It's been a long time... NaNoWriMo and a comment about Alex Baldwin and airlines

Well, it's been a long time since I posted any blog. I think I need to change that. I'll find out how much time since when this posts. I also want to see if my posting chain still works all the way through. What have I been up to. Quite a bit, and that's also part of the problem.

I'm now working in Automotive, learning new things, and planning work with many changes to systems I never worked on. It's a challenge, so I'm always busy at work. But that never stopped me from doing other things outside of work.

Classes: I took one called TV and Film where I learn to be on film. There were quite a few things I learned that will also help me if I do more directing. This includes the master shot, the mid range and the close up. What do you do with the actor they are playing opposite? You need to have them there, even if the camera is not showing them. That's something that may help my own setups. I also learned that my closeups should be as seen from Cleveland, just like Dustin Hoffman. The class was fun, and I played the last scene of Michael Clayton where George Clooney's character Michael Clayton is setting up Karen for her fall. It was put on DVD for only me, so I saw how I progressed. I do make an excellent bagman and I do it completely different than Clooney.

At the same time, I completed my first script for my series, and I had a read through / critique held under the help/coordination of the IAWTV. For my first script, I think I did well, and I made modifications to it. I have more work to do. I want to finish all the scripts before setting up for the shoots. This is because I want to do everything for a year at once. It saves trying to get the same actors if needed. They should all be there. Then I did more acting. Primarily on a movie called The P.A.C.T. that is being produced by Zen-Sapien Films. The director is Nathan Waire, and he's bigger than me. I play a psychologist in a community group that caters to helping poor people with mental health issues. Part of the scenes needed to be done to a green screen, and they used my equipment and shot that part at my house. I also edited those portions for Nathan. I hope they work well for him.

Then came November and National Novel Writing Month (though I prefer to think of it as the National November Writing Month). I had heard about it last year, but I didn't enter. I did do it this year, and I completed it. The store is a precursor to my scripts and has many of the people that are in it. I wanted to flesh out the people and figure the universe and the world that is on that silly little asteroid in space. It was a very loose outline I had but I finished with 52K words. I finished the day after Thanksgiving. So 26 days of typing almost 2000 words a day.

The book in it's current form is really rough. Not for current display. It would need several (probably at least 6 re-writes) to be nice. One or two rewrites should make it good enough for actors to use for backstory. And now the airline story. I saw that Alec Baldwin got kicked off a flight for keeping his iPad on a bit too long, and for 'Slamming' a rest room door. I can sympathize and I don't think the problem is just his. I went to LA to have a little fun, and while I was on the plane, the doors were closed (just like in Alec's case). The message when on to turn off all the devices, yada yada yada. So I got out my iPhone, went to the setting, turned it to airplane mode, then after checking, I turned it off. Of course I put my phone back in my pocket which means I had to unbuckle, slide the phone in and re-buckle. I am not a thin person, so this is not as easy as you may think. It does take some time. I then went to do the same thing to my iPad which I had put in the front pocket. I turned it on, and went to find the settings. It's in a different place than on my iPhone. So I just get there and one of the flight attendants says loudly and in a rude voice: "Not just in airplane mode. I need it completely OFF." I turned to him to say that I am shutting it down, but he opens his mouth before I speak as if he knows what I am going to say. He starts saying that it's not enough to turn off the screen but do a power down. Several times I try to say that it's what I am trying to do, but I wanted it in flight mode when it was being shut down. That way it start's up without turning on the radio. That's the correct FAA (and Apple) procedure, but he's just not listening and he interrupts me all the time. This does piss me off. I stopped and just looked at him until he finally did shut up. I then shut it down. He was being kind of an dick. I'm mad, but I also know don't feed the trolls. The flight attendant probably has to deal with lots of people, taking their time and doing things wrong, but they should never assume that someone doesn't know how to do the correct procedure. I can see how someone can get aggravated like Alex did. They should never think what I'm going to say is a given. I certainly don't.

So what did I watch when I did turn on the iPAD after it was ok to have it on again. The pilot of Pan-Am. I understand that it was cancelled, and maybe this is why. Airlines would not support it. Why? Because it shows how far downhill the airlines have gotten in service. I do not mean how pretty the stewardesses are, but I mean the politeness and the level of service they gave.

Americans have gotten too used to the fast food ordering where service is quick but impolite, and now that is also making the service hell in the air. They are being overworked as waitresses because they now have to take change, and it slows everything down. They have gone where Greyhound was 20 years ago. Giving horrible service.

What's the solution? I think regulation needs to start back up. Not price fixing, which is what it was before, but regulating what a flight entails. It shouldn't be just going from A to B and everything is a fee (hello Ryan Air). Seats should have minimum X amount of width, Y minimum amount of legroom and lean back of Z inches. It should permit one carryon bag, one business bag (purse etc), one luggage in hold bag, snack for flights longer than 2 hours and means for flights longer than 4. No other fee can be added other than government standard fees. Basically fix what is being compared. Because they are NOT the same things. The standards need to be fixed on the current standard for an American, not one from the Navy in the 50s.

What's the penalty? If you don't meet the condition on the prices you can't advertise on a price comparator site (Orbitz, Hotwire,Priceline, Kayak, etc). The reason is that way the pricing is always for a similar or better thing. You always have someone complaining about how they aren't using a service so shouldn't be charged, but my bet is that when they are charged, they complain about it too. The prices should include the perks. As for Alec Baldwin and American Airlines, I can see how the crew is pissed at AMR (the parent of American Airlines). After all it declared bankruptcy in order to screw it's own staff. So that probably didn't help their stress levels too.

Oh, and lastly the other thing that was given away more in the 60s. Valium. Peace in the sky.

Louis Srygley
@osiramon

Breaking Wind in Italy...

When I was looking into data plans for the iPad in Italy, I saw first that AT&T was pleased to provide an international data plan in Italy for a low, low cost of ~20$/mb. That was pushing it a bit. So I looked at other alternatives. There was Vodafone, 3 (Tre), Tim and Wind. Each around 25-30 Euro / month. I decided that whatever office I saw, I would try that one. In the Rome Trains station (Roma Termini) I found a WIND store and talked to the person in the store. He said that it was 30 Euro. He took a full sized sim and used a cutter to size it right. He said that it would active at around 6:00pm that night. I had a pin code. He said it had a 10GB limit. That would be fine for me. I used the ipad to also read books, and while on the train, I saw that I was receiving data on the new SIM card. So I was able to see my location (See ipad picture in earlier post). Everything was fine that Saturday, but Sunday, it seems like everything sstopped working. Monday, I was at a CarreFourre in Lucca, Italy (a French mix between a grocery store and a Wal-mart), and besides the escalator ramp for carts, there was a WIND store. So I asked what the problem was (through my Cousin who is Italian). The girl there said perhaps there was a problem and that she would switch my sim. She did so, saying that it would take some hours to charge it. I waited again. I then got my signal later (3G or E) but it always came up with a PDP authentication error. Finally I am in Florence (Firenze) and I spot a third store. I go in it (this time with my Aunt). The person asked for my phone number (which the ipad doesn't use), and it was on the first sim card that i had used. He put the SIM in his phone and texted to my Aunt who then received the message as a phone number. Go figure.

With that, he said, I had used up all my allocation because I had used the SIM within the first 24 hour introductory period, and then that meant that it was exhausted/locked automatically at the end of the trial day period. This is the thing that I cannot understand. You have a trial period that will overwrite a paid period? If you use any data during the trial period you are zeroed out when it is done? What kind of a stupid marketing ploy is this? I want to say that the people were helpful and polite even when they were not successful. But the company? WIND.IT you are full of suckage if this is true. It seems the others have instant activations, so customers know immediately that they are working. They don't have a trial period that overwrites a paid period, and the coverage is still there. I think you need to review your policies.

Well, I paid another 10 euros and hopefully my data plan works for the next day. Of course I wanted to take a train from Lucca to Pisa, then Rome, but nope, that regional train was on strike. So it didn't go anywhere. My father and uncle raced to Pisa by car but we were 4 minutes late. Why couldn't that have been late? @tibits mentioned it was Murphy's law (or one of it's many corollaries). I knew that but I always hope for the best. This makes it easier to be crushed over and over. Shades of Kids in the Hall. Crush, Crush Crush!

Will get to the hotel in Rome really late, but I will be on the flight to EWR in the morning. Unless Murphy has more fun.

Louis Srygley
@osiramon

Location of me on train at time, via google maps.

Ok so it's probably a different train, but I was there where it was on Google maps, travelling between Rome and Pisa and I saw my location dot (the blue thingy) was going to go over a train taken from the satellite picture. This is where I am located. The train was going from right to left, so I'm in the first car. This was from last Saturday when I got to Italy.

Photo

Louis Srygley
@osiramon