Jeff's Stuff

From time to time I travel by air. Now, air travel can be stressful. Certainly, in the post-9/11 world airport security alone has made travel by air more of a chore than ever. Between flight delays, lost luggage, inedible meals and brain dead security screeners, air travel today is more stressful than ever.

Still, that's not what I'm talking about today. Today, I want to focus on the little things that people do to add stress to me. I want to focus on two types of people you find on a plane. These people may feel that aren't doing anything wrong but they are. Let me elaborate.

The Seat Sharer

Airlines began requiring obese passengers to purchase a second seat when flying. While this caused much furor among overweight passengers, I for one am relieved. I am tired of having someone sitting next to me who is so large that they cannot fit into their seat. What is normally a personal problem just became my problem.

Just because someone is so fat that they don't fit into a single seat doesn't give them the right to use some of the space that I have. Your weight is your personal issue. I'm not saying that you are a bad person for being overweight. I'm not saying that it is wrong. I'm certainly not saying that you have to change your appearance for my sake. What I am saying is that your obesity should not impact me.

I've been on several flights were the person next to me was so big that they were "spilling over" into my space. I could not put the armrest down because the person next to me was so large. One person told me about a trip where the person in the next seat actually lifted up the armrest, spilled over onto the seat my friend was sitting in and said something like, "don't worry, you can lean on me." All I can say to that is, "no thanks!"

What the airline charges these passengers for that second seat between the airlines and these passengers. All I have to say on the subject is this: I paid for a seat. I did not pay for half of the seat. I do not pay for a third of the seat. I paid for a full seat. If you want to sit in part of my seat, then compensate me for my inconvenience. What... you're not willing to do that? Then get out of my space! I paid for it. I'll use it.

The Poor Planner

Lets see if you recognize this individual.

You book your flight and even confirmed your seat online months in advance. You made sure that you got that window seat or aisle seat that you wanted. You make sure you were sitting with your friends, spouse, et cetera.

Now, someone comes up to you and says something like, "excuse me, but I'd really like to sit with my (friend, parent, spouse, mailman, etc.) and would you mind switching seats with me?

These people will try to make you feel guilty for not switching seats. On a recent flight I took to Alaska, my wife and I planned our flight 14 months in advance. We made sure that the two of us as well as our two small children would be in one row and that my wife and I would both have aisle seats. Someone was walking around the cabin asking people to move so that she could sit with her mother.

When nobody was willing to give up their aisle seat in exchange for her "middle" seat, she enlisted the help of a flight attendant who then began pressuring passengers.

Now I am sorry but an old adage seems to sum this up. "Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part" I did not reserve my seats months in advance so that I would have to exchange them for inferior seats because someone else didn't think ahead.

If you want to sit with somebody on an airplane, book your seats together. If you want to sit in a particular part of the aircraft, book your seats in advance. If you want to sit in the aisle or at the window, book your seats in advance. If you wait to the last minute to pick your seats, you get what's left over.

What amazes me is the fact that these people feel that they're entitled to my seat. If I was in a movie theater and had a "good" seat, nobody would consider asking me to move to the back of the theater because they can't see the screen. Get on an airplane however and people feel that they are entitled to whatever they want, even if they only booked the seats earlier that afternoon.

So to all of you flight attendants out there I would like to ask you a simple favor. Please, please, please don't pressure people to give up their seat for someone else's convenience. It's one thing to make an announcement requesting somebody give up a seat. It is quite another to single people out and ask them repeatedly if they "wouldn't help out this poor woman who wants to sit with her mother".

And to all of you people who don't fit in a single airline seat I will offer two suggestions. Book two seats in advance to avoid any embarrassment. If you don't want to spend the money for the extra seat than all I can do is suggest that you consider losing weight. I know that isn't simple but it's a lot more reasonable for me to suggest that you lose weight than it is for you to suggest that I have to share my seat with you.

Today, I just want to share with you a couple signs that I just don't understand. Well, I think I know what they mean but still, there is reason to pause... and wonder!

This first image was taken at Dorney Park in Allentown, PA. I shot it this summer while visiting with my son. While my son was riding some contraption designed to approximate the effect of an eggbeater on the human body, I being bored out of my mind, decided to read this sign. I never dreamed that it would be interesting, much less interesting enough to write about.

It wasn't until I got most of the way through reading the sign that I began to panic:

All I want to know is, what is a "Lap Bear" exactly? Is this some large mammal that you put on your lap during the ride? What does one feed a lap bear? Well, the answer to that is simple. If you are riding, I'm guessing you, are the food!

The other sign I saw is one that just, to my twisted mind, should have been re-written. It, unlike the first sign, is not a misprint. It is however arguably, a poor choice of words.

But honey, I'm going as fast as I can already!

I know we live in a fast paced society. We have speed-reading, and SpeedStick. We have instant pudding and fast-food. Now, I have heard of "speed-dating" but once you find someone, couldn't you use some of the time you saved by speed-dating, to have sex at a normal rate of speed? I wonder, do you think speed-humping will ever become an Olympic sport?

Last night my wife and I went to see Le Nozze di Figaro at the Met. Not being much of an opera fan, I was enticed (read: bribed) into going with the promise of dinner at Aquavit. I have to say that both the dinner and the Opera were very enjoyable. However, neither the food nor the singing are the reason for this blog entry. Rather, three unusual events occurred during the course of the evening, and they are what compels me to write this morning.

It is not often that my wife, often very reserved, has to put her hand over her mouth to avoid laughing hysterically in public. But, when the woman at the next table managed somehow to set her sleeve on fire, that is exactly what happened. The woman's sweater, which from where I was sitting appeared to be rabbit, not only burned quite brightly and dramatically but also gave off an acrid smell of burning hair (hare?) which could be smelled throughout the restaurant.

The part where I began to laugh was when the woman was heard to say, "oh, I'm always setting myself on fire!"it was about this time when the waitstaff began to congregate behind me and, they could be heard pondering what to do about the situation. While the woman had promptly extinguished her sleeve, many patrons who had not seen the event could smell the odor and were probably concerned.

After a wonderful meal at Aquavit, we made our way over to Lincoln Center. Everything was going fine until the second act. This is when one of the characters onstage, who was supposed to be upset, knocked several items off the table. One of these objects (I could not tell what it was) struck a cellist in the head!

While the woman continued playing for a minute or two, she appeared to be rubbing her head frequently. Several minutes later when I looked back, she was gone. Apparently she did return after the intermission but only for a moment and was not seen for the rest of the performance.

The thing that I found most interesting about this was the fact that a large number of people (presumably those people that actually saw what happened) laughed hysterically. Something tells me that the cellist didn't think it so funny.

Finally the last oddity of the evening I found more disgusting than humorous. When paying for parking, a man who collected my money and was making change was having trouble separating bills. Instead of using a sponge and water, or even licking his fingers, he chose to spit on the bills. Each time he did it, and yes, he did it more than once, a huge blob of spittle landed on the bills. Needless to say, the first thing I did upon getting in the car was to wash my hands with about a quart of hand sanitizer!

So, the opera was entertaining. The meal was very tasty. The service was excellent. And still, the things I will remember from evening have nothing to do with the food nor the singing.

I know it's been a while. But hey, I have an excuse this time. We went on vacation! I know it's not an excuse. But let me explain...

Recently, my family and I went on an Alaskan cruise. Better still, it was a repositioning cruise which allowed us to see more of Alaska as well as a good deal of the West Coast of the United States as well.

Now I know what your thinking. Jeff, surely you have Internet access on the ship. You could've posted blog entries from anywhere in the world. Well, that's not entirely true. Without my voice recognition (which require substantial hardware) I am severely limited in the amount I can use the computer. Thus, I chose to focus my time on enjoying Alaska... and the buffet.

So why am I writing now? Well, you can consider this a teaser of sorts. In the next few weeks more regular topics will appear. I will rant on and on about various corporations taking advantage of consumers in new and exciting ways. I will also post a detailed review of our cruise. Also to come is a review (with photographs) of one particular meal we had while in port one day.

Little by little, photographs from the trip will make their way to the photo gallery section of the site. These appear much lower than the blog entries because I can't use voice recognition to edit the photographs and thus I either have to do them in very small steps over a long period of time, or impose on my wife to edit them for me. Since she would rather stick her little finger in electric pencil sharpener than play with Photoshop, the photos will be slow in coming.

So stay tuned. More cool stuff is coming.

An HDR image of a railyard in Vancouver, BC. I shot this image while literally waiting for my ship to come in.

I'll keep this one brief. Who in their right minds thought that we as consumers, need this product?

Hair Mayonnaise?

I apologize for the crappy photo, but I had to use my phone as I didn't bring a real camera with me to the store.

What I want to know is, do they make bacon and tomatoes to accompany the mayo?

Have a great weekend everyone.