Amused by Rick

It sucked.

5:00a: Wake up
5:15a: Check Hawaiian airlines, flight is delayed from 8:50 to 11a
5:20a: Wife goes back to sleep, dad watches TV
6:00a: Sam wakes up
6:20a: Jill & Sofie wake up
6:45a: We leave the house
7:00a: Drop the Yuke off at Jill’s parents
7:45a: Pull up to LAX, Terminal 2, Hawaiian Airlines
7:55a: Find porter, informs us that it’s too late to check in to the flight, even though it’s delayed 2 hours. He leaves to check.
8:10a: All bags are checked in, we enter the terminal and wait to go through TSA security line
8:30a: In the terminal, find a row of 4 chairs overlooking the runway and set up camp. No plane is visible at the gate.
9:30a: No plane visible at the gate
10:00a: Terminal is full, announcement that the plane is having a “part replaced” and an update will come from maintenance at 11am. we are obviously not leaving at 11am.
10:45a: People are getting extremely upset, a few shouting confrontations occur. Many passengers had been waiting in the terminal since 6am.
11:00a: An announcement arrives that the part is installed, and another announcement will come at noon.
11:45a: I build rapport with the manager and ask her what the likelihood is of the plane actually taking off (she had been getting screamed at by most everyone else, I played the good cop). She says “low” and offers the chance to have Hawaiian book me on another plane to Hawaii. The next flight out is 5:30 (5 hours later) on American. An update is due from maintenance in 15m. We are perplexed. I wanted to stay and wait for the announcement, Jill wants to book another airline.
12:00p: Jill’s gut feeling wins out, we exit the terminal. The security line is so long we realize there is no going back.
12:05p: At the Hawaiian Airlines ticketing counter, there are only 2 agents working, and they are painfully slow.
12:15p: Flight listed as “canceled” on the departure board.
12:20p: Flight removed from the board, ticketing agents remark that it was a mistake
2:15p: a full two hours later, finally reach the ticketing counter. A 3:30p direct flight to Maui on United closed up just minutes before we got our chance.
2:45p: After 30m of watching the agent type and look confused we got tickets on a 5:30p flight to Honolulu on American. It would mean we would have to stay in Honolulu and fly to Maui the next day, we are OK with this. For my trouble, I negotiated $900 in flight credits and a promise to pay for my hotel in Honolulu.
3:00p: We arrive at the AA ticket desk, there is another painfully long line waiting for us. We find out from other HI travelers we recognized that the Hawaiian airlines flight was actually postponed until 11:30p, not canceled. We feel lucky.
3:45p: We get our tickets and head through security. I have no metal items on me, yet the metal detector rings. Both myself and my 3 year old son are searched. What a sad, fucking world we live in when TSA agents are frisking a 3 year old. I was extremely upset that this happened. I hate feeling like a criminal in my own country. I think that the machine was rigged to flag us b/c we went through the exact same detector earlier and didn’t get flagged.
3:55p: arrive at the gate, relieved. We find another spot close to the window and let the kids run around. They have been in the airport for 8 hours now and were amazingly OK with everything, rolling around having a good time. They didn’t know how bad they were being screwed.
3:50p: I check in with a gate agent b/c we don’t have seats on the ticket, she said I had to wait for the flight agents to arrive but that I should get a seat.
4:00p: Gate change
5:00p: The nightmare continues, gate agent announces that the “plane has been switched at the last minute and there are 20 fewer seats, all seats are being automatically reassigned.” I wait in line, agent tells me that my name will be called when and if I have seats.
5:30p: Our name hasn’t been called yet, I pay for internet access and start researching other options. Up until this point I was resigned to the bad luck, but considering how things are going 9 hours into it, I start freaking out. Kids are getting difficult to handle, Sam is especially argumentative.
5:45p: Our name is called, we have seats. Together. We are tired, sad, but jubilant. We are on our way to Hawaii.
5:55p: Plane starts boarding. A new friend I had made points out that we can board the plane in the first class line b/c we have children. Cool, we get on board and settle in.
6:20p: Most passengers are on board. Suddenly, the plane shuts off. Jets stop spinning, lights turn off, a/c stops. Dead quiet, pitch dark. Emergency lights come on. Slowly, the plane starts making the usual noises. Things feel sketchy.
6:25p: The captain announces what he thinks was the problem (a short out of a power junction thingy) and mentions that the part has to be inspected by the maintenance crew. Will take 20m.
7:25p: An hour later, the plane checks out. Fully two hours after scheduled departure, we are ready to take off. I was not particularly thrilled about being on this aircraft.
7:45p: Waiting for “last minute baggage” and “we are really going to do it this time folks, we are ready to pull away.”
7:55p: Power loss again.
8:15p: Captain announces that the plane needs to be checked. A few moments later they tell us we have to get off the plane. Great. I didn’t know this, but when we got off I left my case full of Children’s DVDs on the plane. Critical mistake.
8:25p: We are in the terminal again, at this point we are screwed. Broken plane, baggage is checked in, kids are freaking out, totally at the mercy of AA. I take Sofia for a walk and notice that the ground crew is taking luggage off our old plane, so there is no chance we are getting back on it to fly out. Feeling desperate.
8:55p: Jill rings and says that my new friend is signaling me to join him in antoher line. I walk over, the news is that a new plane is coming and we need to check in once more to verify our seats. Good news. Subsequently, the ticketing agent verifies our seats.
9:45p: Plane arrives at the gate. It’s much larger than the last one (a 767). Kids are in total freak mode, parents are freaking out a little too. We are all on our 13th hour. We should be in bed in Maui by now.
10:45p: Plane boards.
11:00p: Plane takes off. Jill jokes that if we had stayed with Hawaiian for the 11:30p flight then we would have been kicking ourselves for not switching airlines, yet there we were taking off on American at the exact same time. The irony is at least entertaining. There is enough room for Jill and I to take 2 complete middle rows. We set the kids up to sleep but they are way too amped. Dad gets mad and yells at Sam, Jill convinces dad to just let him watch the DVD player. Sam falls asleep after 10m. Sofia takes 90m longer.
12:00a: Some time later, attendant offers drinks. I take a Jack Daniels and an individual sized bottle of wine, and drink them in short order. Feeling good.
12:45a: Feeling bad. Drank too fast, no food in stomach. Proceed to vomit 2 times over the course of the next 90m, preventing me from sleeping.
2:00a: Finally fall asleep. Jill is asleep too, Sofia put up a pretty big fight. I was ready for a nasty scrap if any of the nasty looks from other passengers materialized into verbal communication.

Switching to Hawaiian time, PST + 3 hours.

1:00a: Plane lands. On the descent Sam vomits everything in his stomach. It was upsetting for the both of us. Passengers around were very nice and handed me towels and blankets to clean up.
1:15a: We were told to go to the ticketing desk to get a hotel voucher, but noone is present. We take a shuttle to the nearest hotel, the Ohana Airport Hotel, and check in. Kids look like zombies.
1:45a: We go to sleep, Sofia has a hard time again, but we all go down.
4:45a: Dad wakes up, Sam wakes up. Everyone wakes up feeling much better. We take showers, get dressed.
5:30a: Get on shuttle back to the airport.
5:50a: Check in for our flight, agent says we have to get seats at the gate. I appeal to a higher authority, a manager steps over. I calmy explain the situation and he agrees to fix it. He walks away with my tickets and returns in 10m with seat assignments in the handicap row. With a window seat too, I was worried about Sam vomiting again.
9:00a approximate: We land in Maui, almost a full day after we originally arrived at LAX.
10:30a: We arrive at our condo in Kahana, just north of Kaanapali. 23 hours of travel, door to door, for a 5 hour flight.

I can’t say I am mad, I’m just really glad it’s over and that we are here in Maui. It was just as likely that we would have given up and gone home only to try again the next day. The kids were amazingly tough, they took things well and we were so proud of them. I can’t correct the airline industry, but I can find ways around it. First Class, for example, would have made most of this experience more tolerable — VIP lounges, better service, etc. Booking on larger, more stable airlines with a better maintenance record would be good too, except Hawaiian ranks high in this industry category.

I want my hotel stay in Honolulu reimbursed and I’m going to wrestle them for a few more miles. From what I hear, this is an extremely rare event for Hawaiian Airlines and since I have another free rewards ticket, a 50% off coupon and $900 in flight credits, I’ll be flying them in the future again anyway. As for American, almost the exact same thing happened to me in Chicago a few years ago, so I’ll avoid them as much as possible. I don’t ever want to forget this experience so this is why I wrote it down, ad nauseum.

Pick it up! Pick it up! Pick it up! Pick it up! Pick it up! Pick it up! Pick it up!

Ska for kids. Awesome.

LATimes.com allows user commentary on it’s articles which makes it interesting to see how people are reacting to the issues. It pulls journalism closer to it’s readers similar to how a blog interacts with it’s peanut gallery but different in that it’s very clear that there is a piece of journalism and then a related set of commentary apart from the article. In blog style I find it hard to uncouple the two, especially when the author participates in the banter.

The Homicide Report is a great, sad example of how this feature can connect a story to real people (here’s a touching example, read the note from the daughter of the victim). Sometimes reader commentary can be thoroughly disappointing too, as in this case, a story of a mother and her two children killed as a result of illegal street racing. Examples of comments I found repulsive:

• I belive the strongest measure for street racing is to automatically lay down a new law or bill that makes street racing an attemped murder charge the minute they even participate a race in the streets especially if they get caught street racing.
• Look at who is doing the street racing: male hispanics aged 17 to 30. Make it a law that they cannot drive in Ca. until they can speak English, prove they’re not alcoholics or involved in gangs, have a valid Ca. driver’s license and are over 30 years of age. If they can’t satisfy any of those, DEPORT THEM ASAP!
• The United States should not tolerate people like this. They should be deported to some other country where they would torture them for crimes…

I posted my own comment with condolences to the victim’s family and it hasn’t shown yet, 4 hours after I originally submitted, so moderation is indeed in place. Considering the extreme nature of a handful of comments it would be interesting to hear their policy on what they hold and what they let through. Filtering out condolences and blatant stupidity I found that the balance of the commentary was draconian, tickling my recollection of the message in Frontline’s most excellent recent story, “When kids get life.“

Obviously the editorial staff at the LA Times are paying attention too, they haven’t just turned this over to a bunch of interns, here’s a humorous stab at the comment spam they are getting on the LA Land blog in the Real Estate section: When a “comment” is a come-on.

I will continue to skim through the comments, every now and then, there is something worth reading:

• Guys / Gals, I am a personal friend of the Man who lost his family. He loved his family and although he was not in the car with his wife and two children, he died with them. There are 1,000 fixes and 1,000 arguments why each one won’t work. This is a simple case of two individules that did not have responsibility instilled into them. In this case, it is my friend’s wife and kids that paid the ticket. I do not know if my friend will ever be the same, probably not, however I do know that we have to instill responsibility into our children and raise them to be pro-active in thier choices, not reactive to a challenge.

It went by so fast and it’s been such a fun trip.  In a selfish way, I’m sad you’re one, but I’m also honored to have taken every step of the way with you.  Happy birthday, Sofie!