Drift Reality

After my last experience with Delta about three months ago, I swore to myself I would never again fly with them but sure enough, a few months later I found myself booking a flight last-minute and being lured in by their cheap rates. As George Bush once once quipped, “fool me once, shame on you. Fool me - you can’t get fooled again.”

I got fooled again by the carrier I can say with 100% confidence is the absolute worst airline in the industry.

A sunny day in San Francisco

The trip started innocently enough with me at SFO on a beautiful, sunny Thursday waiting for my flight to take off. I had a ninety minute layover in Minneapolis before taking the connection through to Dulles and thought I was in for a relatively leisurely day of flying.

I should have known better. Ten minutes before the flight was scheduled to board, Delta gets on the PA and announces that mysterious weather issues are causing delays in Minneapolis. I immediately find this interesting because the weather report doesn’t seem to indicate anything serious in the area. I also find this interesting because the last time I got stranded (in Atlanta) Delta also used “weather” as an excuse when there were no significant weather patterns to speak of.

After about forty minutes we finally board and I am still confident I will make my connection because I have about fifty minutes of leeway. It’s then that I realize two things: first, that the engines aren’t turning on and second, that it is very, very hot on the plane.

“Sorry about the heat guys,” says the airline stewardess on the speaker. She then proceeds to give some excuse about the “pressurizer” not working properly and recommends we close the windows so the sun doesn’t heat things up any more than they already are.

We sit on the tarmac for another twenty minutes and I can start to hear the clock ticking on the departure time for my next flight. I get up and walk to the back of the airplane.

“Excuse me, can you guys tell me what is going on?” I ask politely.

“Yeah, they need to get an auxiliary engine to start the plane,” says the stewardess.

“The plane isn’t starting?”

“Yeah, they need to get an auxiliary over here to start the plane.”

“So they need to jump start the plane?” I ask.

The stewardess looks at me for a moment before responding, “Yeah, I think something like that.”

I say thank you and go back to my seat, wondering if someone outside of the airplane is attaching jumper cables to the plane’s engine at that point in time.

After another fifteen minutes, the air conditioning finally turns back on and the plane starts.  I get back to my seat and we take off.  As the pilot apologizes I feel a sense of resignation that I will most likely be sleeping in Minneapolis that evening.

Adventures in Minneapolis

We land about ten minutes before my flight to DC is scheduled to leave and I feel a slight sliver of hope that I’ll be able to make it.

That hope is dashed when we dock and the pilot apologized again, this time because there is no Delta attendant in the airport around to activate the entrance.  We stand around for another ten minutes while they find someone who can activate the entrance door.

The moment the door opens there is a mad dash into the airport as passengers try to make their connections and I make my way to a service desk to see if there is any possible way I can make my connection.  I ask one of the support staff if she can help me.

“Well, let’s see,” she says and she starts typing away calmly.  “Hmm…the flight to Dulles has left already but there is another flight going to National and if you run over to the gate you may catch it.”

“Really,” I ask, hope again entering in my heart.  “Can you put me on that flight?”

“Well, I really have to get ready for an incoming flight but why don’t you check over at the gate,” she responds dismissively.

Like an idiot, I start sprinting through the ridiculously large Minneapolis airport to try and make the flight without it ever occurring to me that the support attendant knew I didn’t have a chance and just wanted to get rid of me.

This reality dawns on me when I arrive at the gate and see that there are fifteen people crowded around the desk.  I arrive just in time to hear the Delta support agent working the desk announce, “That’s it folks.”

The next four hours involved the following:

• Two customer support agents telling me they can’t help me and I should go to a different desk.
• Finally finding someone who can help me who gives me a $6.00 meal voucher which just about covers the Diet Coke I order with dinner.
• Being hung up on by a Delta support rep. after insisting I get to choose the hotel where I stay.
• Spending two hours waiting to retrieve my bag.
• Staying at the Radisson Hotel Bloomington.
• Getting to DC approximately twelve hours after my itinerary originally stated for no other reason than Delta incompetence.

This time I mean it - I am never going to fly Delta again and I beg you to do the same.  Don’t be lured in by their prices.  They have a ticket surplus for a reason - because people who want to actually get to their destination don’t fly Delta.

Becoming a first-time property owner is full of challenges: You have to become familiar with the tax consequences (and benefits) of home ownership, the joys (and annoyances) of home maintenance and the general feeling that you suddenly have a lot less free time because you are figuring out what type of bulbs fit into the track lighting system that seemed like a good idea when you were at Ikea.  That being said, one of the most difficult challenges I’ve found has been to get connected with professional and reasonably priced contractors to help out with larger projects.

A few close friends of mine have been working on a site to help solve this problem by providing homeowners with tools and resources to help find local contractors.  The site is called Sharperoo and is has some pretty cool features that help homeowners.

For one, it is completely localized, which makes it easier to browse and search for contractors because all the contractors I’m looking for are localized around a specific city.  Being in Washington, DC and only having interest in DC-area contractors, I was happy to see that the site recognized my location and sent me to Sharperoo DC.

Sharperoo is taking more of an open, community-based approach that will eventually benefit from the network effect as they build a user base.  In the short term, while they are building out their base there are some good pieces of information on individual contractors including license status and bond status, which do help create a sense that the contractor is legitimate.

That being said, the true measure of the site’s success seems to hinge on the question of whether or not they will be able to drive adoption and interaction from homeowners.  The fact that it is free to use and has a pretty nice, simple interface seems to suggest that they are set-up properly however we will see.  I’m hoping the site builds though because finding good, local contractors can be a real pain in the ass and it would be great to have a free, readily available resource to help with this.

Update (9/29) - So a few hours after this post initially went up I was contacted by someone from the Intelius PR department, expressing concern with my experience and an interest in having a conversation about it.  We talked today and our conversation went a long way towards changing my perspective of Intelius (for the better).  We talked through the product issues as well as the customer support issues.  I feel less upset about the product issues - these are always a work-in-progress, especially for a fast growing, young company like Intelius.  I have a feeling they will get the product issues resolved.  However, the customer support issues are still a source of concern.  All that being said, the professional manner in which the PR department at Intelius addressed the situation was the perspective changer for me.

Let me start by saying that Intelius has some of the worst customer service I have ever experienced and I find their general approach to be confusing and unethical .  Here is why:

My family owns a couple of properties in the DC area and I was helping them do a background check on some prospective tenants so I gave Intelius a shot.  I had the tenant’s social security numbers and Intelius allows you to confirm whether or not they have any access to public records for the individual.

I ran my first search and it came up positive.  I was told that I would receive a list of information including "Home and Value Details," in the background report.

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So I went ahead and paid the $49.95 and received the full report.  In the section of the report pertaining to the property, I was surprised to see some pretty basic information including ‘neighbors’ and general ‘area data.’  One thing I didn’t get was ‘value details.’  For that, I was prompted to buy a ‘Complete Property Report.’

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Clicking on ‘Get a Complete Property Report,’ I was presented with a screen where I was told for an additional $13.46 I would be able to procure, "Property Details."

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Sound familiar?  Well, that’s because if you look at the original screen, I was told I would receive ‘Home & Value Details’ with the report.  Now, I was being told I needed to pay an extra fee to get ‘Property Details.’

Wait…it get’s better.

So going back to the original report, I was told that the individual did not have a record in the state where the search was run - but that there 1 criminal record for that person in a national search, that yes you guessed it, I had to pay an additional $26.96 to get.

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Of course, it is scary to think that you might be renting property to someone with a criminal record so I went ahead and paid the $26.96 to see what the record was all about and…wait for it….

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THE NATIONWIDE CRIMINAL CHECK SHOWED RESULTS FOR A DIFFERENT PERSON!!!!!

Yes, ladies and gentleman, on the report I ran for person X I was told by Intelius that the person had a criminal record.  When I paid Intelius to see that record I was then given information for a different person.

Now, all this being said - I would have been content if they had refunded my money after I explained the situation to them but I was rudely told by a very argumentative customer service representative named Jennifer (working at 11AM ET on 9/26/08) that Intelius simply didn’t do refunds.

I asked her to transfer me to her manager Jackie (also working at 11AM ET on 9/26/08) who repeated over and over that they had a disclaimer that apparently stated they were not responsible for any of the data provided through their service and reiterated that they don’t do refunds.

I responded, "That doesn’t give you guys the right to mislead customers into paying for information you don’t have," to which she basically repeated that their disclaimer explained that they were not responsible for any of the information provided through their service.

At any rate, Intelius is guilty of bait and switch in my opinion for claiming to offer "Home & Value Details," and then attempting to upsell the actual details.  Worse, their dubious criminal records check made me think that a prospective tenant had a criminal record when in fact the person with the criminal record was an unrelated individual.

Finally, their customer service showed zero respect or empathy and simply repeated "we don’t do refunds" like a mantra and didn’t even seem to understand (nor care) about the problems I was having.

Do yourself a favor and avoid Intelius. I think at this point, you should simply be very clear on what you are purchasing before you purchase.  Intelius does have a good collection of data but the different products are a little confusing.  Know that they will try to upsell quite a bit throughout the UX so make sure to pay close attention to every little detail throughout the process.

An old buddy of mine who is a hell of a basketball player is going to be appearing in a new reality show on LOGO television called ‘Shirts & Skins.’

A brief synopsis of the show:

SHIRTS & SKINS is a reality show that follows some the San Francisco Rockdogs. The show focuses the lives of players DeMarco, Chris, Jamel, Mikey, Peter, and Rory as they share a house in the Mission district of San Francisco and attempt to balance twelve different personalities from various ages and backgrounds to come together in time for the national tournament.

The Rockdogs are the defending Gay Game gold-medal winning basketball team from 2006 and must reunite to uphold their city’s three-generation legacy of international gay games gold medal, and national tournament wins.

After their last gold in 2006, the Rockdogs fell apart, only to be rallied back together by their founders to defend their title at the upcoming National Gay Basketball Championship in Chicago.

When the Rockdogs join together as family, they win. So will this new generation of talented players be able to put aside their differences, love lives, and late night rumbles in time to get their game on and bring home the championship?

Tune in to LOGO on Monday, September 15, 2008 at 10pm to follow the drama on the court, and off.

More Information:

Shirts & Skins Facebook page: http://tinyurl.com/shirtsskins

One of the reasons we had such a great time down in Rio is because I had the good fortune to know a few cariocas beforehand through a good friend of mine in the US.  We all corresponded via e-mail before we arrived and the evening of our arrival they drove down to pick us up at our hotel before taking us to one of the more popular clubs in Lapa.

Throughout the week, our amazing hosts took us to a variety of places throughout Rio that we would have never had the opportunity to visit otherwise and because of them, we managed to have a depth of experience beyond what most tourists to Brazil (who are here for one week) can expect. 

In addition to their sense of hospitality and warmth, here are a few other traits I have noticed:

1. Cariocas are laid-back: Cariocas remind me of people I met when I was living in San Diego (except they are more genuine).  They wear sneakers when they go out at night, they love to drink beer, and they seem genuinely relaxed and comfortable with their surroundings and themselves.  This comfort extends to their physicality, as it is not unusual to see overweight men and women in Rio wearing tightly fitted clothing in clubs or small swimwear on the beach with no real sense of self-consciousness. 
2. Cariocas are affectionate - It is really amazing to walk around the city and see how many young couples are physically affectionate with one another in public.  I recall walking down one street and in-between each car on the street was a young couple embracing.  Also, the scene in many of the clubs resembles a high-school party after about 2 in the morning with everyone making out.  In addition, it is common practice for men to greet one another with two kisses, something you rarely see in the States.
3. Cariocas work to live - Although some of the people we met seemed genuinely interested to know more about what we did professionally, the topics of work and/or business rarely came up in social situations.  Most of the time, people seemed interested in cracking jokes or telling stories that really had nothing to do with what they did at work. 
4. Cariocas are passionate - We became particularly good friends with one of our hosts, who managed to spend practically every evening with us despite the fact that he was working a fulltime job and taking classes.  By the end of the week I feel as though we had developed an extremely strong bond despite the short amount of time we had known him.  I get the feeling that people here aren’t as guarded and reserved with their emotions.  If a carioca likes someone then they will make no bones about it.

At any rate, I am sure that more observations will pop into my head but I wanted to jot down some of the more obvious characteristics I have noticed.  If anyone has anything to add, please feel free to leave a comment!

It is making me a little ill to recount last night because the dinner was so God awful. 

I feel bad because the service was pretty solid at the venue but I have to say that Guapo Loco was one of the worst Mexican restaurants I have ever eaten at in my entire life.  I also think I got some minor food poisoning because after eating there I felt exhausted and nauseous for the next several hours and even this morning when I recount my meal it brings back memories that make me feel slightly ill.

At any rate, we met up with our host at our hotel at about 9PM or so.  We wanted to treat him to dinner after he had been such a fantastic host over the past weekend so we settled on a restaurant in Leblon called Guapo Loco.

We sat down and snacked on nachos (the highlight of the meal) while sipping on some really crappy margaritas.  I settled on a taco platter that literally was on par with the tacos at Taco Bell.  George had a burrito that had been garnished with a generous helping of curry (bleeagggghhh). 

I was starving so I basically dumped a load of tabasco on my food and went to town despite the flavor.  I also ate a substantial portion of George’s meal before realizing that I didn’t feel very hot. 

We had a nice conversation during dinner and I was a bit surprised when the bill came and it was about 130 real (about 90 dollars or so) for what I considered to be the culinary equivalent of three meals from Taco Bell.  In fact, I think it is debatable whether Taco Bell serves better food than Guapo Loco.

At any rate, we walked (hobbled?) out of the restaurant and stopped in Copacabana for 1 drink before we made it an early night.

Just a brief update. 

After having spent most of the day yesterday wandering around the city we decided to head back to the beach today.  Unlike Monday, when we spent most of the day at the beach in Ipanema we decided to stay closer to our hotel and set up camp in the middle of Copacabana.

After sitting under the sun for about 30 minutes I decided to try the water, which had felt icy when I dipped my toes in at Ipanema Monday.  I slowly waded in, diving in fully when a large wave emerged and the shock from the icy water jolted me into a different state of conscience and I suddenly felt fully awake and alert.  

Although we have done quite a bit during the first few days here I feel like my mind has been fragmented and I have been reflecting on work, family, life, etc.  Today was probably the first day since we arrived that my mind has felt completely clear and I feel like I am actually in Rio - mind, body and spirit.

I went jogging along Atlantic Avenue this evening and simply enjoyed the sights, sounds and smells of Copacabana.  There was a slight haze in the air and with the sound of waves in the background I could finally begin to understand what made my friend fall in love with the city.

Tonight we are going to meet up with some of his friends and head over to an Irish pub in Ipanema and watch a football match.

After spending a few days hanging out with some of my buddy’s guy friends for the past few days in Rio I gave one of his female Carioca friends a call who seemed extremely friendly and spoke impeccable English.  We made plans to meet at the Astoria and then head to a club in Leblon called House. 

She arrived with a couple of her girl friends at about 9:00 and George and I hopped into the car and we headed off to House.

I was a bit skeptical at first because while the club had an extremely cool vibe to it, we were literally the only ones there however the doorman assured us that the place would fill up later in the night.  We sat outside on the front deck and had a few drinks while chatting about Rio. 

At around 10PM, people slowly started filling into the venue and I became suddenly aware that English was being spoken all around us.  George informed me later that evening that we had unwittingly stumbled onto some sort of event being held for American and European students in Rio. 

Before long, two floors of the club were completely packed with an international crowd - most of whom were speaking English.  It was actually sort of a nice change-of-pace to socialize with people who spoke my native tongue instead of trying to piece together broken Spanish and Portuguese to get things across.  I  met a group of British architecture students who were doing a semester abroad in Rio as well as several American students who were also studying in Rio. 

The night was actually quite enjoyable until about 2 or so, when the place started to resemble a British University club at the end of the night with people stumbling around and making out in corners.  I started to feel my age when I realized I was more disgusted by the debacle than amused by it and really started to feel my age when I started contemplating intervening and putting several girls (who looked underage) in cabs home who were making out with a random assortment of young males.

Fortunately, George shared my sentiments as did our hosts so we headed off to indulge in some late night McDonalds before heading home and to sleep.

Yesterday morning, George and I grabbed breakfast at the hotel and then hopped in a taxi and headed to Corcovado to check out Chris the Redeemer.  We each brought about 50 or so real with us and this left us in a somewhat problematic situation when we arrived to find that tickets on the tram up the mountain would cost about 36 real each. 

After paying for the taxi, paying for the tram would have left us with a collective sum of about 3.75 real but we decided to worry about that later. 

The 30-minute tram ride up was quite enjoyable and offered some truly amazing views of Rio.  We were also entertained by a samba group that came into our train and performed several songs.  I gave them a real at the end of the set to George’s dismay and that left us with a grand total of 2.75 real.

The statue itself is also quite a spectacle and well worth the trip up. 

It is worth noting that George mockingly asked “Who is that?” in reference to the statue as we arrived on top of Corcovado.  “Is that the president of Brazil?”

The questions resulted in a few dirty looks from some Canadian tourists within earshot. 

Regarding the statue itself, I won’t go into that much detail but Wikipedia has a pretty solid article on Christ the Redeemer if you are interested.

After about thirty minutes of snapping photos and mocking other tourists, we decided it was time to go so we headed back down on the tram and discussed our options for getting back to Copacabana. 

We came up with the following list:

1. Hike five miles back to Copacabana
2. Beg for money on the streets near Corcovado to cover bus fare
3. I use our pooled resources to pay for 1 bus ticket and then come back in a taxi to pick George up (we promptly realized that this was no longer a viable option after I gave that real to the samba group)
4. Take a cab back and simply pay him when we got to our hotel

Clearly, the final option was the most intelligent but we decided to try option #1 and began walking back to Copacabana despite having a pretty shoddy tourist map and no spatial understanding of Rio.

From the top of Corcovado I thought I had figured out a route back but we quickly got lost and it took some help from a sympathetic pedestrian to get us back on course.

After about two hours of serious walking we finally emerged onto Copacabana beach, starving and exhausted, but unscathed.

Sunday morning George and I woke up and began wandering down Avenue Atlantica in search of a cafe.  We hadn’t walked for longer than ten minutes when we heard someone shouting our names from down the street.  In a twist of fate we had actually bumped into one of the three people we knew in Rio, Felipe.  Him and his brother were visiting their Grandfather for Sunday lunch and on their way in had spotted “two strange guys” walking down the street.

They invited us to have lunch with them and despite our protests and what I believed to be a slight imposition we ended up having lunch with their family on Sunday afternoon.  We enjoyed a home cooked meal of pasta primavera before heading off to Maracanã to watch the Flamengo football club take on Fluminense in a “friendly.”

Standing outside the stadium, waiting in line for tickets amidst a chaotic mass of Brazilian soccer fans I was fully expecting an overwhelming, daunting experience but was pleasantly suprised when we entered the stadium and found it to be a controlled, pleasant environment.  We promptly found four great seats at midfield and plopped down. 

About thirty minutes before the game commenced it got interesting as the Flamengo fans (which included two large fan clubs) began singing team songs and waving flags.  I did my best to join in despite having zero aptitude in both Portuguese and football etiquette. 

The game itself was pretty exhilirating and I found myself completely engaged in the game throughout its entire duration.  There was a kinsmanship that exuded throughout the Flamengo fans, which culminated in a tremendous uproar when Flamengo scored their first goal to tie the game at 1-1.  As we hopped up and down like lunatics shouting “gooooooaaaaaalllllll” while hugging one another it did strike me for just a minute that I had absolutely no reason to be so happy about the score but the thought passed in an instant as I let myself get caught up in the celebration.

As the game progressed into the second half I did notice that similar to the previous night at the club in Lapa, there was really no aggression or friction on display.  I attribute some of this to the generally amiable attitude of the people in Rio and also some to the fact that alcohol isn’t allowed in the stadiums - a regulation I think some American stadiums might want to consider.

We left shortly before the end of the game (it ended 2-2 with a Flamengo goal in the final two minutes) and headed back, exhausted after another amazing experience in Rio.