It's currently 60 degrees Farenheit in South Lake Tahoe. I really hope this doesn't mean that the NorCal ski season is all but over, but if this weather continues what little snow we had will melt off in a hurry and it won't get cold enough at night to make more snow, even if the resorts were inclinded to so. I could be up there enjoying the spring conditions, but instead I'm laying around watching the NCAA tourney. Maybe I'll go up tonight after the UCLA game. Anyway, good thing this global warming is just a myth perpetuated by peer-reviewed scientist and left wing loonies, otherwise I might think that was a connection between, say greenhouse gas emissions and absurdly warm temperatures and ski resorts in wintertime.

Posted by andrew at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I finally got around to talking to US Bank about their outrageous fees for foriegn currency exchange and they agreed to reverese the charges for the two most egregious line items--more than 80 dollars for two transactions. Chris, the customer service rep explained to me that they can only reverse two charges per year. Fine, but I'm willing to bet anything that if they do this again, and they will, that if I elevate the call to one supervisor and then the next supervisor I will eventually find someone at US Bank who reverse whatever charge I want under threat of losing me as a customer. And if not, well, there are a few other credit cards on the market who will be happy to have my business.

Posted by andrew at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It really bothers me how reactive American airport security is. Some guy tries to bomb a plane with his shoes and now we all have to take off our shoes at security. There's some plot to bomb planes with some liquid explosive and little nazi-esque security dwarfs scream at us to put all of our liquids in a 3 ounce container and place them in the zip lock bag (forget the fact that don't make available 3 oz. bottles or even zip lock bags for this purpose). Next thing you know we'll hear of someone who tried to blow up an airport with his boxers and we will all be forced to fly commando. It's crazy.

So when I went through security in Austin, they confiscated my unopened 8 oz bottle of water. When they took it away, the TSA guard asked me if I wanted to drink it outside and I just looked at him like he was nuts and said, what do think, that I'm going to blow up a plane with this bottle of water? What does he respond? "Terrorists are creative." Right. Whatever. Forget that he's accusing me of being terrorist. I suppose they have to be somewhat vigilant, but this is just beyond absurd.

Can you imagine a scenario where a terrorist comes to an airport with explosives in a bottle of water that he's fastidiously sealed ("Terrorists are fastidious") only to have it taken away by the TSA? What would he do. Would he take the flight and be forced to contemplate his mistakes. Fuck!--Next time I'm going to put the liquid explosive in cargo. Would he go ballistic? He wouldn't do anything because it would never happen. Even if it did, he wouldn't be a redheaded jew and it wouldn't happen in Austin.

The joke is on them, because the oh so vigilant TSA screeners in Austin let me get through secutiry with an unsealed pint of (very liquid and extremely suspicious) sherry viniagrette salad dressing that I bought at the Driskoll Hotel in downtown Austin.

Posted by andrew at 01:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The return from Austin could have been a major nightmare. It almost was. But alls well that ends well. Here's how it went down. I got in a taxi to head to the airport and it's bucketing down rain. We hit the freeway and it is wall to wall cars. The driver knew the shortcuts to the airport and we detoured around the worst. Otherwise I might have been late for my flight which never took off.

My departure was set for 4:49pm. Stopping in Denver, I was due into SFO at around 10:30pm. It was promising to be a long day in cattle class as it was. Just a few miniutes before departure, it's clear we're going to be late. They hadn't started boarding. It was clear something was wrong. The first announcement said our plane mechanical problems. Not good. The second announcement was even worse.

The woman from United came on and said that our plane was grounded. There was another plane coming in from Denver later that night which we could take. It would be leaving Denver at 7:30, arriving in Austin around 9, heading back to Denver in the 11 o'clock hour and arriving after midnight. Excellent.

Austin has a small airport. There are not many flights coming in and out, but I thought for sure we get a flight to another connecting city, say Dallas and then head to our final destinations from there. That way we wouldn't have to arrive at our layover city after midnight, have to spend the night and then head on to the Bay Area the next morning.

Why I was pondering my fate, there was another announcement from United saying they thought there was an American flight to San Jose leaving at 7:30 which could accomodate United passengers traveling to the Bay Area. Wow. There was a surge to line up at the counter to get flights sorted out. I didn't react as fast as I should have and ended up close to the end of the line, which I waited in for more than 90 minutes to get a seat on the American flight, which I did.

It was really lucky. Not only did I get a seat, but I had an aisle seat on the 2 side of the 2-3 configuration and there was no one sitting next to me. No food on the flight, but I did buy an extra burrito at Chiptole and had some beef jerky. I relaxed, watched the movie Heaven on my Mac and settlled in for the dirext flight.

Now United made no mention of arranging transportion for us people who had paid for a ticket to SFO or Oakland but were going to arrive in San Jose. Yes, the Friendly Skies. Hard to image, I know. I called a friend and got her to come grab me. She was going to have to come to Emeryville to check in on the cats anyway, so it wasn't that much out of her way, but it was really nice and I owe her big time. I still can't believe that airline didn't do anything for us.

Amazingly, my bags arrived on the flight and came onto to the carousel in the first batch of bags. It must have been one of the last ones to get into cargo. So it actually worked out well. Direct flight instead of a layover. 2 seats all to myself. And that bags that arrived. Not bad.

Posted by andrew at 07:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's disconcerting when your preconceived notions of a person don't come close to meeting with reality. It fucks with your world view. I'm a huge fan of Douglas Coupland. I have been since I read Generation X back in college. Since then I've several of his books including Shampoo Planet and Microserfs. When I saw that Coupland was speaking in one of the sessions I had to go even though it conflicted with the first keynote of SXSW.

Coupland was there to promote the opening of his first movie, Everything's Gone Green. I expected him to talk some about the movie and the process of screenplay writing, and he did that. But most of what he did was babble in a nonsensical stream of consciousness mess making me wish someone had spiked his tea with acid and that this wasn't the real Douglas Coupland.

His talk was full of pregnant pauses, self-reflexive admonitions to himself, nonsequitors and pointless rambling anecdotes. I honestly felt sorry for the guy. I was desparate to get up and leave, but I was sitting in the first row of the room and I didn't want to embarass his, so I just sufferred in total silence while I wathced Coupland implode on the stage.

Posted by andrew at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dear Andrew Hecht,

The business you have loaned to, MAWUPEMO, has made a repayment of $166.00. The total amount repaid up to now is $500.00. The payment was collected and deposited by Microfund Togo. This repayment will be divided amongst all the lenders who helped to fund this business, depending upon the percentage each lender contributed.

The first of Kiva loans has been repaid. Mr. Kouassi Houessou used our loan to buy a freezer and two coolers to expand his ice cream business in Lomé, Togo. His enterprise must be doing really well because he managed to repay his loan in 2 1/2 months and the terms of the loan called for 3-12 months.

This is a seriously feel good moment.

I continue to urge you get involved. It's really simple. Go to Kiva.org. Find a loan you want to help finance. Register. And then pay for the loan with your Paypal account. You'll be glad you did.

Posted by andrew at 12:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Snowed all week. Made record time. Took exactly three hours to get from Emeryville to Stateline and only another 10 minutes up to the cabin. This was a marked improvement over the hellish nightmare returning from Tahoe last weekend.

Huge snowbanks are lining the roads 50 miles out from Tahoe. There is so much it's sick. I had to take the day off. Tomorrow is supposed to beautiful. There is nothing on the radar. I'll take lots of pictures.

Posted by andrew at 12:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)