Well, unless you’re in the NFL…

I’m a casual football watcher. I don’t mind watching games and I live with a Penn State alumnus so we probably watch a lot more college football than NFL football but I digress… This week in the news, there’s been a couple football related stories that are about things going on off the field. Michael Vick got reinstated into the NFL and the Eagles picked him up so this dog killer can play football again. Donte Stallworth of the Browns was suspended because he ran over a pedestrian while he was drunk and pleaded guilty to a DUI manslaughter charge back in June. No worries though, he’ll be back on the team after the Super Bowl.

These cases among the other transgressions committed by not only the NFL players but other professional sports athletes are pretty despicable. I have to wonder why these guys are being reinstated. I understand they make a lot of money and that some of these players are pretty good and pretty popular but does that really negate their actions. I really don’t think so.

I think that if there were zero tolerance laws on legal transgressions that all of the professional sports would have a lot less problems in the long run. Sometimes people, even adults, need to see examples of what happens when they behave badly as deterrence. What message does this send to younger people watching these players? Make a lot of money and you are infallible? When people know they can get away with something with little to no punishment, they are more likely to do it. As long as these people getting in trouble properly saved their money, they’d have no problem maintaining a decent living. These players see more money in a year than most people see in their lifetime. They would be perfectly fine if they no longer had a job and I’m sure there’s a lot of willing prospects ready to take their place. This is particularly maddening because if a person who wasn’t a professional sports athlete did something like what those two players did, they’d be in major trouble. Sigh…

How do you feel about these players being reinstated?

I hate complaining. I really do. It’s just not my thing. I’m definitely more of a glass half-full kind of gal but sometimes even I get pushed a bit too far. This morning I get on the Metro armed with my ipod and a book. We pull out of the station and are then informed that there’s emergency track work being done on our line (never a good thing) so we are single tracking around the affected area. The commute was slow, slow, slow and I was about 20 minutes late. Sigh…

At this point, I’ve had about enough fun with Metro this summer. We’ve had crashes, derailments, people jumping in front of trains, texting train drivers, and sleeping drivers; we’ve seen it all. I could give up and drive but the Beltway terrifies me and I really, really hate driving anyhow (I want to give up my car). It’s more cost effective and greener anyhow. So Metro it is.

When I finally got into town this morning, I went right on to Metro’s website to see if the delay had been announced. Of course it hadn’t; Metro’s website is teh suck and is never updated correctly. So as I’m putzing around on the website looking for more information, I see a glorious “Contact Us” link. Bingo! I click this magical link of glory and am greeted with a beautiful form to fill out online. So I fill it out and as I feel it out, I feel the tension of a yucky commute drifting away into gorgeous happiness. I could get used to this. Although I know that probably nothing will come of this (Metro is not customer service oriented in the least), it was so freeing to air my frustration. Writing has always done this for me.

While my complaint was polite this time, I could see this glorious freeing of tension turned into a prime submission for Emails from Crazy People.

Hey but now you know, if you see someone on that site ranting about Metro, you can rest assure that it was probably me

______________________________________________________

Oh wow, I’m impressed!!! Metro actually has customer service and its decent customer service. I know part of this is probably a form letter but I’m surprised I received anything.

This is the email I received back:

Dear Ms. __________:

Thank you for your recent e-mail concerning your recent travel on the Red Line.  We apologize for any inconvenience you experienced as a result of incomplete or delayed communications. We are working to improve our procedures for communicating with customers.

This morning delay was due to repairing an arching insulator at chain marker 459+00 at Medical Center. Trains sharing the same track between Friendship Heights and Grosvenor due to emergency track maintenance.

More updates and information should have been provided by our station announcers and our Passenger Information Displays.  I apologize that this did not occur.  To help keep our customers informed, we strive to keep the station’s (PIDS) as current as possible to effectively communicate train arrivals, safety problems, delays, and information pertaining to elevator and escalator outages.
Real-time updates can be very difficult to provide because of changing situations at the individual scenes.  Updated rail delays are sent our by eAlerts.  Also, information on rail delays can be found on our website the next day at www.wmata.com/rail/service disruption. You can check the status of Metro trains throughout the system by viewing the Metrorail service status report. The report describes current Metrorail operating status, including any delays of 10 minutes or more.

We understand your frustration and are taking steps to correct the problems. As the major provider of transportation in the area, we constantly strive to provide courteous, safe and reliable service to all of our customers and have been successful to that end. However, we know there is always room for improvement.  I hope in the future that you will provide us another opportunity to satisfy your transportation needs and we appreciate your feedback. Your comments help us to review and refine our internal procedures and hopefully eliminate future disruptions in service.  I hope this helps to answer your inquiry.

We appreciate your feedback and hope that future travels on Metrorail will be more satisfactory. Please contact my team directly when you have questions or concerns related to the Red Line. To speak to a Red Line Customer Service Representative for Comments, Complaints or Suggestions, please call __________ weekdays between the hours of 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. You can leave a message at all other times or complete the comment form located on our website at www.wmata.com.

If you ever need to speak with a Customer Information Agent for assistance with general questions, please call _________; 6 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 7 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The Web site is also a valuable resource for customers to find out more details about trip planning, bus and rail fares, service disruptions and other information.

Sincerely,

_______________
Red Line Customer Service Representative

Hah, sometimes complaining works!!!

I used to have a love affair with the Metro but that love has been M.I.A. for awhile now. Yesterday, the red line decided to have a meltdown. I stood hot and unhappy while waiting for the train. When I finally got on the train, I noticed there was a guy standing in the Metro without shoes. It’s one thing not to have shoes at all but this guy was carrying a pair of heavy duty sandals (Birkenstock looking things) but wasn’t wearing them.

Let me just say first off that the Metro is gross. People do gross things on the Metro. The DC Metro has this ugly indoor/outdoor carpet (yes! Carpet! Who thought that was a good idea?) on it and seeing as how Metro can barely keep up with the necessary maintenance to make the system run, I can almost promise that no one is cleaning the carpet or even vacuuming it. I get freaked out a little even just touching the poles in the Metro! Eeek! Depending on the day, I think we all may be better off wrapping ourselves in tin foil or saran wrap just so we don’t have to touch the inside of the train!!! Ick!

We had another busy weekend. On Saturday, the Architect and I went to VA to see the Dave Matthews Band. DMB has been one of my favorite bands since I was little so I was happy to get to share a concert with him. Live music has always been amazing to me. I’m mesmerized by it. I may be partial but DMB is definitely one of the best bands that I’ve seen in concert. This time, they did a cover of the Talking Heads’ Burning Down the House. They do a great cover of Jimi Hendrix’s Watchtower. This time they interspersed it with a bit of Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven. It was so awesome. In concert, they like to go into big long, dreamy jams. One of their songs almost lasted a full 20 minutes!

Sunday, Beef came over to hang out. The Architect made dinner for us. We had prosciutto wrapped melon for appetizer. Our main dish was gnocchi with chicken and spinach salad. For dessert, we had lemonade pie. It was delicious and a nice way to get ready for the week.

Do you like live music? Who is the best band or singer you’ve seen?

Political Friday is back…

Ah yes, “Cash for Clunkers.” Such a catchy name for such a dumb program. The Senate voted yesterday to give an additional $2 billion dollars to the program. $1 billion was originally appropriated for the program. $3 billion dollars is a heck of a lot of money and last time I checked, the government was running in the red already. I don’t think this is going to help things too much.

 There’s several reasons that I am against this program:

-          It’s expensive.

-          The purpose of this program was to drive up the sales of the auto companies (who, by the way, have dug their own graves with not being competitive). The program has greatly increased car sales but what happens when this program is over? My guess is going to be that sales are going to go right down to where they started. The companies are going to continue the bad practices that got them into trouble in the first place.

-          I don’t believe in Keynesian economics. To me, this program represents a very Keynesian-esque program. Essentially this is the belief that the economy functions best when money is spent by the government and government spending can add bounce to a failing economy. So far with all of the government spending that goes on, I think that this philosophy has kind of failed. While I do believe there are things that can be done about a failing economy, in general, economies go in cycles and correct themselves although this may be a very slow and painful process. There was a lot fundamentally wrong with the economy (the so-called “bubbles” etc) and what we are seeing now is a correction.

-          I heart the environment but I don’t think this program is going to do too terribly much for it. Yes, you will have more cars on the road that get good gas mileage. This is a good thing. The problem to me comes in where you still have the same number of cars on the road. Although we are spending a lot of money on this program, I question how much benefit we are going to see from it. In the scheme of things, the number of people who are going to buy cars will probably be a relatively small amount of people. I find myself asking how much of a difference this will actually make as far as total carbon outputs. I think the money could have been better spent on public transportation.

What do you think of this program?

Even with annoying as Metro has been in the past few weeks (‘member the crash; yeah, we’re still dealing with the side effects), Metro remains one of the very best places to people watch in the city. This morning, I’m sitting on the Metro and a couple stops before my change over stop, a guy gets on. This guy was clearly drunk (hey, even at 7 am here, it has still gotta be 5:00 somewhere, I suppose). This guy throws his bag down and starts doing a really crazy dance in the aisles of the train car. The dance came complete with salutes, marching, pretend fishing, and pretend rope pulling. He wasn’t listening to music and he wasn’t saying a word. I was kind of sad to get off the train!

 You really do never know what kind of show you’re going to be treated to when you get on board!

The colors go from green, to red, to blue

Colors left to make the mind wander

Grass under our feet

Poppies in front

Clear sky above

It is peace at its finest

And there is nothing left to say

One thing that has always bothered me is when people feel entitled to various things without putting in effort. I think good things come to those who work hard and strive for those good things. Not much comes too easily unless you are very lucky. So when I heard this story, my jaw dropped. Trina Thompson is a 27 year old woman who graduated with a 2.7 GPA from Monroe College. She is suing the college because after three months after graduation she has still not been able to find a job. She said that the college did not live up to their end of the bargain in helping to find her a job.

 There are several things I have to say about this:

 - Frivolous lawsuit, anyone?

- In the immortal words of one of my favorite talking heads, James Carville, “It’s the economy, stupid.” There are a lot of people out of work right now. I would venture to guess that

- Going to college does not ensure that you will find a job automatically. You still have to do the legwork and get yourself out there. Degrees are a dime a dozen. You need something else to set you apart. Do an internship or something. Show what you did between the time you graduated from high school and graduated from college.

- Good luck trying to get a job now. Companies don’t particularly like to hire people who are sue happy. Thompson’s name is everywhere and I would venture to guess that a lot of people want to stay the heck away from her.

- 2.7 is not a good GPA. It amounts to a C+ average. While Cs get you degrees, they don’t ensure getting a job.

- From a Grammar Nazi perspective: Quotes like this: “They favor more toward students that got a 4.0. They help them more out with the job placement,” do not help your cause much.

 There is no easy way out. Getting a job is not always easy but you have to be the master of your own destiny. It does absolutely no good to wait for someone to bestow something upon you without work. You could be waiting a very long time.

I hope this case gets thrown out.

One of my biggest vices is sometimes buying one of the celebrity magazines (think People or US Weekly) so perhaps I’m adding to this problem but I’ve gotta say, it really weirds me out when people start talking about celebrities as if they actually know them. This morning, I was coming up the super long escalator out of the Metro and heard two women talking about some guy named Michael and how two of his kids got sick and were treated by some bad doctor. As I’m standing there, these two women continue to talk and I eventually realize that they are talking about Michael Jackson and his children as if they knew him.

The coverage of his death in general has kind of bothered me. I realize that a lot of people were really upset by his death but the whole investigation has been way overblown. You can’t turn on CNN now without seeing something about the case within the first five minutes of turning on the tv. It’s kind of ridiculous with as many other things that are going on in the world. Celebrities are out in the public eye and I suppose I understand why we are interested in them. Many of us are drawn to them for various reasons, either we like them or we liked their lifestyle.

I would never want to be a celebrity. I couldn’t stand being followed all the time or having a ton of people speculating on what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. All I can say is that I’m anxious for when this story goes away and the man will simply be allowed to rest in peace.

Would you ever want to be a celebrity?