augusta – Steve's Blog

American Customs

On Monday after returning from our weekend away in Kennebunkport I went to my first basketball game. It was a game between the Maine Redclaws and the Springfield Armor at the Augusta Civic Center.

I had no real idea of what to expect. I’d seen some games on TV, including a couple over at Sue and Jeff’s but watching top flight pro teams on TV is very different to seing a pretty new team in the D league. Probably like watching Arsenal v Chelsea on TV and then going to watch Cheltenham v Burton Albion.

I think what struck me most was how disjointed the whole thing felt. There were mad bursts of action with players running back and forth along the full length of the court and then there were whole periods of nothing going on with timeouts and penalty shots, and sometimes those penalty shots seemed to take forever to be taken. Of course with all the timeouts and everything else it’s surprising how long 48 minutes of play can be stretched out to, and having a ref who seeemed to love the sound of his own whistle and his own voice probably didn’t help, and the crowd of just over 3000 people didn’t think he was doing a very good job.

Today was of course, Thanksgiving, so that meant a lot of good food and family time with Kathy’s family, and everyone ate too much, and that was before we started on the various pies for dessert.

Now everyone is just sitting round relaxing and trying not to fall asleep, and talking about plans for Black Friday, and working on wedding programs for this weekend.

Life, and stuff

Well this weekend is the Friends of Cheltenham Samaritans beer festival. This is their third annual beer festival and if the other two were anything to go by then this too will be a great day out and with a very worthy cause. I’ve never needed the Samaritans myself because I’ve had people I’ve been able to talk to but its got close a couple of times.

So we will be there just after noon on Saturday and we will, what ever the weather throws at us, have a great time drinking good beer in good company.

I’ve still not uploaded any photos from Maine to my Flickr account. I guess I need to upgrade to pro as I’m still on the free account and I need to do some serious re-organisation and categorisation of my photos.

Kathy got a phone call on Monday night saying that Jen had been in a car accident. The news made the Kennebec Journal They flew her to Bangor as Augusta doesn’t have facilities to land a helecopter. In the UK the Air ambulance doesn’t care about landing pads – they’ll use car parks and playing fields as temporary landing pads. She had exploratory surgery on Tuesday as she said she had pelvic pain and her pelvis is cracked in two places. She is in a lot a pain and we’re waiting to hear if they will be able to move her nearer to home as Bangor is quite a way from Waterville (where she lives) and Augusta where her grandmother lives.

Here are some photos of her car. We all think that two cracks in her pelvis is a very lucky escape. The maroon car is the car that hit hers.

So its been rather a stressful week for Kathy who has spent most of her evenings on the phone talking to people and keeping people up to date with what is going on.

United Airlines – Fly the Unfriendly Skies

I’m not in a happy mood at all.

At about 6am on Thursday February 28^th we got a telephone call from Kathy’s sister telling us that her dad had died unexpectedly.

It was obvious that Kathy, at least, needed to get back to Maine as soon as possible.

To try to make things as easy as we could we wanted a flight that took her directly to Portland, Maine, rather than leaving her at Boston and having to take the Concord Trailways bus.

United Airlines seemed to do this so we decided to book with them. Rather than use the internet Kathy phoned them. United then took lots of details, such as her fathers full name, the funeral home he had been taken to and the name of the director of the funeral home. We assumed that this meant she would get some decent treatment from United or a decent air fair.

How wrong we were. The ticket was £499 (more than it was if we’d bought it on line).

We should have realised then, as previous experience of United had shown, that it was all down hill from there.

They promised us the E-ticket would be in the email soon. Nope.. after hassling them several times it actually turned up at 2pm on Friday 29^th

So Saturday morning we drive over to Heathrow. We get there and United say they need the credit card that was used to buy the ticket (i.e. MY credit card) to confirm the ticket. So Kathy gives it to them.

She goes through security and I go home.

By the time I get home which is 5 minutes after the plane has taken off the United Airlines website shows that it will be landing 30 minutes late in Washington due to “operational reasons” at Dulles. On the plane they tell Kathy that it will all be fine. A couple hours out from Washington they admit they will be late but it is OK as the connecting flight to Portland is also delayed

So Kathy gets off at Washington and gets through immigration and customs and makes it to the gate to find the flight has closed and she cannot get on.

So she has to try to get on the next flight. Which she manages to do.

That flight is then delayed.

She arrives at her parents’ in Augusta at 03:30am EST – a mere 26 hours after leaving Cheltenham.

So we think the crap has ended there.

No…

Mid March we get our credit card bill:

4 March : United Air US Ticket Mailed 15.00 US Dollars 29 Feb
4 March : United Air US E-TKT 871.42 US Dollars 29 Feb
5 March : United Air UK Heathrow 499.30 29 Feb

Only the 3rd transaction is the ticket we got emailed to us. The other two are phantom transactions invented by United Airlines. I mean who the hell would buy a ticket on 28/29th Feb for a flight on March 1st and ask for it to be posted – and how the hell do you post an E-Ticket?

So I phone them. They try to blame it on us booking on line. I explain that we phoned them so its all down to them. They agree a refund.

We keep an eye on the credit card… no refund comes through. They usually come through in a few days.

I phone them on Monday and I’m assured that they did process it on March 22^nd but it could take “two billing cycles to come through”.

Wednesday evening it appears on our credit card.. a refund from United Airlines – for £218.30 . Now I knew the dollar was weak but how the hell can $886.42 turn into £218.30.

So yesterday I phone them … you just phone their customer line and ignore all the push button options until you fall off the end. I’m told that they cannot do anything that I need to contact the refund department. I loose it – I explain the whole situation that the fault is ENTIRELY United Airlines as they did everything and that frankly the way my wife and I have been treated by United in this whole farce is enough to put us off ever flying with them again. After about 20 minutes they tell me that they’ve pushed it forward to their refunds department and to phone back tomorrow for an update.

So this morning I phone and get someone who says they can’t see anything on their systems. Eventually they do and say “its gone to the refunds department” and to phone back “the end of next week”.

Is this really the sort of treatment you should expect from a company like United. They have basically ripped us off and kept nearly $900 of OUR money for in excess of a month and they don’t seem to want to give it back.

Fly United : fly the friendly Skies.

I don’t fucking think so.

Rain is rain, no matter where you are

It was raining last night and it was raining this morning. We flew several thousand miles and all it can do is rain 🙁 Although at one point the rain also contained some rather damp snow flakes we didn’t actually get any snow – according to the Weather Channel it looks like Augusta was on the southern edges. However they have said we might get some snow over the next day or so along with some colder weather.

It was another lazy day today, we spent some time up at Kathy’s parents before heading over to the Lions Club in Manchester to check the building out as Jen is planning on holding her wedding reception there next May. After that we came home, had some supper and settled down to watch “National Treasure” on TV.

It looks like we have slightly more planned for the weekend – including driving down to South Portland.

Just relaxing doing nothing

Sue and Jeff live outside Hallowell, and even though the interstate is quite close there is no direct access and its not actually that noisy

[Embedded Canalplan Map for Sue and Jeff’s]

As you can see from the photo the neighbours are slightly further away than they are at home. When we aren’t here we are spending time over at Kathy’s parents who live on the other side of Augusta. Her Mum makes a mean mug of coffee and always has lots of food to nibble on.

[Embedded Canalplan Map for Kathy’s Parents]

The big tree on the corner of the property by the turning into Sparrow Drive has recently come down as it was leaning dangerously, and the small shed in the garden has also gone.. actually its been gone for a while now so I guess the satellite image is quite old

Flying is never a really good experience

I don’t care what any airline claims – flying is not an overly enjoyable experience : well not in economy any way.

We got to the airport, dropped off our luggage and went through security. All remarkably painless and as we didn’t have to be there 3 hours in advance as we were already checked in we didn’t end up kicking our heels and getting bored sitting in the departure lounge for hours.

Boarding was remarkably painless, probably because the flight was only about half full, but of course we ended up with people sitting in the two seats in front of us: two people who were complete pains – they reclined their seats the minute they got into them and never put them up again (even when food was being served). The woman who was sitting in front of me just didn’t sit still for the entire flight, if she wasn’t going to the toilet she was moving round in her seat making the back move all the time which made watching any film just about impossible as unless you leant forward and twisted your neck it wasn’t actually possible to see the screen properly.

The flight left late but managed, due to 75mph tail winds, to actually land on time at 17:05 EST. Immigration, baggage claim and customs was the quickest it has ever been and we got out of the airport at 17:35, just in time to see the Concord Trailways bus for Portland just leaving…. oh well.

So we waited for the next bus at 18:30 which was a couple of minutes late (if only the previous one had been) and headed for Portland. The movie on the coach was Evan Allmighty, not a film I would have chosen to watch due to the fact that the previous film in the”series” starred Jim Carey and I find his manic behaviour extremely tedious. But it wasn’t a bad film and it filled the two hours of trip up the interstate.

It was about 10:30 by the time we had arrived at Sue and Jeff’s and I have to say that it wasn’t long before I headed off to bed.