I love travel but hate the aspect of flying. Most of my early travel for drum corps and summer camps was via a Greyhound bus. But as a young adult, I lived for that lift off and always wanted a window seat to see the fading skylines and the clouds close enough to touch.
As I've gotten older the charm has worn thin. Some people think of airports as a hive of activity, but I view them as a hub and a means of getting from one place to the other. Security check points, baggage claim, and terminals connected by shuttles and trams bog me down. And I tend to have lousy luck with with the airlines themselves. I argue about this often with friends of mine who work in the industry. I understand that in any business there are complications that come up - And with air travel there are a plethora of variable like weather and mechanical issues that arise. Not to mention the millions that travel through the skies on a daily basis. It is not a foolproof situation.
However - it is not chump change we are paying for said services. I am more forgiving of a shut down on the light rail where I have only invested 2$. Any flight is going to set me back at least $250. For that price, I assume to be treated with respect at least. I have spent Christmas night sleeping on a cot in an airport so that a flight crew could rest in a comfy hotel while on furlough. Luggage that is lost for 3 days. A recent "experience" on #American had us on a scavenger hunt @ O'Hare going between 5 gates and 3 terminal wings trying to track down the plane. None of us was told by a gate agent; it was cell phone technology and working as a team that got us to boarding the flight 3 hour later. And I was one of those forced "bumped" passengers on said flight - because the airline had rebooked my original itinerary from Philly to Chicago - in an ideal world I should not have even set foot in Chicago. For weight restrictions! If they can't hold enough weight for all the seats, put less of them on the plane! No apologies issued there.
Not sure what vacant customer service agent I am particularity bitching to, but all the recent viral blasts against airlines certainly struck a note with me. Let's get back to some ethical treatment and basic service for the fees we are paying for. Fly the Friendly Skies - my ASS
Although I have fond memories of my formative years in Erie, the PA city on the lake; this town is a magnet for all things bizarre. This is everything from the wacky weather that rolls in off the lake to the odd trailer parks that populate the lovely landscape that should be serene pastures.
With the latest installment being the suicide of Facebook murderer Steve Stephens at a Harborcreek McDonalds - the legacy continues. Even his name has quirk written all over it - like a bad porn moniker. And that the whole fiasco played out in a drive-thru window waiting on an order of french fries. Nothing grand and complex like our own Andrew Cunanan/ Versace murders that took Minneapolis by storm decades back. Just today Wayne Kozak was arrested for killing his own mother in Buffalo - he was found hibernating in an Erie hotel! It always has an air of Darwin Awards there.
Darwin Awards
This article in Go Erie frames up the consequence of small town/ big town bizarreness. Remember the 2003 Pizza Bomber? Kyle Johnson on the lam with his girlfriend in the trunk? 2012 brought on an unusual amount of UFO sightings over the lake and even reports of a mysterious "bigfoot". In 2011 prison inmate Jamie Cruz filed a lawsuit against Miley Cyrus for allegedly stealing a song that he wrote. Only in Erie.All of this amounts to an unusual season of #Fargo - if that series were not set itself in Minnesota. Maybe at the very least, there could be a pitch for Ryan Murphy to set a future season of #AmericanHorrorStory there - something of espionage, witchcraft and ghosts back to the early days of Oliver Hazard Perry. Dark Shadows meets the American battle fronts?
The article tries to explain why it draws "the odd into it's orbit." Erie seems to be a crossroads for people on their way to somewhere else. The article also talks about the economic blight that has been prevalent in the area for some 50 years now and not being able to "break the cycle of the negative." With it's graveyards of rusted out factories and discarded shipyards, Erie was an obvious boon for Donald Trump on his campaign tour to represent the under valued. That seems to be working out real well since then...
GoErie - Weird article
