Old School?

The older I get, the more I realize that I am a dinosaur. While I'm not anti-technology, I just like things a certain way. For example, earlier this year, I wrote about a Verizon commercial where people have difficulties using their phone as a boarding pass, and how it seemed like the perfect ad for me. I'm probably one of the few people who still use paper boarding passes when flying. This was confirmed to me last week. When checking in to a United flight at Washington Dulles airport, the screen asked me if I wanted my boarding pass sent by text, by email, or other. When I selected other, the screen again gave me the option of sending the boarding pass by text. email, or other. After picking other again, I was given the option to print the boarding pass. The screen/United reluctantly allowed me to print.

When I got on the plane, I reached into my bag and brought out a book. Yes, a physical book. I'm currently reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weil, which is nearly 500 pages long. Reading on a screen would be much lighter, but I like a physical book.

Finally, at the hotel, there was an option to scan a QR code to give a tip to housekeeping. Pass. Still giving/using cash.

Sean = Dinosaur

A Commercial Made For Me

There is a recent Verizon commercial that shares one of my biggest fears: my cell phone not working when I need it most.



The purpose of the commercial is to let consumers know that they can trade in any phone in any condition. That's not what I get from it. What I see is the reason I still use paper tickets for boarding passes at the airport. If I could still use paper tickets for sporting events or concerts, I would do so. I hate the moment when I have to scan my phone to get into a venue. I worry that it's not going to work and that I spent lots of money only to be stuck outside. Fortunately, that hasn't happened yet, but I worry it will.

So thanks Verizon for encouraging me to never use my phone for a boarding pass!

Out Of Ideas

I've had this blog way too long. I wrote an entire blog post ranting against Verizon only to realize that I already wrote an extremely similar post exactly 4 years ago. The only difference between the November 2012 post and what I wrote and deleted today is that I actually talked with a customer service representative this time who told me that I need to upgrade my plan to get text updates about data usage. Otherwise, I will only get text messages when I'm out of data. A friend recommended a free app to track data usage, so problem may be solved with no help from Verizon.

I've spent the past few days in Portland, Oregon, and I have a few thoughts. Actually, many of them are similar to my notes from a 2009 blog post about my first trip to Portland. I give up. Apparently, I can't come up with any new ideas.

Fine, instead I'll share some pictures from Portland.

Can anyone that lives in Oregon or has even visited this state explain how elections work here? Instead of going to the polls, do Oregon citizens just drop their ballots in these boxes? That doesn't seem efficient.

There are way too many crows in downtown Portland. Shouldn't they be out in the country somewhere?

Finally, this is a picture of Providence Park, home of the Portland Timbers and Portland Thorns, from the bleachers connected to Multnomah Athletic Club. I want to live at Multnomah Athletic Club. It's 600,000 square feet of pools, tennis courts, squash courts, handball/racquetball courts, a rock climbing gym, restaurants, and so much more.

Am I An Angry Person?

During a recent conversation, I noticed that I vented about three different topics consecutively. In a moment of self-awareness, I think I apologized and jokingly said that I hoped I wasn't always like this. Fortunately, the response was understanding.

So this got me thinking. Am I always angry or ranting about something? Sure, I haven't been happy with Metro delays, and my kids have a wonderful habit of not listening. I also notice that I've been swearing a lot more to myself (either out loud when no one is around or in my head) lately. Granted, I think I have some good reasons to vent that of course I want to share.

1. We're currently looking into bundling cable, internet and the home phone together, so I decided to call Verizon to get pricing information (and after receiving dozens of offers in the mail from them over the years). After an awkward (and painful) beginning of the call, where the Verizon representative had significant difficulties spelling my name and address correctly, he finally gave me the basic information. However, when I asked about the equipment costs and installation fees, he informed me that I would need to give him my social security number to run a credit check to proceed. I refused. I wanted to know the complete costs to help me make an informed decision about whether or not I would choose Verizon. I called them, so it's obvious I'm serious about pursing a deal. Why do they need my social in order to tell me this? At a standstill, we agreed to end the call.

2. Our homeowners association cited us for damage outside our front window. We are trying to replace the entire area with a material that basically would not cause us to deal with this again. While the material comes in many different colors, it is not an exact match to the paint color we have, and we can't paint on this material. It's really close though. So now we're awaiting the board's ruling on whether or not we can proceed based entirely on the possible color difference. They may say that we're good but we would have to paint the rest of the house with the new color. That's not going to work. They may say we're not good which would bring us back to square one. Basically, we're now waiting for the board to give us a ruling as to how to spend out money on something I would never have considered spending money on until we got the notice.

Back to the title of this post, I realize that many of you don't know me and others probably haven't talked with me regularly for a long time. Based on these two examples though , am I unreasonably angry or are these rationale reasons to vent?