The Customer Is Always Right

Today I went to Whataburger in south Phoenix and had a great customer service experience that made me think of some other ones from years past. After waiting on my order for far too long, I went to ask the manager where it was. They then brought it right out, but it was the wrong burger. I took it back, they quickly got me the right one and the manager then came out with another order of fries for me and handed me back my money, apologizing profusely. I refused, but she insisted. The elderly man next to me commented, "You sure don't see that anymore." I told the manager that I used to go to Whataburger as a small kid in Dallas, but since then had always lived on the east coast, where they don't have any stores. I had recently moved to Phoenix, but still lived far from the closest Whataburger. So whenever I was near one around mealtime, I tried to swing by. Anyhooo....

In 1986 I was 15 and, with a full-time summer job washing dishes and bussing tables at the local Ponderosa Steakhouse (similar to Sizzler), I had decided I could finally afford my first real guitar. After all, I had proven over the last two years, since my folks had given me a cheapo starter guitar for Christmas, that I was sticking with it and was constantly improving. So I ordered my Kramer Focus 5000. $350 and change was a lot of money in those days for a teenager. But I knew I'd have that much saved up by the time the guitar arrived. It was supposed to take two weeks. Two months later it finally arrived at Nolde's, our local music store. (Remember those in the days before Guitar Center?) I had ordered blue, but red had arrived. The store explained that Kramer had explained that blue just wasn't gonna happen until the next production run months later. Not wanting to wait any longer, I decided to take it home. After a few days one of the pickups began cutting out intermittently. Nowadays, I can fix this kind of thing in no time. But then I was a noobie and this long-awaited, wrong color of a guitar was under warranty. So I decided to write a letter to Kramer and give them a piece of my mind, what little of it I could afford to give away.

I addressed it to Dennis Berardi, then president of Kramer, and whose name I had seen in a Guitar World article on Eddie Van Halen, then Kramer's superstar celebrity endorser. Kramer was based in NJ and I lived there too at the time, so I was expecting some kind of satisfaction.

Sure enough, about a week later my mom yelled upstairs that some guy named Dennis was on the phone for me. I had no idea who that could be, but took the call. I was floored when he gave me his last name. He apologized profusely for the error and explained that they were just so overwhelmed with orders and couldn't keep up with them all. He asked what gauge strings I used and said he'd mail me a case of Floyd Rose strings, about $80 in 1986 dollars. I told him about the issue I was having with a pickup cutting out and he said to come on down to the factory for a tour and to bring my guitar with me. I had asked someone there about a tour a year or so earlier and was told they didn't offer tours to the public. I thought this sounded pretty cool.

Of course, I was too young to drive at the time, so this required enlisting Mom for the long drive down to Monmouth County. I brought my best buddy, Chris, who had had similar issues when ordering his Kramer Baretta a year earlier. My mom dropped us off in the Kramer parking lot and said she'd be back to get us in an hour. In the parking lot I spotted Dennis's Porsche 928 (later confirmed by the keychain on his desk), at that time the fastest production car in the world. Though I was then and still am a 911 guy. We walked right in and found Dennis at his desk. I introduced myself and he was very nice and welcoming. Along his wall were a few prototype guitars and a Spector bass. Dennis walked us into the production area, showed us some of the paint area and lathes, but wouldn't let us see everything. He dropped us off at a workshop and said that guy would take a look at my guitar and bring us back to his office when he was done. He made no mention of one of Eddie Van Halen's painted up guitar bodies sitting on the guy's workbench. Chris and I was starstruck. That's where they built some of Ed's backup guitars, though we both knew Ed built his own Frankenstrat and main 5150 Kramer himself. Later on we saw one of his fully finished, painted up guitars being packed for shipment. Dennis explained it was going right to Ed on the road, as they were playing in Chicago the next day. Dennis also showed us his all areas backstage pass for the upcoming show at the Meadowlands, for which Chris and I also had tickets. He then broke out the Polaroids of Eddie Van Halen and him grilling in Dennis's backyard in Deal, NJ. Man, what a job! Chris and I were drooling by then. Dennis said to come say hello to him at the show if we could find him. We went home walking a few inches off the ground, so excited, so satisfied and loyal Kramer customers forever.

A few weeks later at the Van Halen show, I did manage to spot Dennis near the soundboard and went down to say hello. The gorgeous Valerie Bertinelli was there with him and she was a sight to behold. The show was about to start, so we couldn't talk long. I asked Dennis if could get me an autographed photo of Ed. He said to call his office a few days later to see if he was able to get it. Sure enough, he got it. I was in that neck of the woods a few weeks later and stopped by to pick it up. To this day I have it framed with my ticket stub (I have about 30 more VH ticket stubs since then) in there and a guitar pick I caught from Ed at a show about 10 yrs. later when I was in the front row (another story when I have time to write it). I proudly bought several more Kramers over the years and always think about how great that company was to me.

Eighteen years later, when Ed had his D-Tuna produced and marketed, I called the phone number I saw in a magazine ad, as there was no website listed. The guy who answered was Andy Papiccio. I remembered his name from some Kramer stuff I'd read somewhere and recall seeing him when I visited the factory. I told him the above story and we had a good chat. He told me where I could buy my D-Tuna and I went to get one. Small world.

Big, Big City

I had always wanted to visit Chongqing, one of the largest cities in the world, but not truly ranked as such because it's its own province. It weighs in at almost 32 million people and I figured this would be as good a place as any to visit to try and cure my agoraphobia. For some reason, I'm only agoraphobic in the U.S, and never abroad. It's not that far from Chengdu, where I was staying, so I couldn't justify flying there. I decided to take the bus just for the experience. The bus was a little rough, but it was air conditioned and I got a good seat. A cute girl sat next to me and her friend sat in the row behind us. With her Mao hat on she sort of reminded me of the woman in David Bowie's China Girl video. As I had just been on that highway while traveling to a remote Tibetan community (see photos in earlier post) a few days earlier, I was not real interested in watching the scenery go by out the window again. So I got out my Sudoku book and went to work. My grandmother always told me to never go anywhere without a book and that's some of the best advice I've ever received. My friend in Chengdu, Dove, had given me Dan Brown's Deception Point in exchange for The DaVinci Code. But I was saving that for when I was really jonesing for a book. (I loved it!)

After the girl next to me seemed to run out of things to talk about with her friend behind us, I noticed she turned her attention to my Sudoku book. She'd obviously never seen anything like it before and was soon suggesting to me where to put certain numbers. My Mandarin is just good and bad enough to start a conversation and then frustrate all parties. But Sudoku is all about numbers and I can count well enough in Mandarin. While I knew most of her suggestions were wrong, it was impossible to explain to her how or why. She spoke a little English, but barely more than I did Mandarin. Her name was Candy (sure it was) and she was from Guangzhou, a city I had spent some time in and liked a lot. Correction - she went to school there and was really from Beijing, where I had not yet been, but was going soon.

After a while I just handed her the book and stared out the window as we got to an area I had not yet seen. She methodically went to work on the easier puzzles while I occasionally made suggestions and tried to explain my reasoning. After two hours we were bonafide friends. When we pulled into a rest stop, she told me to stick with her friend and her. They bought me a bottle of water and some food, declining my offer to pay. After that we spent the next few hours trying to tell each other about ourselves. Once we arrived in Chongqing, we exchanged cell phone numbers and agreed to meet up later that night.

I was meeting another friend (actually stranger) I had lined up as a tour guide through China Daily's BBS. Candy and her friend had other plans, and I felt alone and somewhat abandoned when they took off and I was left to fend for myself at the train station. You can't imagine what chaos really is until you've been all alone at a Chinese train station with no idea what to do.

No taxi driver would talk to me. They just didn't have the time (or patience) to deal with a foreigner. After about 15 min. of waiting in the crushing smog, heat and humidity, I finally did get one though. As soon as I knew he was taking me, I told him (in Mandarin) that I was calling my friend. I called my guide, Feng (I was thankful she hadn't taken an Anglicized name), and then handed the phone to the driver. Feng told him where to take me, which was a very nice and cheap hotel (The Square Hotel, around $32 a night) she had lined up for me right downtown. Once I'd gotten settled in the hotel, Feng came to meet me. I was a little surprised by how young she looked and then totally floored when I heard her perfect, accentless English. She was 19 and had gone to high school in Singapore. If you've done some traveling in China's interior, you know English is a rarity there. Feng's English was as good as mine. Unreal.

So we had a fine, dirt cheap dinner in what looked like a mall food court. Gawd, was it good. Chongqing, like Chengdu, is known for its incredibly spicy, Sichuan-style food. It did not disappoint.



Since Feng was only 19 and still lived at home with her folks, she could not stay out late. When she told me this, I was especially thankful I had gotten Candy's phone number. Feng had to go home, but it was only about 8:00pm. So I called Candy up. She said she and her friend (I don't think I ever got her friend's name, but she didn't speak a word of English anyway) were on the riverwalk at a bar. I gave the phone to a taxi driver and she told him where to bring me. What a thrilling ride over the Yangtze to that part of town. The spaghetti-junction of highways was lit by neon lights, each a different color according to the road. It was so cool. And sure enough, I found Candy and her friend sitting outside a bar along the Yangtze, across from which was the Chongqing skyline. It's BIG.



They were playing Chinese (what else?) checkers. I hung with them there for a while and had a few local beers. Then we all decided to go for foot massages. This is one my favorite things to do in China. For a pittance, perhaps $5, you get 60-90 minutes of pure heaven. These places are ubiquitous, but are kind of difficult for unaccompanied foreigners, since the folks who work there are almost all kids from the countryside who don't speak a word of English. In fact, their rural dialects are often unintelligible even for the native city-dwellers. I got a foot massage almost every night I was in China, but only did so once without a Chinese friend to help me out.



The next day Feng and I met up to go bumming around town. I had some shopping to do for friends and family back home. You probably know that in China no price is ever firm. It's all negotiable. And this is where it's so important to be able to count well in Mandarin. Looking like I do, I was an inviting target for all street vendors wanting to get full asking price. However, I had gotten pretty good at haggling and only got ripped off the few times I was too lazy or unwilling to argue or haggle. They say you can feel very proud if you come away paying what a Chinese person would pay. And I think I usually did so. That night, however, I did get taken to the cleaners, relatively speaking.



I had gone on a very long walk to do some exploring. I sort of wanted to get lost, find an Internet cafe to email some folks back home and then find my way back to the hotel. Well, lo and behold, after a few kilometers, I found myself near the train station again, this time around 10:00pm. It was deserted and there were no taxis to be found. Still, I decided to walk to where the cab line usually was, figuring a passing taxi would see the white guy and assume he could charge me double. And I was right.

A motorcycle taxi approached me. Wearing shorts and a golf shirt, I knew this was a dangerous way to go, not to mention the chaotic driving in China's cities. Chaos IS the rule there. But what the hell? Why not? I told the guy the name of my hotel and he motioned for me to hop on, no helmet offered, of course. What a ride! We went through a few traffic circles, a tunnel, over a few potholes, up some hills, around some twisties, pure adrenaline. When we got to my hotel, the fare was exactly twice what I had paid for the taxi there the previous day. But what's $2.50 when you're on vacation? I was too lazy to argue, but did comment that it seemed expensive. The driver said, "Yes, it is", smiled and went on his way.

The next morning it was raining pretty hard and, of course, I had no umbrella. I was jonesing for coffee, and while I never ever touch western food while in China, I draw the line at giving up coffee. Starbucks is just as expensive there as it is here, but I was always happy to pay it.....because coffee in Chinese hotels SUCKS. As I walked out of the hotel and surveyed the rain, a group of old ladies selling umbrellas rushed me. I guess I looked like an easy target. Silly me, I didn't realize they were all selling their own umbrellas and not working together. I could have easily bargained with them and gone with the lowest bidder. But I just went with the first one and got gouged at a whopping $2.

Later that day I met up with Candy and her friend for lunch, which was some of the best hot pot I'd ever had. Hot pot is Chengdu's signature dish and while there I'd had it sometimes for lunch and dinner in the same day. I was curious to see if it was any different in Chongqing. It was better!

Drang nach Osten!

Since Trier is located in the far western corner of Germany, on the border to Luxembourg, we figured we needed to make our way to Poland via Berlin, which was a loooonnngggg and expensive train ride from Trier. Luckily, even before the Internet and insanely high gas prices, German universities had a pretty decent carpool announcement bulletin board system. On the few days Bob and I made it up to the university, we'd scout out the available rides to eastern Germany. I had some really good friends near Halle, whom I wanted to visit on the way to Berlin and Bob had been with me on a visit there eariler in the year. So we really only needed a ride that far. Sure enough, we found a girl who was driving to Gotha on the very day we wanted to leave Trier. I forget the cost, but it was a nominal amount of money. I can't even remember the girl's name, but she was very cool, as I find most folks to be who grew up in the old East Germany. Such folks had little else to look forward to in those days, so they developed quite a sense of humor, the one thing the Communist government could not deny them.

We had a painless ride to the former East Germany and our driver let us off somewhere near Erfurt, where we started hitchiking. If I remember correctly, it took us two rides and a few miles of walking along the train tracks to make it to Naumburg, which was the next semi-major train station on the way to my friends' village. I called and they came to get us. Of course, we were treated to a fine homecooked meal and lots of great beer and conversation. As much as I always enjoy visiting Helmut and Ilse and their extended family, Bob and I wanted to get to Berlin the next day. Helmut and Ilse had relatives in Berlin (whom I knew well too) who were away on vacation and had told Helmut and Ilse to offer us their apartment for a few nights. Now things were starting to shape up. Klaus and Helma lived in a tiny flat in Schoeneweide, a neighborhood in the southeastern corner of the old East Berlin. I had been there before and was pretty sure I could find it again. So Bob and I got on the ratty bus to Halle, hopped the train to Berlin and then the S-Bahn to Berlin-Schoeneweide.

We spent two days in Berlin checking out the few areas I had not yet seen. Bob and I went to Sansoucci and then to Potsdam to see the site of the famous conference at Cecilienhof. I promise I will scan those photos someday and post them here. Anxious to get to Poland, which was less than an hour away by train, the next day we set out for Frankfurt/Oder, the last town in Germany. Once we got there, we were amazed to see a Burger King in the small train station, so far from the rest of Germany's cities. Figuring this might be the last "good" meal we'd get for a while, we decided to indulge in some American junk food before beginning the real adventure. Then we hopped in a taxi for the short ride to the bridge over the Oder River, which is the border. What a thrill it was to walk across that bridge. At the other end lay Slubice, Poland and real adventure.

We immediately changed over about $100, which got us almost more Polish Zloty than we could stuff in our pockets. And then we started walking with our thumbs out. This was a Sunday and, from the looks of it, church had just let out. There were a lot of cars on the road and it didn't take us more than about 10 minutes to get a ride. The driver spoke some German and told us he could take us as far as Poznan, about 150 km. inland. We were thrilled. Of course, he first had to make some stops, which Bob and I didn't mind. We hit a flea market and a roadside food stand. Our driver let us out at a train track crossing and pointed north, telling us to walk that way. Hmmmm. This was not what we'd expected when he said he could take us to Poznan. Our final destination (on this leg of the trip) was Malbork, site of the Marienburg, the world's largest castle. Malbork is in a part of Poland that used to be part of Germany, so we figured it would not be too hard to find German speakers there to help us. Our driver told us the trains in Poland run north, south, east and west and not diagonally at all. He said to get to Malbork, we needed to first get a train to Kutno from Poznan. After a walking along the tracks for less than an hour, we made it to the Poznan train station and quickly got a dirt cheap train to Kutno. Once in Kutno we had to wait a few hours for an overnight train to Malbork. Kutno has almost less than nothing. It was terrible, ratty, dirty, run down and, as with most European towns on a Sunday evening, not much was open. We did get some food in the train station, but it looked a few years behind even still-primative eastern Germany. There was nothing else to do but wait. And so we found an isolated bus stop and stretched out for a nap on the benches, keeping our bags' straps around one arm.

We made it to Malbork early the next morning and found a cheap hotel pretty quickly too. If you've done any traveling in eastern Europe while it was still communist, you know how things there look and smell. This hotel had definitely not been renovated or at all modernized. In fact, in our room was a painting of a Soviet fighter jet shooting down an American one. Ah, true art. But we didn't mind a little old propaganda for a whopping $8 per night. We then set off to find the awesome Marienburg Castle. And it did not disappoint.

I'd first heard about this castle from my dear friend Katrin, whose father was born there and escaped just before the Russians arrived on their drive to Berlin in 1945. In fact, her father had a stone from the castle on their mantlepiece, which I noticed on my first visit to their house years earlier. Once I got a look at a coffee table book on the place, I knew I had to go there.

Check that one off the list and so it was time to head to Warsaw.

What about Bob?

I was recently volunteered by the boss to go to the Republican National Convention this September in Minneapolis. I've never stepped foot in MN, but have heard a lot of great things about it. I also have three buddies there with whom I lived in Germany during my college junior year abroad in 1991-1992. Two of those guys, Mike and Bob, came to visit me in Virginia about 10 years ago, but we haven't kept in touch very well since then. Still, we had a LOT of crazy times together and I'm excited to see them when I go to MN soon.

This got me thinking of some of our adventures together in Germany. What an insane time! When the other Americans arrived in Trier to begin the semester, I had already been living near Cologne for six months, working at Bayer Leverkusen. I hadn't spoken a word of English in that time other than an occasional call home to the folks and once chatting with a few Mormon missionaries on a train. So I was very excited to finally meet up with a bunch of Americans and get back to the college way of life. Ironically, when those guys got to Trier, they were actually interested in speaking German, as it was the first visit for most of them. I had my German down to a native level by then and just wanted to speak English and catch up on how things were in the U.S., which I missed dearly.

Anyway, we all ended up getting stuck in this dormitory together called Martinskloster, which was on the Moselle River and not real close to the university. Sadly, the distance from the dorm to the university was not real conducive to getting up early, walking a mile to the bus stop and then heading up the mountain for morning classes. However, they did have a decent bar on campus once we got there and still decided to blow off class.

Lucky for me, I was not required to get grades. I just had to prove that I was registered for a certain number of classes per semester. The exchange program I was in had a deal with my university to carry over my GPA from my sophmore year to my senior year, while giving me 30 credits for my junior year in Trier. Pretty sweet deal, eh? More on Trier later.

Bob and I became pretty good friends and even managed to meet up during one of the long vacation breaks we had, when everyone usually went their separate ways. I went back to Bayer Leverkusen to earn some money. Luckily, Rush was on tour then and Bob was also a diehard fan. So we agreed to meet up for the show in Cologne-Deutz, a short ride away from where I was staying. Unlike the U.S., which had largely abolished general admission seating for big rock concerts after the deadly Who concert in Cincinnati, Germany still had it. So Bob and I just got there early and went to reserve our spaces. We were there several hours early to queue up and there were no security or even fans anywhere. So we wandered back to the loading area to watch the crew load in Rush's and Primus's equipment. While standing around, we saw a Mercedes wagon pull up. Out of the passenger seat climbed the Professor Neil Peart. What a sight. Our hero was right in front of us. Three other kids were hanging around back there. One called out to Neil, who completely ignored us all and walked briskly into the Sporthalle. What a buzzkill. But we snuck in another entrance a while later and sat undisturbed while watching Rush do their soundcheck in the empty arena. We eventually got kicked out, but that was fine by us. We got back in for the show and were front and second row for most of it. Killer!

That was April of 1992 and we had another three week break from school coming up in June. The Germans have a LOT of holidays on their calendar and that works out especially well for students. Bob and I wanted to go to Poland and Ukraine for this vacation. But at the time, the former Soviet Union was in a lot of disarray and we could not get a straight story on how to get a visa or if we even needed one for Ukraine. What if we had to pass through Belarus on the way in or out? I called my mom and asked her to call the mission at the U.N. in New York. She did and was told we could get a visa for $50 at the border. I wanted to confirm this with one or two more sources before we set out, but we figured we could still have a blast hitchiking to Berlin and then all around Poland. And what a blast it was. Stay tuned.

The Phoenix Gun Buy-Back

No photos (as far as I know), but this was surreal. The buy-back was at four churches and one police station. We started at the police station. I met a friend there who'd brought three junk guns that were barely worth $50 a piece and he got three $100 grocery store gift cards for them. Some of the other gun rights locals showed up and we all just sort of milled around talking with the cops there. The Phoenix mayor showed up and came out to chat with us, seeming not to understand or care why we were there. Someone took a photo of all of us, so it might make the papers. We saw no one else bringing in guns, so we left to go to one of the churches. I left my bike at the police station and rode in my buddy's car. First church had nothing going on, but some middle aged white guy with three beaters that probably weren't worth $50 each. Amazingly, the church folks said they were already out of gift cards. So we headed over to another church. And this was where it was at.

The cops there knew what we were doing and, at first, left us alone. First guy we saw get out of his car with a plastic baggy, we approached. He didn't speak a word of English. He handed over the baggy for us to look at. As soon as my buddy saw "Ruger" on the grip, he whipped out his own gift card and made the swap. The other guy just got back in his car and left, probably thinking we were part of the buy-back. Ha ha. My buddy got a very sweet Ruger .22/45, though its mag. release button was loose in the bag. Still, a nice score. The cops were watching us now. We were both carrying concealed, but printing pretty obviously. We saw another guy get out of his car with a plastic baggy. I yelled out, "Whatcha got there?" He said, "It's just a Makarov." I almost broke into a sprint. Walking briskly, I said "Is is East German?" He said, "No, Russian." I was reaching for my wallet when three very serious looking Phoenix PD were upon us and said, "You guys need to roll now." One cop even had the nerve to say we were taking advantage of people. I said, "But you guys are out of gift cards and we're not AND we have cash." Cop said the church folks wanted us gone, which was the threshold for a trespass cite if we argued anymore. So we left.

Figuring those cops had radioed the other locations to tell them to watch out for us, we decided to head back the police station and get my bike and go home.

But wait! There's more.

Seems the cops at the police station really didn't care about what we were doing. Some lady with her little girl got out of her car with an S&W hardcase. We swarmed her. After fiddling with the lock we got it open and it was some old CZ beater. Another guy handed her a C note for it and she went on her way. I think the cops were still out of gift cards, so we spared her some disappointment too. Cops, meanwhile, were pulling up in their squad cars with piles of handguns in plastic evidence bags and long guns with bolts open. What a sight. Then another guy pulled up in a truck with a cardboard box under his arm. We swarmed him too. We looked like paparazzi stalking a celebrity. He had a decent condition Bersa .380, which my buddy took in exchange for another one of his gift cards.

By then the media were showing up and wanted to interview us. Cops didn't care at all. Because of where I work, I chose not to be on camera, but I spoke with two of the reporters and the guys that did speak on camera were standing next to my bike. So my bike might be on the news tonight. Anyway, it was about 100 deg. with no shade by then and I was getting lightheaded after 30 min. of this. So I headed home with only the gun I was wearing when I got there. Still, it was pretty exciting and also interesting to see how cool the cops were with us outbidding them and buying guns under their noses. What a country!

A few photos from China

The stories I have from this trip could fill many pages here. For now I'll just post some photos and short blurbs. This trip was in May and June of 2006. A lot of these areas are in the earthquake zone from May 12th. I hope to someday return to these areas and see how they look afterwards.

This was a Qiang village on our route to a Tibetan community in northwestern Sichuan, a few hours outside of Chengdu.



This was my bathroom for a few days.



This is all I had to break into our guide's car when he locked the keys in it. It worked though. Sure am glad I got that Tetanus shot before I left for this trip.



Such a gorgeous country.



This one has to be my favorite photo from this trip. Tibetans are a beautiful people. I was probably the only white person she'd ever seen, so I doubt they dressed up for me.

Another airport security story

We all have airport stories. If you don't, you either don't travel or you've been incredibly lucky. In Jan. 2007 I had a business trip to Vegas. My company would only pay for travel to and back from Vegas, but I wanted to visit a friend in CA for a few days first. Amazingly, I found a flight on United from Dulles to Vegas that first stopped at LAX and then backtracked to Vegas. I picked this one, as it would get me to CA and the company would cover it since Vegas was the final destination. I figured I'd just get a flight on Southwest from LAX to San Jose to see my friend and then back to Vegas in time for my conference a few days later.

In Vegas I planned to rent a BMW R1200GS (then my dream bike, now my current bike) and spend a day riding around Valley of Fire (I later got married there). Of course, this would require lugging my riding gear with me on this trip, which was plenty of girth and weight - helmet, gloves, boots, riding pants, jacket and lots of warm layers. It turned out to be 37 deg. the day I rode and that was just the ambient temp. Add a 50-80 mph wind chill for the ride and it was coooollllldddd.

Anyway, I had all this shi.....stuff packed up neatly to check for the flight. At the check-in counter, I asked the lady to have my bags tagged for LAX, as I was getting off there. She said that was not possible, as my ticket was for Vegas. I told her I was getting off in LA and really needed those bags to be with me, especially, since I was planning to rent a bike when I later got to Vegas, which I could not do without riding gear. She said the bags could not be on the plane without me. I countered by saying that's why the bags should get off in LAX, since that was where I was getting off and she couldn't stop me from getting off there. The robot lady was having none of it. She then said it was a security issue. I asked how it was a security issue if I was asking to have my bags get off with me in LA, while she was insisting they continue on the plane to Vegas without me. Can you believe this? Oh, it gets better.

Finally, she said it would be a $100 charge to redirect my bags to get off the plane in LA. Of course, I had to ask her why, if it was a security issue, I was able to get out of it by paying $100. Whatever. These days you never win by using logic or reason or making a scene at the check-in counter. While she was processing my payment, I commented that I'd gladly spend more than $100 to not have to fly United again.

The trip went fine and, immediately upon my return home, I fired off an angry email to United's customer service. I got a $100 voucher for my trouble.

Your airport security at work.

In March I rode my bike from DC to Jacksonville, FL to load onto a friend's truck for transport to Phoenix. I usually carry a sidearm when I ride and always on long trips. I had bought a one-way flight on United for around $79 back to Dulles and brought my factory case and lock with me for checking the gun. As usual, the ticket counter folks were pretty fast about it, didn't ask to see the gun and just had me sign the tag stating that I had checked it, locked it up and put it back in my bag to be checked.

On the plane I had an aisle seat in the very last row. As we were just about to land, a flight attendant, sitting in her jump seat, tapped me on the shoulder and said the captain would like to speak with me before I deplane. I asked if I was in trouble and she shook her head. I had a long wait before I was able to start walking toward the front of the plane. As I approached the cockpit another flight attendant stopped her conversation with someone else, looked at me and asked that I go see the captain. I said I was going to do just that. Geeze, she knew who I was from way up front and had been watching me approach from her peripheral vision.

Finally, I got to the cockpit, walked in and introduced myself. The captain said, "Are you a 'lee-oh'?" I thought for a second and replied (in all seriousness), "No, I'm a Taurus." Then I realized he meant "LEO" and so I said, "Oh, you mean law enforcement. No, I'm not a cop. Why?" He said he had me on a list of having brought a firearm aboard. I said, "Yeah, but I checked it with my luggage." He replied that he didn't have that info. Without thinking, I blurted out, "And you're waiting until we've landed to ask me about it?!" He said it was no big deal and figured I might have been the sky marshal. Kidding me? What good would a sky marshal have been in the very last row, had something really happened?

I have a co-worker whose husband is a Secret Sevice agent and she's told me he has to meet with the sky marshal if he carries on a commercial flight. So I guess the sky marshals aren't a total secret and I'd think the captain might want to know who he/she is in case he spots their sidearm printing in their clothing.

How I learned German

I don't think anyone debates the importance of learning a foreign language anymore. Americans lag far behind kids of other industrialized nations, not only in math and science, but also in foreign languages. Kinda ironic for such a melting pot like the USA, eh?

Well, I didn't start out wanting to learn German with any goal other than to understand more about WWII history. I used to watch the old World at War series with my dad when I was very young, long before anyone knew what cable tv was. One day in church, the pastor announced he needed a few host families for a group of Germans coming to our town for about six weeks. I quickly ran up to my folks afterwards (they sat in the choir loft) and asked if we could do it. They said yes. And so began the first step in my lifelong relationship with all things German. I'll leave the countless and exciting exchange student and travel stories for future posts, as I want to focus on how I got to learning German.

On or about the last day our German exchange student, Thomas, was with us, he asked when I might come visit him near Heidelberg. I was 13 at the time and just about to start 8th grade. My mom interjected and said when I can speak German as well as Thomas spoke English, I could go visit. That very same day I bought a book called "Learn German in 10 Minutes a Day". It was nothing intense, but definitely had the basics like noun gender, verb conjugation, simple phrases and best of all, a few pages of decals to peel off and stick on things around the house, sort of like flash cards, with the German word and phonetic spelling for each object. I am now 37 and my parents just recently sold that house. I believe some of those decals were still on closet doors, light fixtures, mirrors, etc. on the day of closing.

At the time my public junior high school only had French and Spanish classes, so I knew I'd have only myself to rely on for learning German until I started prep school in another year. In those days long before the Internet, people kept in touch the old fashioned way - pen and paper. And I figured being a pen pal was the next best thing I'd have to German lessons for quite a while.

I had gotten to know several of the other students in Thomas's group and we all exchanged addresses. Though I was about three years younger than most of them, we all got along very well and kept in touch for several years. One girl in that group I still keep in touch with to this day. She's a doctor and mother of three in Austria. I've visited her many times and know her whole family well now. I lost touch with Thomas a year or so after my first visit to his house in 1987. In a strange twist, on a trip to Germany about five years ago, I was driving back to Frankfurt after a tour of the Porsche factory, when I saw a road sign that I was approaching Thomas's home town of Schriesheim. I had a few hours to kill, so I stopped at a gas station and bought a map of the town. And I remembered Thomas's street name from the countless letters we had written one another. You don't get that with email these days! I vaguely remembered riding with Thomas in his old VW Scirocco up the very long, twisty, steep road to his folks' awesome mountaintop house back in 1987. This time there was snow on the ground, but the road came back to me as soon as I started up the hill. I knew Thomas's house was the last one at the top of the mountain, so I was pretty sure I wasn't gonna miss it. Sure enough, I found it. His father ran an insurance business and had an office attached to their house. So I got out and knocked on the office door. A younger guy answered and I asked him if this was still Thomas's dad's business and home. He said yes, but the father was out on a trip.

I remember Herr Metzner being frustrated when I met him in 1987 because he was so interested to talk with me, but my German and his English were equally bad. By that time Thomas's English had atrophied some too. So the dinner conversations were slow and limited. I decided to write Thomas's father a note in my now near-perfect written German (spoke is already perfect). I was sure he'd remember me, though the polished German might throw him off. I handed the note to his employee, told him some of the above story and asked that he give the message to Herrn Metzner. Unfortunately, he did not know how to reach Thomas and I never heard back from his father. But I felt like I had some closure and had at least attempted to get back in touch. No big deal though. I had countless longtime German friends by then and still do. That first experience with a foreign exchange student changed my life forever and I'll write more about it in future posts.

Anyway, learning foreign languages has certainly become easier in this age of laptops, the Internet, CD's, email, satellite tv, etc. And there are countless products out there to help you get started. No, I don't think you'll be reading War and Peace in original text anytime soon with one of these teach-yourself packages. But as you can see from just one of my many stories (more to come) on this subject, learning a foreign language can be an enriching and life-changing experience.

What is this fascination with the National Spelling Bee?

I will never understand why people are so impressed by kids' abilities to memorize the spelling of words no one ever uses. It was all over CNN last night and today. I think the only word I recognized was "espousal", which I might use one or twice a year. The other words I'd never heard of and would never use even if I had. I knew a few kids in school with photographic memories who could solve the Rubik's Cube or whatever. But I don't recall any of them being better spellers than I was. Why does the media, or anyone for that matter, make such a big deal out of a contest to see which kid can memorize something (that's irrelevant) the best? I think an essay-writing or logic problem-solving competition would be far more valuable and a better measure of a kid's true talent and worth ethic.