Interesting note over at Josh’s 106 Miles to Chicago on which is better White Castle vs. In-N-Out…
Now, we all know where the Beastie Boys stand (”I dig White Castle ‘cuz it’s the best, but I’m fly at Fatburger when I’m way out west.”), but I’ll wait to see where Craig weighs in on it.
… people are watching me! (Well, Ken & Flickr too.)
I’ve been reading Jen’s blog for a while now (really, if you work with contextual advertising, her’s and Battelle’s are two of the must-reads) and it was funny seeing myself linked to from there. Not because of what I write, but because of what I work on.
That’s one of the great things about Yahoo. That chance to work on high profile products that people really care about. How can you not love that?
Having come to terms with the inability to book a specific seat a while back, I’ve been a fan of Southwest for sometime now. As someone who would jump back & forth occasionally from the bay, LA, and Vegas it’s great how quickly you can rack up a free flight. Their reality TV show, Airlines, hasonly made me like them more (although it’s also served as a lesson not to drunk before getting on the plane).
Even with all that, my appreciation for them just jumped a bit. Recently having received a free Rapid Rewards ticket, I hopped online to see if I could use it to fly home to Chicago for the 4th. (People here in California don’t know how to celebrate it properly.) Visiting southwest.com, I noticed you can “log in” now. Thinking that would make the process easier, I registered, logged into my account and discovered I had not one, but two roundtrip tickets available, the second having been earned just shy of a year ago. Just so shy in fact, that it expired on the 30th of June and I would be traveling on the 2nd of July.
Annoyed with my stupidity of having lost a free roundtrip ticket, I decided I should just move forward and book my trip. After all, if I linger, I’ll miss that two week advance noticed needed for free trips. I wanted to do something non-obvious (fly out of LAX, but return to Burbank), so I decided to give Southwest a call. While talking with the agent, she let me know that 1) on Southwest, no, you don’t need 2 week notice. In fact, if the flight had open seats, I could fly tomorrow, and 2) she noticed my soon-to-expire trip and told me not to let it go to waste — that you can get it extended another year for a $50 charge. Not bad, considering it was my open stupidity.
I’m not sure what other airline is like that. Good customer service & customer friendly policies go a very, very long way in building customer loyalty.
Now if I can just convince them to give more than two fucking bags of peanuts…
Case of kids kicked out of home shocks prosecutor
MARSHFIELD, Mo. — A mother and her live-in boyfriend are charged with child endangerment after investigators say they kicked her two kids out of the house. The investigation began after a passerby found a 12-year-old boy and his 6-year-old sister walking along Highway CC near Niangua.
The kids were dragging suitcases, shopping bags and garbage bags full of clothing. They were about a quarter of a mile from their home, scared, crying and hungry.
“Thank the good Lord this was someone that wasn’t going to hurt children,” said Webster County Prosecuting Attorney Cynthia Black, praising the man who picked up the kids.
Police say the children said their mom, Roxanna Osborne, woke them up and told them to pack and leave immediately. The kids say their mother gave them $5 and went back to sleep.
“The children also told deputies that their mom and her boyfriend used drugs in their home. They described in shocking detail the pipes and drugs they used,” said Black. “They also referred to some spoons with burn spots on them, and spoons with burn spots typically refer to meth use.”
A detective’s probable cause statement filed with the charge also outlines accusations of abuse. The kids told officers they were burned with cigarettes, hit with belts and verbally abused. The kids also said they are afraid that, if their mother and her boyfriend get sent to jail, she will kill them.
Osborne and Timmy Young face two charges each of child endangerment. The prosecutor thinks what the mother did is unbelievable.
“We see lots of nasty things and we expect to see nasty things, but this is one of the ugliest things and one of the saddest things because a 6-year-old and a 12-year-old were so very, very upset and distraught,” said Black.
The kids are physically fine and are now in the custody of a relative but Black said they are obviously traumatized. Officers arrested Osborne and Young at their home.
This is the second time in a little more than a year that Young has been charged with child endangerment. He was arrested and pleaded guilty in May 2004 for using a chainsaw to smash the windows of a van belonging to the woman who was then his girlfriend — while her three children were inside.
Osborne and Young are jailed in lieu of $200,000 bond each. They are scheduled to be in court next Wednesday.
Black said she likely will file more charges against both in Webster County. In addition, evidence in Young’s case has been handed over to the U.S. attorney’s office for possible federal charges.
Having noticed the Operating System Sucks-Rules-O-Meter, I would like to make my contribution:
FreeBSD sucks.
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