Boosting the Signal: United Airlines Disses Disabled Passenger

I found this linked while compiling soniclipstick and am taking a moment to boost the signal, because there's an airline who needs their ass handed to them.

Basically, United Airlines did not provide wheelchairs, told their customer that she had to ask another passenger to help her with her luggage because they wouldn't, refused to apologize, refused to discuss the issue with the stewardess who blew her off, told their customer she had no recourse at customer service, and iced the whole failcake with "It's not in our contract to assist passengers with their luggage and we reserve the right to refuse assistance to anyone. If that's what you need, then perhaps in the future, you should make other travel arrangements."

If they want people to make other arrangements, well, let's advertise that far and wide and give United Airlines what they asked for.

Cherry Blossoms, Serendipity, and Life Heading Onwards

Before I go into What I Did on Suri's Spring Vacation, a note from the flist: United Airlines has noticed that it's up to its ass in Internet alligators and has swung into damage control of the "we value our customers and will look into this serious matter" type.


What We Did on suricattus' Spring Vacation:

The meerkatly one came down for the weekend, and we headed downtown on Saturday. Due to my managing to strike out in all the wrong directions, we ended up taking the long route across the front of the Capitol to get from Judiciary Square to the Mall... but that meant that we got to see the front of the Capitol (I've never been there before) *and* end up right in front of the Botanical garden, which is currently hosting a really lovely orchid display. (At one point suricattus was describing what one looked like, and it was a bit amusing to see her freeze almost in mid-word as a story idea hit.)

It also meant that we were in the right place and the right time to catch the phone call from faireraven to say that her and acroyear70's morris team would be one of several dancing in the summer just a few yards from where we were. So we went and got comfortable seats by the reflecting pool and watched one of the high school bands down for the Cherry Blossom Parade get their picture taken with the Capitol dome as backdrop. Then we watched the dancing for a while - it's the first time I've seen a team dancing with the fool character, who was dressed in DC suit-and-tie best using what looked like a tie as his hanky.

Then it was off to Written in Bone at the Natural History, out again to meet up with one of Suri's friends and check out the Cherry Blossom street fair, and back into Natural History again to see the new Human Origins exhibit. It's extremely impressive, but I'm wondering how well some of the statuary and hands-on exhibits will stand up to the summer tourist rush.

Alas, today is back to reality. I stayed home from work because I was expecting the A/C repairman (due between 9-12; arrived 1-ish) and got a bunch of little things done - laundry, some more basement clearing, etc. I also set up the new Cisco Valet router, which really is wonderfully idiot proof, but not so idiot proof that I didn't have to call support and find out why the computer which stubbornly ignored the previous router was also ignoring this one. That's put me badly behind the rest of schedule - I owe USF the review of Unregenerate - but we conquered the router!