De-Nerdify Me Please

Friday before a holiday weekend, the last place any of us wants to be is at work. Even less to stay late at work. Well I was doing a personal favor for a friend and helping format a new hard drive and install Windows. Starting the process (upon receiving the laptop) at 4:00pm met with immediate chagrin. This process will take multiple hours and please do not tell me I am going to stay at work, alone, until the process is done. It’s a good thing those designers at IBM decided to put batteries inside those laptops. So here I am driving home on 237, with a laptop beside me in the passenger seat calmly proceeding with the installation. With every beep I would proceed to enter proper information and enter into the next step. So lets summarize, me, Matthew driving home installing Windows on a laptop. Can I become any more nerdy if I try? I think not.

Switching subjects, it is a holiday weekend and as such no commitments no obligations just good ol’ fashion days off. So what would someone do if they have no responsibilities? Absolutely nothing! Between two de-stressing walks outside, finishing Stiff (the book), and watching a couple of movies. Yes I love action and killer movies, but tonight was Polyanna followed by Parent Trap. Ok how many sappy movies can one watch on a Saturday night? Well apparently at least a few. But that is what days off are for.

Truth be told I am a little disappointed, this weekend was supposed to be spent elsewhere. United Airlines was gracious enough to give me a gift as part of a promotion of a free flight anywhere in the country for flying 150,000 miles last year. The certificate was delivered halfway through April and I had until end of May to redeem it. The trip had to be flown prior to June 11^th. If you think this sounds a little rigid, you guessed right, but it gets better. So I decided spur of the moment lets take this holiday weekend and go to Florida and visit a good friend. Tried to book on United, there were no seats left allowable for this fare. So I figure maybe its just the weekend, how about anytime from now until June 11? Nope not a single flight from now until then would they allow me to fly. On behalf of a 100,000 mile flyer, I would like to thank you for being so generous to your top customers. You generosity knows no bound, although pathetic and going broke faster than a bat out of hell does come to mind. Its bad enough you are treating your own employees like the carpet laid so gently down by the gate, to be treaded on by thousands, but now you are treating your customers the same way. You keep this up, and companies such as mine will be forced to start thinking about other options for preferred carriers. Wise up United, you are on a collision course (no pun intended) to the same course of Pan-Am and Eastern Airlines.

Changing subject once again (more of a random thought day than usual), just wanted to give a quick word of thanks to my parents. Yes I know it is neither mother’s day, father’s day, parent’s day, birthday or any other special occasion, but having spent more than a few hours chatting with them on the phone or lovely text messaging, they can always make me smile (which is not altogether easy at 5am). Talking with another who is going through a rough spot and whose parents and family in general is actually making it worse, makes me all the more thankful for my family who not may not always agree with decisions made by my sister and I, is at least respectful of who we are. So thanks to you both, we are both lucky to have you around.