McDonalds Healthy?

Just left Mcdonalds to get the kids fattened up, and noticed their in
store advertising. No mention of Coke. Just Diet Coke, Dasani bottled
water and iced tea.

Yes. All good for you. Sorta.

Just don't tell the Los Angeles City Council...

Then I got home... The Queen had gone shopping while hungry. Now, Pop-Tarts aren't exactly the cutting edge of nutrition, but even there, they seem to have come out with a 120 calorie pop-tart. And it's made with whole grain and has noticeably less sugar coating....

I don't know, but all the fun in eating is gone...

Oh, where to start...

I've taken a month off from the blog. As if you didn't notice. Then again, as few hits as I get over a month, I'm guessing you didn't notice. But a few things did happen in that timeframe...

First, the server the site sits on changed. That took up a little of my free time.

Second... I received my Woodbadge beads. If you're not in Scouting, that's probably not significant to you. It also took up a lot of my free time over the past 15 months...

Third... Obama went to Iraq, and his poll numbers are dropping. McCain went to Sturgis and made friends with a bunch of Harley riders.

Fourth... Georgia was invaded. Obama's still trying to figure out how Russian tanks got past a bunch of good ol' boys with shotguns...

Fifth... The Olympics started a week ago. They've gotten very little press thanks to the Russians. China can't be pleased....

Sixth.... Things in the airlines continue to suck, but oil prices did drop. But China also kicked a lot of cars off the road for the Olympics, and Georgia was invaded, so who knows what will happen next week.

Seventh... the piglets are back in school, and while the world might be screwed up, at least some peace can be found at the Pigpen.

Latest Carnage

Three reports caught my eye this week...

1) Express Jet is officially pulling the plug on their point-to-point services after Labor Day. They also were informed that Delta was pulling the plug on their services out of LAX, so this is a huge hole in their operating plan.

Ironically, all this comes a few weeks after they spurned an offer from SkyWest as not being a fair market valuation. It's not quite on the level of Kerry Skeen's misjudgement when Mesa was trying to buy up Atlantic Coast, but it's pretty darn close on the "Doh!" scale.

2) Midwest Airlines is grounding their MD80 fleet, taking some B717's out of service, and essentially laying of 50% of their employees. To add insult to injury, they've decided to re-baseline their pilot and flight attendant base rates against RJ operators like American Eagle, Skywest, and Republic. As a result, they're asking for pay cuts of between 25% and 40% depending on seniority and workgroup...

Yikes.

It might be more advantageous to be furloughed and collect unemployment, which is based on the pre-separation salary...

Speaking of "Doh!"... Had Airtran won the bidding war for Midwest, it's hard to say whether or not this would have still come to pass. Certainly the MD80 fleet would have been in jeopardy, but there might have been a little more job security for the employees. Then again, Airtran just announced that they're looking to furlough approx. 5% of their existing employees.

3) Rumor has it (but hasn't been confirmed) that Virgin America is considering a restructuring as well, and will become more of a short-haul carrier with less of a focus on the transcon market. Good news for Jetblue and other legacy carriers flying transcons, but I'm not sure it's wise. Great amenties like live TV aren't as important on a one hour flight... Plus, they're competing against Southwest and United in a lot of the remaining short-haul markets.

New toy

My somewha+ trust HP laptop wen+ on The fritz thIs past weeK, So I decided t0 rePLACe i+ W1+h a tab1@t PC. it's no+ as easy as it looks to do +he handwriTing ...

Fortunately, the keyboard was easier to use...

It's an HP as well -- 2710p -- but the form factor is a lot smaller than the other HP notebooks. It's quite similar to the old Toshiba Portege I had at AMR several years ago.

Obviously, the tablet feature is why I selected this -- it works pretty well when you have a tray table leaning down in your lap, and it also functions pretty well for meetings, in that you can run a presentation on the desk, flip the screen around, or use the tablet for drawing out stuff which would otherwise be lost on a whiteboard.

Battery life is advertised for four plus hours, which I'll test out later this week. Other cool features include a built in webcam, a keyboard light that's also built into the lid, and a port replicator that is lunchmeat thin -- to the extent that even attached, it's smaller than the laptop it replaced.

Price tag? Including the port replicator and extra battery, it came to approx $2000. A little more than I planned to pay, but the extra functionality will pay for itself.

Asleep at the switch....

Last month, AA suspended eight mechanics for sleeping on the job. Apparently, the guys from Corporate Security walked into a locker room, and the rest is history.

Three of the mechanics were allowed to retire. The other five have now lost their jobs.

When I worked for AA, it was pretty clear: no sleeping, loafing, or other intentional restriction of output. Getting caught was usually pretty serious, and last months action proves that this is still alive and well.

Now, there are guys in the TWU calling for their members to work to rule:

LGA Mechanic Terminations

Brothers and Sisters:

This week 5 very senior mechanics based at LGA were terminated for sleeping while on duty. These mechanics were professionals and dedicated to American Airlines. They were fired for doing something that was against company regs, but was knowingly allowed by management to continue unabated for many, many years. Essentially, this practice was a benefit to both parties involved. In light of that, I feel that these terminations were unfair and will be vigorously defended in arbitration.

In regards to this and other recent similar cases, we must accept that the Company has changed, and in order to survive, so must we. The company has placed a renewed emphasis on rules and regulations. Some of these changes are welcome, and must be embraced by us. In a recent article of the "Daily Maintenance News Line" Executive VP Bob Reding is quoted as saying "We will not compromise safety at the expense of on-time performance, dependability , or any other operational performance measurement." I urge everyone to consider these words. Our work environment is no longer what it once was. We can no longer be so cavalier about rules and regulations, no matter how cumbersome they may be. I believe that no one can better change this environment that we work in but ourselves. It is up to us to accomplish this. Familiarize yourself with the GPM, especially chapter 13, "SAFETY." Remember, compliance with the GPM and other rules and regulations is a requirement of your job and your license. Use the maintenance manuals and work cards. Do not accept lack of time for not doing a job properly. It is not acceptable. Work safely and protect yourself. Work professional and protect your career. Anything less is unacceptable.

Sincerely,

John Iuliano
Pete Corabi
Angel Colon
Mark Hnat
Dan Knasick
Joe Urso
Angelo Ragucci

IF they manage to pull it off, it could get ugly. And, before all is said and done, I could see more people getting fired for crossing even an inch over the line of working to rule and "intentionally restricting output" as AA puts it in their rules and regulations.

Friday the 13th

The cuts have already started at United... This week, at least two Vice Presidents, several directors, and dozens of managers & analysts received their pink slips... This being a Friday, I'd expect to hear of more. And no, it won't all be over today. Some departments at UAL won't know until the 23rd.

From what friends at UAL are saying, some departments are being left totally in the dark, and others are getting full top-bottom communication... To those at UAL, I wish you well. Being let go en masse is never good. Being one of those left behind can be just as difficult.

Pass Me The Remote...

Time to do some channel surfing... life in the airline industry has become just too damn depressing.

Battlestar Galactica is just a few episodes away from what should be the finale, and it's been full of twists and turns... Whodathunk that Cylons and Humans would be fighting side by side?... Can't wait for the end.

E.R. closed the books on their 14th season, and it was quite the cliff-hanger of a finale. Almost on the same level as the Sopranos finale... Who was in the ambulence? Was Abby clear of the blast? We might not know for sure until the fall, but I certainly didn't expect them to be killing off cast members...

The Office... where do I start? We managed to watch all of the previous seasons' episodes, and it's now one of my favorites, if for no reason other than the fact that I can relate with just about every character in the show. Except Dwight.

Ice Road Truckers finally showed up this past week. Turned out they did find another road up on the Arctic Circle, driving up the frozen McKenzie River and across the Arctic Ocean. They've only aired one episode so far, but I don't know that it's going to have the traction the first season did.

Other stuff finding its way on the Seasons Pass... Jesse discovered "Law and Order" which has to be one of the best shows ever created. What's a little funny is that TBS has all the reruns, and twice this week I found episodes several seasons apart which were more or less the same plot with different characters. Guess that's gonna happen, and even E.R. has fallen into that trap... but when you've been on the air for 15 years, I guess they've earned the right to retreads once in a while...

And for family programming? Malcolm In The Middle. Downright funny... a little risque perhaps but most of the jokes fly right over the kids' heads...