Our Dumb Blog

Today, three of my students flew 306 flights. Flight 306 is the flight right before their checkride. Which means it’s at the end of the “block”. Which means that for them to pass it, all gradable items must be performed to the syllabus-required level inorder to progress beyond the end of the block. I suspected that two of my students would do well and one would quite possibly still wouldn’t be able to land by the end of the flight. Instead, my two good students did horribly, and the other student did great.

My last student screwed up in all kinds of nearly unimaginable ways. The only thing he was struggling with was no flap landings, but those looked good in the pattern work we did first. Then we set out for the area.

“Okay, so I’m going to head for tank,” he says on the downwind departure.

“What?”

“Depot, Depot!! I’m going to Depot,” he says.

“Okay, and what do we need to do?” I ask. My fondest hope for a 306 flight is to get through without saying anything. For a maneuver to be graded “fair” it needs to be performed safe and unassisted. Asking questions could, of course, be considered assistance.

“We need to contact springs approach?”

“Before that.”

“We need to be at 8,000 feet.”

“Yes, but what do you need to do any time you talk to springs approach?”

A few nonsense answers, but the one I was looking for didn’t happen on time. I punched in our pre-assigned code into the transponder as we came up on Home Depot. He futzed with the radios and made the call.

At this point, I’m trying to decide if the kid is screwed for the flight or not. That was assistance, but one deviation is perhaps okay provided that the rest of the arrival and the departure procedures looked good. Boy was I in for a surprise.

A good mile early, my student squawked 1200 and made a call to eagle traffic. He looked at the wrong power lines. This was his 10th flight. By this point, he’s done the Woodmen departure 3-5 times. He should know where the bloody power lines are. Only it gets worse, because he calls Springs Approach instead of Eagle Traffic.

My Student: Eagle Traffic, Talon 20 woodmen departure for Tango Five.
Springs: Talon 20, transmitting approach.
My Student: Roger that, Talon 20.

(As a side note “Roger That” is some crappy radio phraseology that annoys the crap out of me. “Roger” means “I heard you”. So, “I heard you that,” is nonsense. Furthermore, saying your call sign indicates that you heard them. So what he said, translated, is “I heard you that, I heard you.” What he should have said, if anything (no response was really needed) is, “Talon 20”.)

At this point, I explained his many mistakes. A couple moments later, at the correct place (after fiddling with the radio)….

My Student: Eagle Traffic, Talon 20 woodmen departure for Tango Five.
Springs Approach: Talon 20, Eagle traffic cannot hear you if you’re transmitting on Springs Approach.
My Student: Roger That

He then fiddles with the radios incorrectly, and before I can stop him…

My Student: Eagle Traffic, Talon 20 woodmen departure for Tango Five.
Springs Approach: Talon 20, TO TALK ON ANOTHER FREQUENCY YOU HAVE TO FLIP THE SWITCH.
Me: I’m very sorry, sir, my student is having difficulties.

The whole flight went like that.

Milton called the capital of hell Pandemonium, but I think it’s more like the DMV.

So back to our question, what is credit class two?

This is what I asked Chuck on Sprint’s customer service number. “It means you are limited to two phones,” he said. Why? “Because you’re in credit class two.” But what does that mean? How is that determined? How does one get out of “Credit Class Two”? “Uh, we don’t decide that,” said Chuck. “Sprint decides that. We’re just customer service.” Well, I thought I was calling Sprint because this is the number they give. How DO I contact Sprint? “You have to go on the website and write them an e-mail.”

So I did that. I went to sprint.com and found a place to write something. It asked for the primary phone number and password of the account. I knew both of these because I had to verify them every time I called Customer Service. (I actually had to verify them twice, because the A.B. would hang up on me each time.) But the website e-mail form wouldn’t accept them. I tried it several times, but it told me the phone number or password were incorrect. Finally, I wrote in the form for non-customers, detailing our obstacle, and demanding to know why we were being discriminated against. They wrote back pretty quickly saying they needed the phone number and password.

“That’s it,” said Michele. “I’m going to call and tell them to release us from our contract.” So she called the customer service number and fussed at several people. It went something like this: “I’m being told that we are only limited to two phones. I want to add another phone or be released from my contract. I was not told I would be limited to the number of phones on my account when I signed up for this contract; in fact, I was told I could add more phones. [Repeat all above.] I’d like to speak to a manager, please.” Repeat about five times.

Finally, she got Mallory, who said, of course she could have another phone, and she’d sign her up for a new plan cheaper than the old one.

I suppose the lesson here is persistence, threats, and a continuous appeal to a higher authority just might get you where you want.

“Jonah,” said Michele, still on the phone with Mallory, “Do we want to do this online or have you go down to the store to get your phone?”

“Will they let me do it at the store?” I asked, “Or will you have to come too?”

Michele checked with Mallory, “No, you can do it. All you need is my password.”

“Are you sure?”

Michele checked with Mallory again, “Yes, she says she’s sure you can do it without me.”

Continued Later: Liars

I’ve been wrestling with Sprint all day.

Come to think of it, I’ve been wrestling with them all weekend.

It all started when my boss Duncan decided he needed a new PDA. “It’d be great if it’s also a phone,” he told me, “but I can’t hear the one I’ve got.” I can empathize. I have a really hard time hearing anyone on the phone, no matter which phone…and that’s with my good ear. I can’t hear much out my right ear. Too much loud music, I guess. In Duncan’s case, it’s probably because he’s 62.

I also can’t hear Berck if he speaks any lower than in a normal conversational tone. This leads him to accuse me of ignoring him. I try to explain that, if I didn’t want to know what he was saying, why would I be asking him to repeat himself more loudly? He also gets mad at me when he’s driving and he wants me to talk on the phone for him. I can barely hear anyone on my phone with it on its loudest setting in a quiet room. I certainly can’t hear anyone with the sound of the motor going. Usually, Berck wants me to talk on his phone while the top is down too. He insists that I’m not deaf (how else could I ignore him), so I must lack some mental capacity required for using mobile phones. Conversations go something like this:

Me: “Hi! We’ll be arriving probably in about two hours.”

Other Person: “Mmmmm, hmmmmggggg, ermmmmm?”

Me: “I can’t hear what you’re saying while we’re driving, so if that’s not okay, just call back, okay?”

Other Person: “Bughhhhhmm, hehmmmmm, uhmmmmm!”

Me: “Okay, whatever! Bye!”

Berck: “What did they say?”

Me: “I don’t know. I couldn’t hear them.”

Berck: “Why not!!!”

Me: “I must be going deaf.”

Berck: “You’re not deaf! You can hear ME just fine!”

Me: “Well, you also happen to be screaming at me.”

Berck: “Fine. Hand me the @#$% phone. And if I lose concentration and drive off the side of the road because I’m talking on the cell phone, it’s your fault!”

Me: “What did you say?”

So anyway, Duncan and Michele have a plan with Sprint (“Because that’s what the kids have!”). I’ve just been struck with the inanity of calling such a scheme a “plan.” Plans involve foresight, thoughtfullness, cooperation. Sprint doesn’t seem to posess any of these qualifications. But I digress.

I should point out here that Berck and I are on a Verizon “plan.” As are all of the members of my family and of his family. It took some convincing, but all of the calls to anyone we’re related to are “in network.” We convinced them by insisting that, while all wireless phone companies were rubbish, Verizon was the least worst of them. After today, I truly believe that anyone has to be better than Sprint.

For instance: Berck and I have area codes that begin with 251, Mobile, Alabama territory. We live in Colorado Springs (719). Wouldn’t it be nice to have an area code that belonged where you lived so your friends didn’t have to dial long distance to reach you? And yet, we don’t have many people who call us from in town.

With my new promotion, however, I was suddenly using 500% more minutes than I had been within the first day, and it would be useful to have the people down the street be able to reach me without having to pay extra. It was probably going to be useful to be able to reach my people without limitation, as well.

So as I researched which PDA phone Duncan should get, Michele told me to see about adding me to their plan as well. Good idea.

I settled on the Treo 650. It’s one of two PDA’s Sprint offers and the only one that you can plug a fold up keyboard into. It’s also got speakerphone, so if Duncan couldn’t hear on the highest regular volume setting, maybe he could at least hear it on speaker. (Of course, then the rest of the room could too…)

I will add here that I called Sprint customer service a couple of times. I won’t discuss my conversation with the Pakistani sales rep who couldn’t understand my questions, in normal English, about the functions of the Treo 650. I will say that the first time I called, the automatic bitch who answers hung up on me.

So when I had decided on the 650, I called customer service again. I followed all of the stupid machine’s instructions and answered her inane questions. “What are you calling about?”

Me: “I want to see about buying a PDA.”

Automatic Bitch: “I’m sorry. I didn’t quite get that.”

Me: “Just connect me to a human being, you automatic piece of junk! I need to find out about buying a freakin’ PDA!”

AB: “Hold on a moment while I connect you to a representative.”

Me: “It’s about time!”

AB: “Click.”

Operator: “Doo, dee, DEE. If you’d like to make a call…”

Me: “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!”

Finally, I got a person. She told me that, yes, I could buy a Treo 650 from the store in town; yes, I could save $75 by signing up for Internet access on it and by agreeing to a two year contract; yes, I would get $25 back if I traded in the old phone. I called up the local store just to make sure. The woman who answered assured me of all the same things. I made sure she realized I was buying it for my boss, and he would need to use his old phone over the weekend. That wouldn’t be a problem, she said, I could just bring the old phone in later.

So I drove down to the Sprint store on Saturday morning when Berck was working. I’d intended to do it on Friday, but I had too much to do. I had a heck of a time finding it. It’s “at the corner” of Vickers and Academy, but it’s not. If you drive into the shopping area at the southeast corner of the intersection, you still have to explore all of the different facets of the different strips of stripmall before you’ll find it. And that’s after I exhausted the other three corners.

When you go into a Sprint store, you’re met at the door by a “host.” It’s this person’s job to take down your information, then tell you to wander around until one of the other people is free to deal with you. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Do you want my name or the name of the person on the account?”

“Your name is fine. Someone will call you. What’s your phone number?”

“My phone number?”

“No, the number on the account.”

Sigh.

Finally, Rachel called me. I told her that I needed to buy the Treo 650 for my boss, and not to activate it yet because he was still using his old one. “And I get $75 off the price if I sign up for Internet and agree to a two year contract?”

“No,” said Rachel, “That requires the primary phone user. They have to come here themselves.”

“What?!” I exclaimed, “I talked to customer service AND someone at THIS store, and they both said nothing about that! I explained to the person at this store that I would be buying it for my boss!”

“Who did you talk to?” Rachel asked. (You see how made it a point to remember HER name?)

“I don’t know!” I said, “I didn’t bother to write down her name! I didn’t think I’d have to call her as a witness!”

“Well, they shouldn’t have told you that. You can buy it for the full price now, or a primary account holder can come in, because that’s required when a contract is involved.”

I added up some numbers in my head. Duncan charges $220 an hour for his services. Michele charges 35% of the first year’s salary of anyone she places. I was getting paid $12 an hour to run errands. $75 didn’t seem worth turning around and walking out, especially when Duncan really wanted a new PDA soon. “Fine,” I said.

Today I configured Duncan’s new phone for service, which wasn’t very hard (after the A.B. told me to hold and then put me into a black hole; I called back after ten minutes of absolute silence). Then while I had the rep on the line, I asked her about adding a phone to the account. I’d been so hopping mad at the store on Saturday, I’d forgotten to ask. Besides, I still had to return Duncan’s old phone for the $25 rebate. At least I wouldn’t be out that.

“You cannot add a phone to this account. This account is limited to two phones.”

“What? Why?” Something about credit. I didn’t know what she was talking about, and I couldn’t understand her accent very well anyway. “Well,” I said, “That’s a GREAT way to drive away customers!”

Aren’t mobile phone companies always trying to get you to ADD people to your “plan”? (Do they call that “family planning”?)

I reported to Michele. “I could call back,” I said, “If there’s one thing I’ve learned while dealing with huge corporations while working for Duncan is that every time you call a customer service representative, you’re likely to get a different answer.”

She told me to go ahead and to be sure to tell them, “It sounds like we’re being discriminated against. On what basis are we being discriminated against?”

So I called back. The A.B. hung up on me, and I called back again. “I’d like to add a phone to our plan…”

“Oh, yes ma’am, let me just pull up your information. Oh, you’re limited to only two phones.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re in ‘Credit Class Two.'”

Continued tommorrow: WHAT THE HECK IS CREDIT CLASS TWO???

Eat more chocolate, save a life .

Remember, chocolate is not the answer. It’s the question.

And the answer should always be, “Yes, please!”

Actual Fact: The top website for girls aged 2 to 11 is barbie.com.

Low played here in Colorado Springs Friday night. We found out about it a week ago, and excitedly bought tickets online. Due to some miscommunication, Berck decided on Friday that he couldn’t go, since he had to work early the next morning. So I went by myself.

Low’s trademark sound is playing and singing very, very slow tempo songs. They are Zak Sally on bass, Mimi Parker on drums and vocals, and Alan Sparrowhawk on guitar and vocals. Parker and Sparrowhawk are married. I don’t think we have to worry about them splitting and breaking up the band, because they’re Mormon.

Parker’s “kit” is made up of one tom, one snare, and two cymbals (she added a second cymbal for this tour). Since she doesn’t have any pedals to stomp, she plays standing up. She uses mallets and brushes but never sticks. And, of course, she plays very slow.

Sparrowhawk plays guitar, but not very well. Whenever he would try to break into a solo, he would hit wrong notes half the time, then wince. When you play very slow songs, you don’t usually have to be good on the guitar.

What he is good at is singing and writing songs. He and Parker’s voices blend so beautifully well. They sounded even better in concert than they do recorded.

For an example of how slow they play, this song is four minutes and ten seconds long. And the lyrics don’t repeat.

i remember every number
i remember graduation
i remember painted faces
no they couldn’t believe it was you
i knew

(You can actually watch a video of them playing this song in a live performance on their website.)

One of the advantages of singing so slowly is that it’s much easier to understand the lyrics during a live show.

Also, I was one layer away from the stage. The Black Sheep Pub where they played here is just an empty building with concrete floors with bar at one end and a stage at the other. That’s all they do is give concerts. A good proportion of the people in attendance didn’t seem to know who the heck Low was. Among the orange hair, cat glasses, baggy jeans, and shaggy dos, a couple of frat boys and one of their big-haired girlfriends kept settling in front of me, no matter where I stood. I hoped they would get tired trying to figure Low out and leave, and that’s exactly what happened after about four songs (about the same time Parker hit a cymbal for the first time that evening).

Sparrowhawk and the bassist set up their own equipment before the show, then Parker came out and started a beat. The small crowd in the building kept chatting and conversing as the band started playing (what to only those of us who love them was recognizable as) a song. I wasn’t sure if we should clap at the end. Was a beathouse snapping more in order? But all of those crowded around the stage (except for the Greeks) broke into applause at the end.

I stood up front, making my right ear even more deaf than it is already is, until I was too tired, then retired to the rear of the room and sat at one of the tables by the bar. The volume level was about right back there, but people watching provided a fascinating distraction. Three goths walked in (although I suspect they were really only posers). People were getting increasingly drunk and clumsy. A morbidly obese fellow kept hugging and kissing his anorexic girlfriend, who was in a skirt that barely covered her rear.

I left at their first encore. It was already 11 pm.

We need to get the balance of their albums so Berck can hear what he missed.