Snarky Tom's Rants, Raves and Ruminations

May tenth was the first escape from the humdrummery of my life in several years. I was traveling to Central Wisconsin for a celebration. A most happy occasion as a family/friend was celebrating retirement. Not a 100% retirement, but one close enough to say that if he and the Mrs. wanted to dash off to Canada or Outer Mongolia, they could. The flight in, rental car pickup and the drive from Chicago to Central Wisconsin all went flawlessly. I flew on Southwest Airlines. An airline that has yet to treat me like I was cattle. The boarding went well; No hassles from TSA. It was just a picture perfect start of a mini-vacay.  My plane to Chicago The time came to go home Sunday afternoon. The morning breakfast with the family was fantastic. The long car ride was pleasant. I made a few stops along the way. The old bladder is not as robust as it once was. The rental return was pain-free. All seemed to be going well. I had TSA pre-check status… fantastic. UNTIL they scanned my backpack...

First, this piece is not reporting as much about SEPTA as it is about some of its passengers or their mentality and a typical travel day without involving my car. Every morning I take the 66 bus to Frankford Transportation Center (FTC). I usually try to catch the Express. It saves me about five minutes travel time. Most of the time it’s standing room only. Everyone packed in like sardines. When I don’t crave that closeness with my fellow Philadelphians, I take either an earlier bus or the one just after the Express. One morning, I chose the earlier.  Now. There are a fair amount of seats. On off-peak (non-rush hour) travel, there are plenty of seats. In the morning or afternoon/evening, not so much. However, this particular morning there were five seats in the back of the bus which I wormed my way through the dozen of standing strap-hangers to reach those empty seats. I don’t know if people are skitchy about sitting next to strangers or they just like to stand. All I know ...

I'll start off by saying that I have no love for JetBlue or any airliner for that matter. But with their latest allowance of employee empowerment to make fashion decisions or to determine what is proper flight attire solidifies why I will never fly with them. They have permanently joined the "I-won't-fly" ranks of American Airlines, Delta and Frontier Airlines. Though I find the young woman's outfit more suited for trolling Walmart or lounging around the house, there is nothing illicit, illegal or obscene to warrant being forced into a wardrobe change prior to boarding her Boston to Seattle flight or to suffer being removed from the flight altogether. If she passed through security that should be good enough. Also, this girl's ass makes that shite work. Work it honey. I'm a little sick and tired of reading about the morality police. People take their job duties beyond the job description into the realm where no customer service personnel should ever ...

Hopefully, the title caught your eye. I don't want to say that all insurance companies are out there to scam you out of your money, but I find insurance company reasoning puzzling. In March, I leased a new car, a 2015 Ford Fusion Titanium Energi Hybrid in a bright ruby red. It's a plug-in hybrid. It came with all the "bells and whistles". I got rid of the Jeep Wrangler. Sorry Jeepster, but 13 miles per gallon is just unacceptable. This lack of economical gas mileage "drove" me to do it. Though I've been receiving amazing gas mileage with the Fusion (averaging between 80 and 100+ miles per gallon), I have not saved in all aspects of this new economical and automotive endeavor. In the 1,300 miles the first month and half I've owned this vehicle I've only gassed up twice. First after I put on about 500 miles and then again about 800 miles later. My electric bill has not increased noticeably. From this POV, I feel I have saved enough to make up f...

I'm not going to rehash yesterday's events as much as fill-in some details. The 2.5 hours delay was due to mechanical problems on the Airbus A330 in Philadelphia. The passengers (us) waiting in Cancun had it considerably better than the poor saps in Philadelphia wishing to get to Cancun to start their vacations. First, the air conditioning was not working on the plane where the temperatures reached nearly 90 degrees. The passengers were all de-boarded. I refuse to use the phrase "deplaned". If you board a plane, you de-board, un-board, dis-board or just plain get off the plane. There really isn't a term for getting off a plane. Deplane was something Hervé Villechaize said at the beginning of Fantasy Island . Okay. He actually says Da Plane. I'm taking literary license here. There's a term for boats, embark and disembark. The captain on a ship does not say, "You may deboat the ship now." Or, "Please deship the QEII at this time." But...

Yes, it is Day 5. The last day of my 2014 Mexican (Cancun/Playa Del Carmen) vacation. Of course, the weather is beautiful exactly the opposite of the rest of the week. For the most part the sky is beautiful azure and not a threat of rain. But what is a needle in the eye is that we are in a delay. The US Airways flight at the time of check-in (Noon-ish) had not left Philadelphia airport yet. That's a 3 hour flight. The earliest the airship of fools can arrive will be about 4:30 p.m. The earliest we can get back to the states is 7:30 - 8 p.m. And, above it all, I think I'm coming down with a head cold. Why me? Why not, right? Next time I will have to do more research. Don't go south during hurricane season. Most of the rain we received this week stemmed from a hurricane-like storm in the Gulf on the west side of the Yucatán Peninsula. However, I am really thankful that we didn't travel to Bermuda last week or this week. I'm sure that vacation would have been immed...

Day 4: The penultimate vacation day for 2014, until Christmas. The day started like all the others. I got to sleep in while the rest of you slugs went to work. We ate breakfast and lunch at one of the 5 all you can eat places. We went to the shops again. We went to the pool again. We had an interesting turn of events at the pool. More to follow. We dined at the Brazilian themed, El Rodizio. We were sandwiched between two tables of Frenchmen. To my left, two young snooty arrogant attractive young ladies who just didn't get the idea behind Brazilian restaurant buffet. To my right, a family of five. Dad, Mom, two over 18 daughters and the elder daughter's paramour. They were late for the seating because they got lost because they were coming from a sister Iberostar property. They were the lesser of the snooties, but arrogant all the same. I don't hate the French, just everything about them. After another stellar meal, I paid to get Wi-Fi access in the room. If I knew this two ...

Day 3: Not as eventful or interesting as the prior two days We walked a lot. We had the same breakfast as the day before. After breakfast we walked to the Market Plaza...like the day before. We walked around twice maybe three times. It's a small ass Market Plaza. We people watched. And what you see when you don't have your shooting irons. We got back to the room...like the day before. We went to the pool...like the day before. And it started to rain...like the day before. We ate lunch at the same place..like the day before. Isn't vacationing fun? I feel like I'm in a bad version of Groundhog Day. However, a rainy paid vacation day off in Mexico beats the hell out of a dry, warm, nice sunny day at work in Bristol. The pool was enjoyable. Not too crowded. Not too drunk. Just the right amount of eye candy (I'm speaking solely of myself and TC.) You should see the livestock swimming and drinking in the pools. After we went back to the room for some wild lovemaking. ...

I think that's a Cowsills song or album title, but a very fitting title to Day 2 of my 2014 Autumn Mexican vacation. I'm writing this in the market plaza where the only Wi-Fi exists for miles. I'm smelling tobacco smoke blowing in from somewhere in this plaza where they allow people to smoke. No one has told the Mexicans or the Euro trash that smoking is a disgusting, smelly and unhealthy filthy habit or it's possible that they just...don't...care. Bastardos! After a nearly 24-30 hours of straight downpour, the rain finally let up enough to allow us (TC and I) to walk the beach and swim in the gigantic pool. We breakfasted as we will all week at one of the two all you can gorge yourself buffets, La Plaza o El Mercado, at the hotel. This hotel is partnered with a sister hotel, Paraiso Beach. Half the restaurants are on the one property and the other half on ours, but we share. How nice? I'm not sure I like that. I never got high marks for playing well or sharin...

I'm on vacation. This means I should be relaxed and enjoying myself. That hasn't started yet. Considering this day started at what we used to refer to as Oh Dark 30 or Zero Dark Thirty. Because of the recent film titled that that revels about the capture and subsequent justified execution of Osama Bin Laden, we now need to describe this ungodly hour as ACD, that is, Ass-Crack of Dawn. Today the ACD started at 2:30 a.m. I was in and out of the shower by 3 a.m. and on the road by 3:45 a.m. to the airport off-site parking. The second hand smoked scented shuttle dropped us at Terminal A by 4:15 a.m. 2 hours and 15 minutes before our flight only to find that we have a 45 minute wait for the USAir staff to arrive to work. Why do we need to be at the airport 2 hours before our flight when the baggage check-in people don't start work until 5 a.m? WTF? Being first in line we zipped through baggage check-in and headed to the anal probing station. At least that's what I was a...