Priorities.


by Berck

It’s becoming more and more apparent that I’m not wanted in Pueblo. I have no idea why. But I’m starting to wrap my head around it. I’m trying to remember what it’s like to move, to tape up boxes and put things in them. The problem this time is, in the past, I’ve always been excited about the destination. This is the first time where, unless I move to Alaska, I’m not going to be that excited about geographic displacement.

Jonah’s convinced that if I don’t get the job in Pueblo, things will turn out for the better. She points out that, in fact, I was quite disappointed about not getting a job at Airman, and that really turned out quite well. To Jonah, this is evidence of divine stewardship that will continue. To me, it’s my one break, and now karma will come bite me in the ass. While I don’t have her faith, I do feel an attachment to a sort of providence that has, so far, not led me wrong. Whether I see this providence as something strictly divine, natural, or more likely, merely perceived doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter how I see it, or whether it exists– just that I have a perception of a sort of providence. And I agree, it hasn’t steered me wrong yet, but I have no faith. Where Jonah refuses to take control of her destiny, I feel that I must do my best regardless. Sure, perhaps providence will work in my favor, but it can’t hurt to do my best. And, the best things that have happened to me haven’t been mere chance– they’ve been the fruit of (sometimes misdirected) labor.

That’s a lot of words which probably don’t make a lot of sense. The short of it? Perhaps I have no control over my destiny, but I have to make decisions as though I do. Jonah, on the other hand, refuses to make decisions until her hand is forced. I’m convinced she’s wrong in this, but with only one of us making decisions, this whole thing is much easier.

So, I’ve embarked on a partial journey back through the blog to figure out if I was, indeed as disappointed as Jonah indicates. There’s no indication of such.

I asked if the flight school was going to be needing any flight instructors in the near future and he said, “Well, I’m actually trying to get a rid of a few right now.” So that doesn’t look terribly promising.

I’ve been trying to remember what it’s like to sit around all day and search for a job.

After I get out of bed, I shower and make a great effort not to ponder the likelihood of employment in my near future because I know that path leads to nothing but frustration and fear. I get dressed and anxiously hope that the few bits of email in my inbox are employment related, even though I know they’re not. Then I check my voicemail, just in case. I spend the rest of my day trying not to think about jobs or food and counting down the unknown number of hours until Joanna gets home. I anxiously switch between skimming the surface of the internet in the same old places, never delving too deeply, reading, and looking for new places to send resumes. I anxiously check the time until about noon when there’s a vague possibility of having been visited by the postman. At which point I begin a series of regular journeys to the mailbox, eagerly awaiting the opportunity to deposit the new found contents of the box into the trash can. At some point, after I round the corner, I’ll see the mail truck which means that I can return in half an hour to certain yet unexpected disappointment.

Oh, right, that’s what it’s like. I can’t wait. Except that now I’ll have a ton of studying to do as well.

But, anyway, priorities. Now that I’ve finally gotten my mind around the fact that I have to do something, a list of priorities has finally cemented itself in my mind. I’m not sure it’s a good list, or accurately reflects my wishes and goes, but it’s a list, and I best not think about it too much lest I wind up back at the beginning with nothing.

So here they are:

  1. Work for the airlines.
    1. ASA
    2. Mesa
    3. Maybe Great Lakes, but I haven’t decided if I’m that desperate.
  2. Find a job in Alaska that doesn’t involve flight instruction.
  3. Find a job anywhere but Florida that doesn’t involve flight instruction
  4. Work as a flight instructor in Prescott, Arizona

The airlines will take a lot of work, and are a long shot. The only real reason I want to do it is because I could keep living here. I’ll need to take the ATP written just to slightly up my chances. And study a whole bunch besides. Then I’ll need to try to remember what it’s like to fly instruments on Microsoft Flight Sim. Then I’ll need to hire a real instructor, and fly a real simulator. Then I’ll need to get an instrument proficiency check, so I can legally fly instruments again. Then I’ll need to go up in a multi-engine airplane at night, so I’m current. Then I can apply. And *if* I get an interview, then I have to pass a simulator check. Right.

The other jobs will be much simpler. Apply, hope for interviews, interview. Trouble is, there aren’t a lot of jobs I qualify for. Maybe the right one will come along. If not, I think that working in Arizona might not be too bad. Do it for a year, and I could probably do whatever else I wanted without too much trouble.

The stupid thing about searching for pilot jobs? It’s the only job market in the world where the unemployed have to *pay* to search job websites. Stupid.

Posted in Nonclassified Nonsense | No Comments

ADA Shakedowns


by Jonah

Hussein Kajouee, 63-year-old Iranian immigrant, bought the Hyde Out, a neighborhood bar in San Francisco, 17 years ago. He found out the hard way what can happen to the average American when the long arm of the Americans with Disabilities Act grabs you around the throat.

The man who sued him, quadriplegic Marshall Loskot, visited the bar only once — in February 2004. He was there barely long enough to go to the restroom, which he quickly deemed too cramped for his wheelchair and unable to pass ADA muster.

Two years and $34,000 later, Kajouee settled, deciding against chancing that a jury would accept his argument that replacing the restroom in a century-old building wasn’t “readily achievable” (in other words, that it would cost too much), an exception to ADA compliance for older structures carved out under the law.

Had he lost at trial, besides a judgment, he would have also faced paying Loskot’s legal fees as well as his own…

As it turns out, that February day was a big one for Loskot… A review of court records shows Loskot claimed to have had not one, but two lunches — one at the Washington Square Bar & Grill in North Beach; the other at the Golden Horse Restaurant, a Chinese place next door to the Hyde Out.

He sued both.

For dinner, he went to La Barca in Cow Hollow, a restaurant he had sued several months earlier during another trip to the city. Afterward, he retired to a hotel in Petaluma, which he also ended up suing…

Indeed, records show that Loskot has been the plaintiff in at least 92 such lawsuits since 2000, averaging one a month during the last 7 1/2 years. (As for the two lunches on the same day, he says simply, “I’m someone who likes to eat.”)…

“There’s a special place in hell reserved for that man,” proclaims Larry Juanarena, 75, the former owner of Pat and Larry’s, a mom-and-pop steakhouse in Willows, Calif., that he and his wife, Pat, operated for a quarter-century before selling last year. Loskot sued the restaurant in 2005, ironically only a few weeks after Juanarena completed a remodel intended to make the eatery accessible to the disabled. Having settled for $11,000, he considers himself luckier than most, but still bristles at the memory.

“What Loskot and others like him do is nothing less than legalized extortion,” Juanarena says.

California businesses typically settle out of court for $20,000 to $35,000, much less than they’d pay upon losing a jury trial and being stuck with both their and the plaintiff’s legal expenses.

In 2000 Clint Eastwood fought a plaintiff who wanted more than half a million dollars in attorney’s fees after accusing his historic 1850 inn in Carmel of ADA violations. He claims when he bought the hotel he did everything he could to comply. A jury found Eastwood responsible for two minor infractions but didn’t order him to pay anything. Who knows how much his legal fees were, since his pockets are much deeper than the usual victim of these lawsuits.

River City Brewing, a Sacramento bar, decided to fight but was forced to declare bankruptcy when a court ordered it to cough up $145,000 in plaintiff’s legal fees. Why? Because they had some seating (less than a third) in a mezzanine area not wheelchair accessible, an architectural plan the city had approved.

George Louie has filed over 500 lawsuits against businesses all over California for ADA non-compliance. He even sued one of his own lawyers Paul Rein (the attorney who sued Clint Eastwood) for having his office toilet two inches too close to the wall and its grab bars not positioned right.

Another serial suer is Jerek Molski, who has filed more than 500 ADA suits in California the last four years. He doesn’t have a full time job and typically gets $4,000 for each business that settles. His attorney Tom Frankovich gets the rest and is estimated to have made around $10 million from representing Molski alone. (His office is oddly inaccessible to anyone in a wheelchair, several steps above the street with no elevator. He meets with handicapped clients off-site.)

The Shadowbrook Restaurant in Capitola, CA spent around $200,000 on renovations to become more handicapped accessible, even installing a wheelchair lift from the entry level to the main level. But before work was completed, it was hit with a ADA non-compliance lawsuit. One of the cited problems was the “hillevator” that carried customers down to the entrance, despite the fact that it was installed in 1989, before the 1993 ADA cutoff date, and a building inspector had tested it for wheelchair clearance. Apparently, no good turn goes unpunished.

In California, a single plaintiff — in one day — doled out lawsuits to 20 businesses along a stretch of highway, charging them with noncompliance with the ADA. Many ADA infractions are minor, such as Braille signs that are one inch too high, doors that are a half-inch too narrow, handicapped parking signs that need to be repainted, and the lack of signs directing people to handicapped-accessible entrances.

Part of the problem is California law, which sometimes contradicts Federal law and always makes it easier and more lucrative to sue. But these drive-by suings aren’t limited to the Golden State. Florida has been experiencing a rash of these lawsuits, one of which even targeted a wheelchair store with two handicapped owners. In the space of a few months in 2004, Warren Lloyd had sued more than 30 establishments in the Philadelphia area for causing dire emotional distress due to ADA non-compliance. Many of the restaurants were flabbergasted; no one had ever complained about their facilities before they’d suddenly received letters saying they were being sued and urging them to settle for a few thousand bucks.

So why don’t establishments just follow the law to begin with? The ADA lays out hundreds of requirements: height of countertops and mirrors, weight of swinging entrance doors, the exact location of grab bars, as well as 95 different standards for bathrooms alone. Hardly any establishment can expect to be 100% compliant, even after hiring an ADA adviser. The law also gives winning plaintiffs the right to collect generous attorneys’ fees, while a winning defendant still has to pay for his defense.

L&L Drive-Inns, a restaurant chain in Hawaii, was sued for non-compliance in 1997 for one of its units for infractions like the omission of Braille signs on restrooms and noncompliant seating. L&L settled the case and then fixed problems at all their restaurants, hiring an ADA expert to review them. But a few months later they were sued again. This time they went to court. In the end they were instructed to place a sign on an outside door that led to an employee only restroom directing people to the restaurant’s handicapped-accessible entranceway, something the expert had never expected.

Instead of being an instrument to help people, too often the ADA is being used to get a quick buck for a few savvy folks in wheelchairs and their lawyers. In 2000 Representatives Mark Foley (R-FL) and Clay Shaw (R-FL) introduced legislation to require ADA complainants to give firms notice of non-compliance and 90 days to fix them before slapping them with lawsuits. But strong opposition from disable-rights group and the Clinton administration stopped the bill in its tracks.

But at least it appears even New York City isn’t immune.

In 2001, a disabled-rights advocacy group sued the Duane Reade drugstore chain, charging that many of its outlets in Manhattan violated the ADA. One plaintiff complained that some non-prescription medicines stood on shelves too high for her to reach; another felt uncomfortable when store employees had to help her get to the pharmacy area. Mandates for uncrowded drugstores will probably lead to the closing of some locations in places like midtown Manhattan—thus making everyone, handicapped people included, go farther to get their prescriptions filled or pay higher prices, since rent per square foot is a major element of overhead.

Citations:

ADA Lawsuit Factory in SF, Wed Jul 25, 2007
The ADA After a Decade: The Industry’s Efforts to Provide Accessible Hospitality, September 2000
The ADA Shakedown Racket, Winter 2004

Posted in Bloggishness | No Comments

Work is odd.


by Berck

We have a week left. Then we’re unemployed. Some of us are more screwed than others. I think I’m in the “more screwed” category.

I haven’t done anything substantial to locate another job. I’m gonna tell you right away I can’t wait another day, Amanda.

Most of the folks I work with are not the same folks I worked with a year ago. There are probably only 6 people or so who have been there longer than I. I don’t really seem to get along with most people remaining.

There are no good options. Like a guiding light to help me through my darkest hour, lately I’m a prayin’ you’ll always be a standin’ beside me.

Nathan just asked me if I plan to study most of August. I answered, “Or maybe drink.” I really don’t have any good ideas. Job-hunting in August, for sure. The problem is that any job I take is going to make substantially less than Joanna makes now, and Joanna has no ability to get a good job anywhere else in the world. I don’t want her to work in a factory again.

In some ways, I feel like I don’t belong in the sky. Why should I get to sit above everyone else stuck in traffic? Why should I get to avoid the drudgery of pushing paper or the sweat of real labor? Sometimes I think maybe I should get a job turning wrenches or pouring coffee for awhile to put a little perspective on things. Then I remember that I decided to fly planes to avoid pouring coffee.

I’ve started thinking that perhaps I don’t even want the job that I’ve said I want. Maybe I’m not meant to have it. And from what you said, I know you’ve gotten over me, it’ll never be the way it used to be. But if it’s gotta be this way, then don’t worry babe, I can take the news okay.

I’m both excited and mortified about the fact that I have no idea what life will be like week after next. I worry that Joanna will become annoyed with me. In some way, I should be happy that I’m being kicked in the ass and need to do something different, because I might stay here a very long time. But this is the first time I’ve felt any substantial geographic inertia. I don’t want to move. I like it here. Sure, I might like it better somewhere else, but for once, I like it *here*. That’s never happened before. I’ve hated everywhere else. There’s a lot keeping me here, so it’s tempting to say, “Okay, then look for jobs here.” But, there aren’t really any. There are some crappy instructor jobs up in Denver, and I may apply for them. But instructing for half the money and driving in Denver traffic every day does not a happy Berck make. There’s something dark about destiny, there’s something blue about you and me.

There’s instructor jobs in Tulsa.

Posted in Nonclassified Nonsense | 3 Comments

Escape from the Big Apple


by Jonah

I want to talk about what happened today, but I’ve got to finish up our New York trip.

So while we were at supper with Mike, I asked him to show off his new iPhone, which, of course, is what every iPhone owner loves to do. I heard on Morning Edition the day before they came out an interview with one of the few reviewers who got to hold and touch one ahead of time. Renee Montagne asked him, “So is it as good as everyone says it is?” and he answered, “No. It’s better.”

And it is. The screen takes up nearly the whole front of the phone. The phone itself is so thin. Everything is touch screen. If you’re looking at a picture you’ve taken and want to zoom in, you just put your thumb and finger on the area you want to expand and pull them apart, like you’re stretching the picture. Want to look at it lengthwise? Just turn the phone 90 degrees, and it moves the picture to be upright the way you’re looking at it as well (requires some gravity, will not work in space). You can browse the web provided you’re in range of an open wireless network. Google Maps is especially useful this way if you’re on the street. And of course, it is an MP3 player as well. I even told Mike something he didn’t know about it already (from the same NPR piece): pinch the ear buds cable once to answer a call, twice to ignore.

One thing I forgot to say about Google is that they have a couple of engineers working full time on Firefox. Isn’t that cool?

We only got a few hours of sleep before it was time to get up and head to the airport. Berck took pictures of me waiting for him to get ready when he should have been packing his shirt in the closet.
Waiting for Berck to Pack We rode the A train to JFK without too much difficulty (even though it arrived on a different platform than it should have; we just followed the bleary-eyed group of people heading to work down the stairs when the sound of the approaching train came from the wrong place).

Then we bought tickets for the overpriced AirTrain for the privilege of riding it around the airport. Security wasn’t too bad (nothing can be as bad as Hartsfield at 10am). The guy in front of us put a huge duffel through, only to have it be spit back out (knocking off the bags and trays of coins and shoes at the end of the line off the conveyor belt. “Sir, do you have any electronic devices in your bag? Please take them out and put them in the tray.” The duffel was full of CD’s. He looked a little worried but started pulling handfuls of them out until the bag was empty. I forgot to take my one quart Zip-lock of liquids out of my bag and put it in a tray, but no one said anything. Ha ha, I’ve successfully smuggled toiletries past the TSA. All it takes is a shifty looking guy with a duffel full of CD’s in front of you, I guess.

The worst part about going through security is that it takes Berck 20 minutes to put his boots back on.

We were the first people to arrive at the gate for our flight and sat there for an hour, so I think we allowed ourselves enough time. It was drizzling again that morning, even though the weather had been perfect for the last three days, pretty clear with a cool breeze blowing through the canyons of buildings at times. Our flight was uneventful. I even got to watch part of a Buffy episode on FX (the one where she and Faith trade bodies; is it wrong that I think Eliza Duskshu makes a better Buffy?). Have I mentioned that I like JetBlue? Then I watched a History Channel show about bootlegging and then one about cocaine, but I fell dead asleep watching it until they started serving drinks and snacks.

As we approached for landing, it was so nice to be able to see miles and miles of prairie without any buildings or people or sidewalks that constantly smelled of urine. And as we put the top down on the car and fastened our seat belts, it was nice to be able to go wherever we wanted, without Metrocards, without having to wait in subway stops the temperature of saunas (seriously, how hard would it be to put a fan at one end?).

I insisted Berck get a drink containing caffeine for the ride home because he was not reacting very well to traffic. We spent the rest of the day in a dazed fog, exhausted.

I weighed myself the next morning. I hadn’t gained an ounce, despite all the food I’d eaten. I guess all the walking worked it off.

I was surprised at how polite New Yorkers were. I mean, they’re certainly more impatient than the rest of the country, but they’re nowhere near the sheer inconsideration of Greeks (or most Mediterranean countries). People whispered, “Excuse me,” when they passed by you. Everyone gave you a proper amount of American personal space, thank goodness. New Yorkers are Americans, just like the rest of us, even if they don’t use credit cards. No wonder New York was known for muggings… you’ve got to carry a ton of cash everywhere you go!

There’s still trash everywhere in Sydney’s neighborhood, though other places aren’t as bad, and a street sweeper comes by pretty regularly (doesn’t get the sidewalk, though). Sydney’s neighborhood is slowly being taken over by white yuppies, and when it does, I don’t know where the poor West Indians and Arabs will go. I never felt unsafe (though after wandering the worst part of Athens by myself, I rarely do anymore), though that may have been because I was usually accompanied by a big man with a scary looking beard and a guy with blue hair. The trick to never getting bothered is to always look like you know where you’re going, and I always do, with Berck behind me saying, “Are you sure this is the right way? Are you? Are you? Why do you think this is the right way? What makes you so sure? Tell me!”

Still things are much improved since the last time I was in New York with my family in 1988. Then All the shop windows were covered in bars and those pulldown metal doors that were covered in graffiti overnight. We passed by dozens of vehicles on cinder blocks, cars that had stalled and had their wheels stolen before a tow truck could arrive. Dad stopped at a self car wash and had the plastic mats from our van stolen while he vacuumed our conversion van… not the mats that came with the van, mind you… the strips of plastic that he’d cut to fit down the van’s aisle. Everything Once you stole those, what would you even DO with those??? I don’t know if it was all Giuliani’s doing or partly the natural cyclical nature of things, but New York is not a crime filled hell hole anymore.

I’m glad my family went, though, since we got to go up to the top of the Twin Towers. On September 11, I kept thinking that I’d never taken Berck up there. He’d wanted to go to New York, but I tend to hate big cities.

Berck is right about the segregation in the city. We were always the ONLY white people on the A train going into Brooklyn, and there were NEVER any black people on the F train to the other part of Brooklyn, even though stops between the two trains are within walking distance for quite a while.

Another thing that surprised me is how reasonable the prices were for food most of the places we went. That may have been Famous Fat Dave’s influence. New York may be expensive, but at least you can eat. And eat well.

I’m getting a nice sized bonus this month (I get 2% of BA gross), which will help pay for our gluttony… and maybe even the plane tickets. And I’ve been going in to work a half hour early most days to make up for the four days I took off.

When you look at a political map of the US, NYC is as blue as it comes (see this post by Dave). Folks like Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton (carpetbagger as she may be) are the biggest advocates of liberal issues like making sure bathrooms in every state are handicapped accessible. I’m not saying letting the physically challenged easily pee is a bad thing; my stroke afflicted grandmother couldn’t use a toilet unless it would fit a wheelchair, and I helped her many times. But I did not visit a single bathroom in NYC that was handicapped accessible, much less one that would fit a wheelchair. Most of them barely fit me; some you could wash your hands and pee at the same time, in case you wanted, with no room to spare. In a wheelchair and want to ride the subway? Good luck. It was a very rare station indeed that had an elevator in addition to the stairs. There are pictures everywhere of middle-aged in suits slipping down the stairs, saying, “Be Careful!” It just seems unfair that the folks where the most places live get to dictate to the rest of the county that a little mom & pop has to have a huge bathroom with a tall toilet and bars all around it or else can get sued and fined, while the big city is completely exempt, like any European city. I guess that’s the libertarian Westerner in me.

In any case we’ll be going back. We didn’t get done nearly enough, though we took a pretty good bite out of the Big Apple, I think. Maybe by then Sydney will be a rich and powerful lawyer and can take us out to the really nice restaurants. Or maybe I’ll finally get a chance to get a 50 cent hotdog from Grey’s Papaya.

Posted in Wanderings | 4 Comments