The unfriendly skies

Going to the airport shouldn't create the same sense of dread as, say, going to the Audi service department. Or the dentist. Or an audit.

There was an article today on Yahoo titled "America's Meanest Airlines." It listed the five surliest airlines in descending (no pun intended) order.

My question is why wasn't it a five-way tie? Are there any friendly airlines left? Does anyone enjoy flying anymore? Does anyone expect people who work at airlines to be pleasant? Can I fit anymore questions in this paragraph?

You can read the article to find out the criteria they used, but - *SPOILER ALERT* - here are the five worst offenders according to them: US Airways, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, United Airlines (I thought they would've been a lock for first place), and finally, in the number one position, Delta.

Of those, United is the one I've flown most. I have over 375,000 miles with them I have to use before they expire. Or they raise the number of miles required for a seat. Or, even more likely, they drop the program entirely citing it as too costly.

When I used to freelance at FCB San Francisco (Foote, Cone & Belding for my non-agency readers), I commuted from Santa Monica to San Francisco. I'd fly up Monday morning and fly back Friday night. I did it for nine months and loved it. At LAX and SFO, I could get to the gate ten minutes before the flight. The gatekeepers (see what I did there?) knew me by name, and because I flew so much would often upgrade me without even asking. I know it's only an hour flight, but here's my philosophy: no flight too short for first.

Flying was actually fun back then, plus I liked the idea I could get to San Francisco from Santa Monica faster than I could drive to Irvine at rush hour.

But of course, 9/11 happened and changed the flying experience forever.

Nine years later, it's hard to figure out the astonishing lack of responsibility airlines take for their own situation. Like the stock market, lottery tickets and the Liberace Museum, owning an airline was never a guaranteed way to make money.

However, gouging flyers with fees on everything from carry ons to blankets to bathroom privileges apparently is. The airlines made billions in the last two years off these fees, whining all the way to the bank about how they need to make money somewhere because of high fuel costs, less people flying, etc.

What's the word I'm looking for here? Oh yeah. Bullshit.

The past two years, thanks to those fees, profits have soared. Airlines fly fewer planes that are more full than ever. The price of jet fuel has actually gone down. And seriously, if you can't make money in your chosen business, maybe you've chosen the wrong business.

The other thing is unruly passengers are a given. In the airline industry, you kind of know that going in. And while there's no excuse for passengers being rude, there's even less of one for airline employees to be. Things like opening the emergency door on the runway, giving everyone the finger, then jumping down the slide might make you a folk hero on Facebook, but that 15 minutes is over before you're even off the slide.

Airline employees say they're being pushed to the brink because the airlines are squeezing profits by cutting staff and trying to do more with fewer employees. Really? Name me a business that isn't.

My point, and yes I have one, is that it can be done. There are profitable airlines like Southwest and Jet Blue. There are airlines like Virgin America and Jet Blue (when their attendants aren't bailing out of the plane) that go out of their way to make the customer experience a great one.

For long cross-country and international flights, airlines know they've got us. There's no alternative. No one's going to be driving to Hawaii. But on short hauls, where airlines make a substantial portion of their income, there are plenty of options.

Unless airlines change their attitude, eventually their customers will reach the tipping point.

When that happens, all those nice profits they're enjoying now will be in a permanent holding pattern.

Why I Love Costco Part 1: The Costco Diet

Where to start. Okay, let’s start with the samples.

If I were homeless*, which could still happen – I have goals you know - I’d find myself a popular freeway off-ramp, design a really nice cardboard sign (I have art director friends, so….) and be the best gosh, darn homeless person asking for money so I could get enough to buy a Costco membership.

Then, I’d go on the Costco diet.

The Costco diet consists of walking up one big aisle in Costco and down the other, sampling all the foods they offer along the way. Yesterday two of the offerings were Hormel Chili (“Not too watery, not too salty...”) and fresh-baked Costco pumpkin pies which, as my friend Phil says, are the size of manhole covers.

The beauty of the Costco diet is the randomness of it. One day it’s frozen cheescake and Hansens Nectar. The next its Louisiana Hot Links and chicken soup.

Sampling food at Costco always reminds me of Woody Allen’s line from Annie Hall, “This food is terrible. And such small portions.” The samples are small, but the good news is the people handing them out aren’t paid nearly enough to care how many times you go back.

Especially if you wear your sweatshirt hood up the second time around. Or so I hear.

If you’re really hungry, go back a lot. If you’re on a strict “I don’t know what kind of cheese that is but they’re handing it out so I’ll try it” diet, then just make one pass through the store.

I know, you’re probably thinking virtually endless free samples of preservative-laden, packaged and canned food is its own reward. And you're right. That alone would make the visit worth the trip. But there’s also a hidden benefit: since the stores are so ginormous, not only are you getting a free meal, you’re also getting in a ton of exercise with all the walking you're doing.

At least that's what I tell myself.

Maybe their new tagline should be “Costco. It works on so many levels.”

I don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea. I mentioned the Costco diet is what I’d do if I were homeless. The truth is I occasionally do it now, although not out of necessity. And not every day. I try to stick to weekends between 10 and 3 when the number of sample hander-outers and variety is the greatest.

There are many things to love about Costco (Modern Family even devoted part of an episode to it). Sampling is just one of them.

I’ll discuss more in the next installment of what I just now decided to call The Costco Files.

*I realize homelessness is a serious problem. It is not my intention to diminish it or make fun of anyone in that situation. If you’re homeless and reading this blog on your laptop, I’m sorry.

If only

If only someone would take this New Agey, best sellin', crystal readin', self actualizin', India trippin', fortune cookie sayin' book and turn it into a tale of love and desire only, you know,
with vampires and shapeshifters.

Oh, wait a minute.

Never mind.

Run don't walk

I'm a sucker for a good horse movie. Hidalgo, Black Beauty, Flicka, Dreamer, Seabiscuit, all of 'em. But for me, this latest one, Secretariat, is the best in a very long time.

The challenge of a horseracing film of course is to build suspense when the audience already knows how it ends. The other challenge is to make it about more than just a fast horse. Secretariat does both things incredibly well.

Not only does it capture the drama and miracle of this remarkable animal, it gives a moving and accurate portrayal of Penny Chenery, who literally bet the farm on this horse. There are also the requisite horse racing scenes, although here they are remarkably gritty and realistic. There's one incredible slow-motion shot of the horse running with all four feet in the air that, for me, is worth the price of admission.

I'd be saying all this even if Diane Lane, my future second wife, wasn't in the movie. But she is, and as usual turns in a solid, stoic and moving performance. John Malkovich is also his quirky, funny self, and is outstanding as the trainer who saw Secretariat's potential literally from the moment the horse was born.

The other thing I loved is there's an old Hollywood feel to the movie. A glamourous, golden-agey sensibilty. It reminds me that there's a certain genre of movie - inspirational, edge-of-your seat, lump-in-your throat, not a car crash in sight kind of film - that Hollywood can do exceedingly well when it has the right material to work with.

This is a winning example of it.

Shut up and roll

It’s that time of year again. The weather’s getting cooler (not counting the record-setting 113 degree day last week). Kids are back in school. The holidays are just around the corner. And I’m counting the days until my annual trip to SEMA in Las Vegas.

SEMA is the Specialty Equipment Market Association convention held every November at the Vegas convention center. It’s over a million square feet of intricately tricked out cars, vintage hot rods, customized paint jobs, ear-shattering tuners, chrome wheels, smiling car show models and auto executives frantically networking and handing out resumes (I don’t know if you heard, it’s been a tough couple years for those boys). At SEMA, it’s all about automotive aftermarket products and equipment.

That’s not what it’s about for me. For me, it’s about Vegas.

I have a confession to make. I love that town, and not in the nice-place-to-visit or once-a-year-is-enough kind of way. I mean really love it. Beyond reason. I’ve said this in another post, but it bears repeating here: Vegas is the only place I know where everything you hear about it, good or bad, is true.

Even if you don’t gamble, there’s still a great time to be had. Cheap (relatively) hotel rooms, great spas, amazing restaurants, headline acts, first-class shows – many of them without tigers. You can have a great time without having to spend one hard-earned cent gambling.

Of course, why you’d want to do it that way is beyond me.

Every year I go to SEMA with my friend Pete who used to be my client on a car account I worked on. He's one of my best friends, and we always have a great time. Here’s the ritual: we go to the show, walk the floor, see what’s new, catch up with his friends in the industry.  We have dinner at Circo at the Bellagio. I call my wife. Then we go to the crap tables.

Or I should say I go to the crap tables.

The tables are where Pete and I part ways philosophically. Apparently he just doesn’t enjoy having watered-down drinks brought to him non-stop while risking large sums of money on a roll of the dice. And not just my roll of the dice, but everyone else that gets to be the shooter as well.

So while Pete does whatever he does while I’m playing (and I believe what he does is humor me), I have a great time rolling the bones. I don’t even know how to describe it. What’s that? Sick? Compulsive? Not really. Just fun.

I play for a while. I set a limit. I have a system.

My system is this: I play until I’m out of money. Then I go to the ATM and get more money. Then I play some more. Say what you will, but that damn ATM pays out every time.

Eventually I start feeling bad for ditching Pete while I’m playing craps, and I leave the table to find him. We’ll have a drink, talk about the day’s events, make plans for the next day at the show. I call my wife. He goes back to his room. And I go back to the tables for a couple more hours.

Oh yeah Pete, like you didn’t know.

When I’m not in Vegas, I love talking about it to anyone who’ll listen. Especially if they feel the same way I do. I had lunch today with my friend Laura. I've worked with her at two agencies, yet didn't realize until today what kindred spirits we actually are. She told me about a recent trip to Vegas with some friends of hers. She had me at, “God I love it there."

Sadly not everyone I've gone with has felt that way. I’ve been there - usually on a business trip - with people who absolutely hate the place. Oddly enough, every time one of those people is tapping their foot impatiently, constantly checking their watch and staring at me while I’m playing craps, I lose. Then when they leave, I start winning. There’s only one logical conclusion you can come to with this information.

The Vegas table gods know who likes them and who doesn’t.

One of the best accounts I ever worked on was The Reserve Hotel & Casino in Henderson, just outside Vegas. It was great for many reasons, especially the trips to present work to the client. We saw the casino being built, watched them install  the slots, and saw the tables brought in. We were there for the fireworks-filled grand opening. I played craps with all of my agency pals, who were just as excited as I was. And we all won.

Remember the part about the Vegas table gods?

As I read this post, I occurs to me that it might be easy to get the idea I have a gambling problem. I don’t. The truth is I enjoy it when I’m there, but do realize there is a real life, and real expenses, to come back to. I don’t go expecting to win. That way when I do, it’s a nice surprise. Don’t worry about me. My savings accounts are intact, the bills get paid, and the kid’s college accounts remain untouched.

The real truth of the matter is I wouldn’t go to Vegas as often as I want even if I could.

It wouldn’t leave me any time for the track.

The Dog Walker

I have an 80 lb. German Sheperd named Max. Short for Maximillan (that's the German part). That's not him in the picture. It's not me either. Max can't walk on a tightrope, and I couldn't catch him. Although if it were us, and the situation were reversed, I have no doubt he wouldn't hesitate to try and catch me.

Then he'd be a German Pancake.

Here's the thing about dogs: like so many relationships in life, all you have to do is feed them and clean up their poop, and in return they give you unconditional love. On days when I don't have to suffer the embarrassment of being seen carrying that steaming little plastic bag, it's not a bad deal.

The problem is a lot of the time, no one's around to take Max out for a walk. The good news is his bladder is pretty sizable. The bad news is so is his water bowl. Realizing this was going to be an issue, I carefully considered all the options.

Doggie door? Nope. If I was going to install one for a dog his size, I may as well hang a sign over it that says, "Burglars welcome. Enter here. Watch your head."

Have Grandma walk him? Don't get me wrong - I love seeing an 83-year old woman dragged down the street hanging on to a leash and screaming for dear life as much as the next guy. But not when she's my wife's mother. Well...no.

Finally I got to the option that made me the most nervous, but also made the most sense: dog walker. Now, where I live there's no shortage of professional dog walkers. But you have to be careful you don't hire someone who's just doing it as a hobby, or between classes.

Fortunately there are a few telltale signs to look for that let you know you're dealing with a professional.

First, make sure they're members of the National Association of Pet Sitters, or Pet Sitters International. Then, they need to have a glossy business card with a silly but cute illustration of an adorable dog smiling, wagging his tail or smiling disturbingly with a mouthful of human teeth. Bonded and insured are also good things to see on the card, although they don't have to actually be that to print it. Finally, there has to be a groaner of a business name. Dogdo Dog Walkers. Fur Their Sake. Wedo Fur You. Petropolis. Or my personal favorite, Dog Bless America.

The lifeblood of their business is referrals. I always check them out, and I've been very lucky. My first dog walker, Desiree, was with us five years (Max is 6, so she was as much a constant in his life as I am). Sadly, she got an offer to run a canine agility center in Seattle.

She referred me to Heidi, another dog walker who was modeling her business and training skills after Desiree. Heidi was there three weeks when her parents in Europe fell ill and she had to leave the country to go care for them.

Tonight, I interviewed Mary Ellen, our third dog walker. She was great. Her references were impeccable. Most importantly, Max loved her. Well, actually that's the second most important thing. The first is I didn't get the vibe this stranger who I happily handed my house key and alarm code to is going to rob me blind and sell my laptop and Xbox on Craigslist.

So tomorrow, Max starts walking with a new friend. I'm hopeful everything will work out fine. I want it to.

Because what I really don't want is to be left holding the bag.

On the street

I have a few loves in my life. One of them is roller coasters.

After all, what’s not to love about being strapped in the front car of a coaster by an indifferent, minimum-wage earning attendant, whiplashed up a 10-story hill by a rickety chain, then hurtling downhill at a face-flattening 75 degree angle with the ground coming at you at 65 mph.

I know, right?

Another one is Las Vegas. I love that town because everything you've ever heard about it, good or bad, is true. Name one other place like that. I already hear you tsk tsk-ing. But you know what your problem is? You’re just not focused on the right things.

Color me romantic, but I can’t get enough of daylight depravation, cigarette smoke permeating my clothing from walking through the casino, cocktail waitresses serving watered down mixed drinks 24/7, the feel of dice in my hands, crap table bets I know nothing about but make anyway, parents with 8 month-old babies slung over their shoulders walking through the casino at 3 in the morning, a one-third scale Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower right there in the desert where they belong, the intoxicating smell of desperation and bankruptcy.

The real question is what’s not to love?

So when my friend Janice (more about her in a minute) presented me with the idea of participating in the perfect mix of both those worlds – the stock market – I jumped on it.

After all, what could possibly go wrong?

It’s not like I haven’t dabbled in the market before. Years ago, a month before Close Encounters of the Third Kind came out, my friend Ned told me to buy Columbia Pictures stock. I did. The movie came out, made a ton of money and the stock took off faster than the mother ship. I held on to it for about two weeks then sold it for a tidy return on my investment.

I remember thinking, “I could get used to this."

My next dive into the investment pool was off a recommendation from my Taco Bell client at the time, Bob McKay. Bob started Taco Bell with Glenn Bell, and as you might imagine, had more money than God. Two things were true about Bob: he was an architect who actually designed the original mission-style Taco Bell restaurants, and became a multi-millionaire selling cheap tacos and burritos to the masses. And, he became a gazillionaire when Pepsi bought Taco Bell. Overnight he was one of the biggest Pepsi stockholders in history.

He seemed to be doing well. Why wouldn't I take a stock tip from him.

The tip was a company called Birdview Satellites. Seems they had this futuristic idea of satellites broadcasting television signals down to 18-inch satellite dishes they’d build and sell. You’d be able to mount these dishes on the patio, the roof, the backyard, wherever. Bob made a convincing case, and the idea sounded good to me. I bought a hundred shares at $20 each (I’ll save you the trouble - $2000).

It turned out as good as their idea was, it was just too ahead of its time. People - and by people I mean banks, investors, networks and the general public - thought getting crystal clear TV signals from space on small, inexpensive satellite dishes was just crazy talk. One telltale sign it was going south was when I got the statement from Paine Webber listing the stock value as “worthless.”

I remember thinking, "who needs this?"

About seven or eight years ago, I bought some shares of Apple at $52. The very next day, Apple had a press conference saying they’d overestimated earnings, and the stock value was sliced in half to $26. Yeah, I was feeling pretty street savvy right about then. The decision was whether to cut my losses or hang on to the Apple stock. I hung on to it figuring at the very least IBM would buy Apple and buy back the stock for something closer to what I paid for it.

Needless to say, I’m glad iHung on to it.

Fast forward to yesterday. I was iChatting with my aforementioned friend Janice, an awesome author, blogger and artist in her own right. As I discovered, I need to add “investor” to the list. Come to find out Janice is an E-Trade preferred customer. She’s online every day checking the stocks, buying and selling, and, as we like to say, building the empire.

I hadn’t thought about stocks in a long time, but after a little convincing from her about how much fun and rewarding buying and selling online was, it was all I was thinking about.

Today I logged into my dormant Schwab account and saw I had around 4 large sitting in a cash account. So I bought 10 shares of one stock, and 12 of another. Not many, but they were expensive shares.

I’d like to think otherwise, but I know Monday I’ll be online first thing seeing how the stocks are doing. And Tuesday. And Wednesday. You see where I’m going here. It may already be too late, but I really am going to try not to become too obsessed with it.

There are two things I know for sure. First, since I'm back in the market I'll probably be too nervous to see the sequel to Wall Street anytime soon.

And second, if these stocks tank, I’ll be having another chat with Janice.