United untied

Long gone are the days of peaceful travel, airport customer service, and luggage that actually arrives with you when you at your final destination. Yesterday (and still today) United Airlines has made certain I have had to witness this loss first hand.

My letter sent to customer service explaining the story is attached as the picture below if you care to read it...


The cliff note version: poor customer service, delayed flight, lost baggage from United

The question then becomes who is to blame?
1. Terrorists - they stole the most precious commodity from us; time.
2. Airlines - apparently they are not keeping their employees happy nor are they doing a great job of forecasting. Nearly every airline has experienced bankruptcy, or merging with others to broaden their reach and also to avoid any further financial complications
3. Employees - again unhappy might be an understatement, but these employees will soon top the USPS as the most disgruntle employees in the world
4. Overseas call centers - do I need to explain this one?
5. Travelers - true some people are idiots when it comes to travel and they do slow down the process but that only accounts for slow check-in, security checkpoint, and boarding...not my lost luggage!

In closing I will say that United Airlines, which I have traveled nearly 20,000 miles with, has continually disappointed me...yes I have now learned my lesson!

Only today: Going Green

Depending on who you see as the founder of Earth Day and where abouts you might live may depend on when you actually celebrate the Earth. Regardless if you credit John McConnell, which then signifies you (along with the United Nations) celebrate it on the March Equinox; or you credit Gaylord Nelson who was a Wisconsin senator and most noted for the Earth Day celebration on April 22, you are doing your "green-duty"...or are you?


This is not a rant to tell you what you should be doing to save the planet, or to save money because if you wanted that you'd visit sites like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or the U.S. Department of Energy, or just tune into HGTV. I think it is more important to share with you about companies, people, and places that are headed in the right direction.

Companies:
Continental (American): Spent $16 billion to become more efficient
-reducing emissions by 5%
-reduced the nitrogen oxide output from ground equipment by over 75%
S.C. Johnson (American-Wisconsin)
-eliminated millions of pounds of waste from product
-building power plant that is fueled from a landfill
Patagonia (American)
-the entire mission has been based on the quote "There is no business to be done on a dead planet"
Subaru (Japanese)
-zero waste landfill

People:
Elon Musk (South Africa)
-entrepreneur that is taking on the auto industry with cars like the Tesla Roadster, a sports car that reaches 60 mph in less than four seconds, and can go 220 per charge...puts the water cooler debate of speed and distance in electric cars to a hush (minus the $100+k price tag)
Robin Murray (UK)
-industrial economist coining the "zero-waste" phrase and argues that one mans trash is another man's resource (consuming everything your discard)
...and a list containing many more people can be found through a weekly UK publication called the Guardian

Places:
Reykjavik, Iceland
-good old green Iceland has runs hydrogen buses and its electricity and heat come from geothermal and hydro power sources
Portland, Oregon
-a model for new public/green transportation, not to mention it has 92,000 acres of green
...and quite a few more places in the world according to the Grist

Basically be conscious and smart about what you do from an environmental perspective. It's not a new concept and we don't need stupid politicians to tell us what to do and how to do it, your an adult figure it out. After all if we don't, the way you see nature today may not stay that way for long!

Shook to Sleep

While you were snug in your beds this morning at 4:36 a.m. you were being shook by an earthquake that measured 5.2 on the Richter Scale. Its epicenter struck at near the town of West Salem, Ill., which is a small town that lies near the Wabash fault line, or the larger New Madrid fault.




This is big news here because we don't see earthquakes as large or as often as some of our other states. In the past two weeks alone the United States (Puerto Rico included) has experienced 1009 earthquakes. So by that measure if I have ever been to California, Alaska, or Nevada, I probably experienced an earthquake before...but then again that is where the major fault lines fall (San Andreas and Denali).

Do you know we learned all this in 7th and 8th grade yet I feel like a seismologist working for the USGS...awesome!

Lucky to live in the U.S.

So I came across this article 'We are under siege' and it made me count my blessings for the country I call home. I always thank God for the blessings he has bestowed on me and my family but this is one that really made me think about how lucky we are.

The article is a journal from a family living in Zimbabwe at a time when the country is in political turmoil. It talks about the threats and fear they live with on a daily basis in this election year. The current president Mugabe has been in power since the 80's and has essentially destroyed its economy at any cost. So how does someone like this stay in power and keep threatening families like the ones in the article?

First of all the country's rate of inflation is 100,000% with an 80% unemployment rate. Is that possible? To give you an idea of how bad this is lets use the misery index, which takes unemployment rate plus the inflation rate. Now in the past 60 years the U.S. average has been about 11.25, that is nearly 4,500 times better off than the average of Zimbabwe today.

The other quite obvious point would be to control the political scene by threatening voters and rigging the elections, death has been the fate of some opposed to his ideals. This is loosing steam though as the elections right now are in re-count, which could spell the end for this 82 year old rein in Zimbabwe. We can only pray that someone, anyone will be a better leader for them than him.

So the next time you hear someone complain about their living situation in the US add this to your ammunition box and tell them how lucky they are. This is only one of thousands of stories as to why you are lucky to live in the U.S.!


Also in Zimbabwe is the beautiful Victoria Falls

where amazing happens

At 26-51 the Bucks new tagline "where amazing happens" doesn't seem to fit. However, as Bucks fans we are troopers and my brother Paul and I when we went to see the Milwaukee Bucks take on the Boston Celtics last night. Ok, maybe we wanted to see Garnett, Allen, and Pierce, or it may have been the stellar seats we had(not as good as Mikey's 3rd row seats but good enough), or maybe it was the timeout entertainment, but really it simply about getting out and enjoy a sporting night out with my bro's.

Anyway back to the game...
...After watching about 3 quarters of the game, it was pretty clear to see why they only had won 26 games thus far. Turnovers galore, missed layups, masked men (Bogut), but really the ball just appeared to be everywhere but in ther hands. Apparently though in the 4th quarter they found their groove, correction Michael Redd and Bobby Simmons found it! It was a great comeback to tie and take it in to OT, but was disappointing to then lose it. To give you a fun stat though and leave on a high note, we watched a game played last night between a $75.5 and a $62.6 million dollar team - insane!!!

Home Opener: Milwaukee Brewers

The words "opening day" and "home opener" just conjure up an array of pleasant memories. As a kid, it was the excitement of what a Brewers new season brought and the beginning of the Pepsi Fan Club. Now as an adult it still holds excitement of what the Brewers season could bring, but now my "Pepsi Fan Club" is all about brats and beer. Brats, Beer and Baseball...ahh BBB!

As the game is currently in the bottom of the second, with the brew crew up 3-0 over the Giants, you can see that I am not there...but alas there will be about 158 more to catch this year!

Tune in here for live action

Opening Day: Brewers almost Fukudome!

Only separated by a stretch of about 1 hour and 15 minutes on I-94, the Cubs and Brewers for a long time were split between the National and American leagues, so it gave me two teams to watch and root for. To top it off, my house in Arizona is 1 mile from the Cubs Spring Training facility and about 20 minutes from where the Brewers play. Needless to say this year provided a dream Opener and one I wish I could have made!

Before the game even began there was a statue unveiling of Ernie Banks and to add the icing to the cake Hank Aaron was also there to congratualte his friend as well. These two legends are the true athletes that have helped me look past baseball's low points like the 1994 baseball strike and the current day steriod debacle. I found a picture of the two in 1970, after Aaron was presented with the Lou Gehrig Memorial Award.



Opening Day 2008: Now on to the actual game
Aside from battling some challenging weather conditions these two teams put on quite a great performance. I'll save you the explanation of the first 8 full innings as the box score read 0-0, but the ninth inning was exciting. Braun singles in the ninth which brings in the first run, then Cory Hart drives in two more on his double. So going into the bottom of the 9th with Eric Gagne on the mound, you should feel comfortable...until Fukudome comes to the plate and jacks a 3 run homer. Who is Fukudome? Don't know yet, but I am sure we'll hear more about him in the months to come. So after retiring 3 out of the next 4 batters we move to the 10th. Up to bat comes big Tony Gywnn Jr. who to this point has been having a phenomenal day. Not only does he put the winning RBI on his box score with a sac fly to score Counsell, but also manages to make a sliding catch to end the game and give the Brewers a 4-3 victory in 10 innings at Wrigley.

Oh how I wish I was there, but instead captured my real live scoring and pitch by pitch on mlb.com.