, I can get a lot of bakery that I know I’ll love. Enough to share with my Asian/black/gay/nerdy/white/straight coworkers. See, I do love them. But I guess I don’t get any extra credit for trying to get along with the people I meet: it must be absolute. If Facebook is correct, that is.

Please follow me on Twitter, and “Like” the Facebook author page. Don’t forget to subscribe (the box is on the right side of the page) to be eligible for free e-books and other benefits! Oh yeah – grab a copy of Assault on Saint Agnes if you’re of a mind.

Since I’m coming out (so to speak) as a hater, I’d like to share some other hates with you. I think it’s best, at this point in our relationship, to get it all out on the table so that some of you don’t accidentally like anything I do without knowing what a rancid beast I actually am. I have found, by watching the antics of Hollyweird, that your work has no merit if you ever say a bad thing about Lady Gaga or something. I’m not sure – I get confused by the rules. But I’ll make it easy for you to keep track of my demise: here’s a link to my Facebook author page, and the number of followers is currently 627. If it drops, or increases, I’ll know my self worth. Again, strictly according to the standards of the entertainment industry.

Let’s start with a person! I think that Mary Walling Blackburn has quite possibly written the worst children’s book of all time: it glorifies the wonders of abortion. Again, no link. But the very twisted, sad, depressing tale of her ugly world is called “Sister Apple, Sister Pig”. If you ever want to know the kind of twisted person I’m going to take to task, she’s the poster child.

Yes, I did read the book. I’ve seen things in my life, and been privy to secrets that would curl your hair. They’d make you suffer from Post Traumatic Stress. (I was already unhinged, so it didn’t seem to have that impact on me.) This book gave me a bigger case of the creeps than most of that other stuff.

You see, I don’t need to do, or experience, or tolerate certain things to know that I find them morally wrong. Not just “shady” or “dim” but wrong. A word we don’t use often enough in 2017.

So, here are a list of things I think are wrong, people I don’t approve of in any way. Unfriend/unfollow me as you see fit.

Sex with children. No matter how many of you enlightened idiots say it’s just part of the spectrum of sexuality, there is no justification for having sex with minor children if you are an adult. Not just drawing the line at four, or twelve, but let’s go with eighteen. Let’s cut out the gray. It’s wrong. It damages kids. It wrecks their lives. It hurts them. It destroys their own sexuality.

Cannibalism. Never acceptable. Not even if your some smart-aleck CNN reporter who thinks he’s the stuff. Besides, it isn’t Halal.

Sex with animals. Goats, dogs, gerbils – all of it is off limits. Unless they can type out their own consent form and prove they are eighteen.

Rape.

Murder.

Human trafficking. Slavery. Call it what you will. I don’t care if it’s workers in a Chinese restaurant, five year old slaves in Haiti, or blonde girls from Minnesota lured into prostitution at age fourteen. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Drug dealing. Either on the street, or corporate opioid slingers, who have hooked a huge swath of America on prescription pills.

Drunk drivers. Yes, I have driven drunk a whole bunch of times. But not in over 35 years. I saw what it did to a family I knew well. I was in my early 20’s. Quit doing it that night. Never done it since. Damned near got hit by one on Thursday. (At 7:15 in the morning. Those “W” plates in Minnesota tag you as a repeat offender for drunk driving. He missed me by inches. He was going really fast and I was on foot. In the crosswalk. At a stop sign.)

Animal abusers.

Social Justice Warriors. (This is the one that will lose me followers.) If you demand the right to define my beliefs, what I can say, and whom I can associate with, you’re no better than Adolph Hitler. He did that you know. If you tell me I must tolerate your spitting in my face, deriding my political views with violence, destroying my ability to earn a living with a smear campaign, or banning me from laughing at jokes and having friends who are complete jerks, then you are on the list. Persuade me, don’t demand of me.

People who eat artificial onion flavored rings you can buy in a vending machine.

I think that’s enough for right now. I’ll probably add some later, but that should do to get the counter falling on the page.

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Assault on Saint Agnes is available here. Just click this link!

When you finish reading any book (especially mine) please review it at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and www.goodreads.com. Your review increases the chances of someone looking for a new book greatly. Authors appreciate your review, even if it is just “I thought this was a good read and will give it to my dog to chew. I especially liked the ending, because it made me feel better when he killed all of the main characters. (no spoilers, please)” Those few words (more than 20, fewer than 1,000 is ideal), and a 1-5 rating, make or break how the search engines find us. Thanks in advance.