The weather was wonderfully clear for our trip from Japan to my folks' place in Ohio, but we had a nice snow a day or two later, much to Anthony's glee.
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 100 — image data
Winter Version
of “Throwin' Rocks”
Indulge me a rant...
Having flow hundreds of thousands of miles on United Airlines over the years (I had 100,000 miles/year for many years, with perhaps 50+ transpacific flights in the 90s), I've always been inclined to like them, but I think those days are over.
My wife and her folks were supposed to arrive to Cleveland Airport twenty minutes ago, but the plane that is to take them there from Toronto has not yet left on its previous leg (Newark to Toronto), so the best they can do to Cleveland will be at least 3½ hours late. Yet United Airlines is currently showing their flight as arriving 45 minutes before it takes off!
Arriving Before it Takes Off
United Airlines' Web Site
(note: all times are in the same timezone)
What pathetic data maintenance, inexcusable in a world where people have brains, much less in the age of computers.
The airplane used for this flight started its day in Atlanta, leaving on its first flight four hours late, so United Airlines has known since very early this morning that every flight that plane would serve would be similarly delayed, yet they didn't push a flight-status update for the Toronto-Cleveland leg until well after noon, ensuring that I couldn't call Fumie at her hotel to let her know that she had the day free. Instead, they sentenced her and her folks to a wasted day sitting around at the airport. Joy.
I understand that there are delays in air travel (weather, equipment problems, etc... ), but what really pisses me off is the stupid information. As I write this, I got a real-time push notification that the flight from Newark finally pushed off, yet on the same page they note that flight into Toronto will be three hours thirty-six minutes late, they claim that the continuation flight will be quite impossibly just an hour forty-five minutes late.
It's United Airlines pure, utter disregard for their customers.
The lesson I learned (besides that United deserves its horrid reputation) is that at least on United, when checking the flight status, to also check the status of the flights prior to the one you care about, via the “where is this aircraft coming from?” link seen at the bottom of the screenshot above. Checking the status of that flight (marked with the orange arrow above) and of the other preceding flights down the line for the aircraft in question can give you the insight United should be showing you in the first place. Had I done this when I woke up, I would have been able to save Fumie and her folks a wasted day.
In other United-Sucks news...
After my United-induced day of frantic travel the other day, my luggage finally was delivered two days later (at about 4am on Christmas Day). Ho ho ho.
And as I mentioned on that frantic-travel post, I've been mostly impressed with United Airlines' iPhone app. On the app yesterday, I noticed that info on my return-flight reservation had disappeared, so I checked the reservation on their web site only to be greeted with a “this reservation has been canceled” note. Doh!
Two hours on the phone with United last night finally got it cleared up. At first they blamed it on ANA (the Japanese airline that brings me from Tokyo to Osaka after United brings me from Ohio to Tokyo), and said that they couldn't rectify things until they talked to ANA to confirm that I still had that reservation. Unfortunately and somewhat unbelievably, United Airlines has no special way to contact their partner airline, so said they couldn't help me until ANA's USA office opened the next morning.
That's ridiculous, so at my own expense I called ANA's English-language reservations line in Tokyo and found that my reservation was fine. So I called United back and, after much delay I found out the root of the problem: on the frantic-travel inbound leg, they apparently never actually checked me in on the flight I took, so when I didn't show up for the much later flight that I had been waitlisted for, their computer assumed I had abandoned the reservation and canceled the rest of it.
Doh!
PS#1: this is my rant, and so I don't want to use it to collect others' rants about United or air travel in general, so at this point I'd appreciate comments of commiseration but not of others' tales of airline woe.
PS#2: after the hour it took me to write up this rant, they've finally updated the estimated arrival time to Cleveland to actually be after the departure time.
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 highly cropped k— 0.4 sec, f/11, ISO 4000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Flash
Layer of umbrellas hides the crowds
at the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest (嵐山竹やぶ)
Kyoto Japan
This is the third (and final) post about the annual lightup event in the bamboo forest of the Aarashiyama area of Kyoto, which I went to on a windy, sleety night a couple of weeks ago. (See earlier part 1 and part 2.)
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — 15 sec, f/7.1, ISO 80 — map & image data — nearby photos
15-Second Exposure
melts the moving crowd away a bit
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 30 sec, f/13, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
30-Second Exposure
The photographer in yellow, like me, didn't move much
The photo collected the many flashes of others' cameras during the 30-second exposure. Here's a crop from the center of the shot above...
Flashes
center crop from the shot above
I tried a quick shot directly of one of the lanterns, which ended up as one might expect, detail in the bright light completely blown out. Still, somehow the result appeals to me...
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 4 sec, f/10, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Undetailed Photo
of a highly detailed lantern
It's the same kind of high-contrast lantern scene that I used as an example of HDR (“High Dynamic Range”, a misnomer) four and a half years ago in “HDR and Why I Don't Do It”.
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/1.4, ISO 2200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Red Umbrella
I love it
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/6 sec, f/5.6, ISO 10000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Posed
I took a photo of them with their camera, then this one with mine
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 0.3 sec, f/8, ISO 10000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Rush of the Crowd
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/4 sec, f/10, ISO 10000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Brief Respite
a minute and a half later
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 0.8 sec, f/4, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Paul Barr
holding still for a longish (0.8 sec) exposure
I got myself a GoPro HERO3 camera, and I've got to say, I'm solidly unimpressed with GoPro (the company, Woodman Labs) so far.
You have to access their web site before you can use the camera, but the web site is mostly down.... server doesn't respond for most requests.
[There's an update below on this...]
The web site, when it loads, is one of those flashy “form over function” sites that looks good (for some definitions of “good”), but difficult to actually use, and the incessant animations are annoying. A search for “manual hero3 black” produced no usable results.
The thing arrives locked in a well-made waterproof housing, but there's no information on how to get it out. After I was finally able to download the manual, no search that I could think of brought up info on how to open the housing, so I had to visually scan the 65-page manual to find the description (on page 59!) of how to get it out.
The description in the manual is with words only... no pictures... and was impossible to follow if you didn't already understand it. It shows that they didn't even bother to test their manual. When I wrote my book in the late 90s, I went to the considerable trouble of having a dozen folks who had no knowledge of the subject provide feedback on the manuscript, pointing out to me where my assumptions or descriptions were inappropriate, and the book was much improved for it. I'd expect at least as much from a two-billion dollar company.
I resorted to searching YouTube for instructions on how to open it. The fact that someone felt the need to post a video on how to open it is pretty damning evidence against the company's pathetic instructions.
It came with a note saying that a firmware update is required before you can use it, but when the web page does finally load, I got “The page you requested could not be found”, so I can't even try to use the thing.
There's no “quick start guide”, so I guess that even after I get the firmware updated, I have to read the 65 pages of manual before I can play with it. (Perhaps this is better in the long run, though.)
At this point, I haven't figured out how to even turn it on, but I have confidence a geek like me will be able to figure it out despite the apparent efforts of GoPro to make the experience as bad as possible.
Before anyone suggests that the web problems are because it's Christmas, let me point out that it may well be the reason, but it's certainly no excuse. The company very well knows that it requires users to download the manual and a firmware update before the camera can be used, and the company knows exactly how many they've sold. There are no surprises here to a company with a clue.
On the plus side, we woke up this morning to find that Santa had delivered the luggage that I'd gotten separated from on my recent transpacific trip, about 30 hours after it should have arrived. I had already gone to Walmart to buy some cheap clothes and gloves, but it's nice to have our proper stuff. And as per that recent trip, I'm still so very thankful to the anonymous hero, so all in all, I have much to be thankful for... just not my GoPro.
Update: — so, after apparently being down most of the day without so much of a word from the company on their own site or even on Twitter, they're finally claiming it's a problem with Amazon Web Services. That would indeed be a valid excuse on their part, because they should be able to trust Amazon. It doesn't excuse the complete lack of word on their part for so long (how hard would it be to add a note to their site, or type a sentence to Twitter?). And of course, all the other points about their inept support still apply.
Update #2: — I still couldn't access via their web site, but found no shortage of people complaining about poor service and web-site problems going days back. But by chance, the company did finally post an alternate link on Twitter that I happened to see 26 seconds after they posted it (24+ hours after the first complains of an inaccessable web site started showing up on Twitter), but the target site is as dead as their own. Sigh.
Update #3: — After many hours, I was finally able to get the thing working and firmware updated. Immediately wanted to throw the thing out the window with the ear-shattering beep it kept making, but thankfully was eventually able to turn the beep off. Got as far in the manual as setting the date (which should have been set automatically when the firmware was updated) and found that the firmware crashed when I tried. Sigh. Going to bed.
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/6 sec, f/7.1, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Our Plane
from Tokyo to Chicago yesterday
10-year-old Anthony and I flew from Japan to America yesterday, and now I'm at my folks' house in Ohio where I grew up. It wasn't as eventful a trip as some horror stories you hear about, but it had its own bit of excitement, and some good travel lessons.
I'll recount the long story here. I don't expect anyone to actually read it... it's mostly for my own memory...
My father-in-law drove us to Osaka Itami airport, leaving from Kyoto at 11:30am and arriving at 12:30 in plenty of time to enjoy a leisurely Starbucks lunch before heading to the gate for the 2:35 departure.
Heading through security, we found out simultaneously that 1) Anthony had left his large school scissors in his school pencil case, and that 2) this was frowned upon by security. They politely rescanned everything, then the security officer walked the scissors back out to Fumie's folks, who were still watching from before security with curious wonder at the hubbub, expressions that turned to big smiles when the reason was revealed when presented with the scissors.
The short 80-minute Flight from Osaka to Tokyo was almost completely full, but one of the few empty seats was next to us. Schweet! Bodes well for a great trip!
The transfer in Tokyo to the transpacific flight was uneventful. We boarded United 882 for Chicago, seen above. When boardaing, I was interested to see whether my seating ploy had worked....
A few days earlier, I'd checked out United Airlines' iPhone app, which is pretty well done for a first-generation app of its kind. I can see my reservation, change seat assignments, sign up for push notifications of flight changes, see the exact baggage allowances for my trip, and much more. There are still many areas for improvement, but I was suitably impressed.
United Airlines iPhone app
And like putting candy next to the cash register, the app made it easy for me to pay a bit to upgrade to “Economy Plus” seating, which adds a few inches of extra leg room. I'm 6'4" (192cm) so the extra space makes a huge difference when spending 12 hours in the plane. I once got upgraded to this for free, and it was wonderful (relatively speaking), so I decided to pay for it this time to ensure it: $120 each to upgrade us for the Tokyo/Chicago leg. I'm fine with the extra fee... I need more space than the average person, so it only makes sense that I pay more than the average person. (I wouldn't want the cost of double-wide chairs for obese people built into the cost of my ticket any more than I expect the cost of double tall seating built into the cost of everyone else's.)
Anyway, I upgraded our seats in the app a few days prior, and picked the two edge seats of a three-seat section, hoping that the undesirable lone middle seat between them would be left empty, and we'd get a three-seat section for ourselves....
It almost worked. The flight was fairly full, but most middle seats were empty, but, alas, not ours. So I gave the person a choice of either of our seats to swap so that Anthony and my seats would be together, and she (a snowboard instructor from Salt Lake returning from a trip to Bangkok) choose the aisle.
The flight was uneventful and we arrived into Chicago about 20 minutes late. The security line for US citizens was really long, and once finally close to our turn got put into the line for an inspector that was really slow. He would hold up the passport picture next to each American and stare intently, taking his sweet time. I suspect he wasn't comparing the photo as much as using the technique to check out the person's reaction, but anyway, it took forever to get through. Once he was done with us, he asked whether we had a connecting flight, and I said “yeah, boarding at 3:45 in Terminal 1”, to which he looked at his watch and said “Uh, well, good luck, and happy holidays”, and with the tone of his voice, I suspected we would not make the flight.
We didn't make the flight. We picked up our one checked bag and were out of customs within a minute, but by this time it was 3:45 and our flight to Akron Ohio (over in another far-flung terminal, a train ride and a security checkpoint away) was boarding, so the 20-minute delay in arriving had doomed us. Unfortunately, it was sort of a crazy madhouse and pretty much every seat leaving Chicago was spoken for, and the line to talk to a United agent to resolve this was long.
When it was our turn, the kind agent spent what seemed an hour to try to find anything that would get us to northeast Ohio that evening, but absolutely everything was full. The best she could do was waitlist us on the 9:10pm flight to Akron (five hours after our missed flight), and as a fallback reserve a next-evening flight to Pittsburgh. But she went above and beyond and was using her iPhone to check weather (I considered just renting a car and making the 8-hour drive) and looking up bus info, as alternatives that might help us.
I couldn't take our big bag through security, so had to check it, so checked it on the 9pm flight to Akron... it would go to Akron whether we made the flight or not.
We took the airport train to the terminal where the flight would be leaving that evening (hopefully with us on it), passed uneventfully through security, then stopped by United's Red Carpet Club, the ritzy travel lounge for the 1%. 20 years ago I had traveled on United a lot for business and had reached an at-the-time rare and unpublished “100k Status” (more than 100,000 miles per year), and had been allowed to use the lounge. This time I was traveling in cattle class, but hey, it was their maintenance delay in Tokyo that caused me to be stuck here, so maybe they'd let us use the lounge for a few hours.
“Were you traveling internationally in first class?” was the question. “No” was my answer, and so “No” was the answer from the man at the front desk who reminded me strongly of Chris Tucker's character from The Fifth Element.
I thought at least to ask whether he could check whether my waitlist status had improved, but he directed me to a customer-service counter instead.
We got a very pleasant lady at the customer service counter in Chicago O'Hare Terminal 2, who confirmed that my waitlist status hadn't yet changed, but she kingly dug in a bit and listed all the flights going to Cleveland that night, suggesting that I could just visit the gate to try my luck. One such flight was leaving momentarily from a nearby gate, so Anthony and I ran over there...
We arrived as the final boarding call was being made, to a check-in desk with other customers (obviously folks on standby) hovering around. I explained the my situation to the gate agent ("Flight from Tokyo arrived late so I missed my flight to Akron; I'm just looking for anyway to get to Grandma and Grandpa's house tonight") and she inspected her terminal for the longest time, but in the end said there was no room. Bummer.
I stepped away from the counter, but told Anthony that we should just stick around to see what might happen. She was calling half a dozen ticketed customer's names who had not yet shown up, and if they didn't show up, and if there weren't that many on the waiting list, we might actually have a chance.
Time limit for the ticketed customers passed, so she calls the standby folks and they go on. Anthony and I just stand nearby waiting, and suddenly she calls us over, gestures to the tired-looking buff guy in his late 20s at the counter who is turning to pick up his bags, and said “he just gave up his seat so you two could get on”. He had been there the whole time, and had apparently heard when I explained my plight to the lady.
“Dude, really, wow thank you so much! Are you sure!?” was all I could mutter. I was instantly choked up at this selfless act, and yet as happy as I was for it felt bad for him... he looked very tired. But in a truly selfless move he just picked up his bags, smiled a “good luck” smile, and walked away, not even allowing me to thank him properly.
The check-in agent said “just give me your boarding passes (for the later flight) and go”, so Anthony and I shuffled down the boarding ramp while I dialed my folks to tell them I would be arriving in Cleveland in an hour, asking the flight attendant what time we arrive while I stood in the door of the plane. It was all very rush-rush and a bit exciting, and I was so happy for the turn of events. Our seats would not be together for the 45-minute flight, but I wasn't complaining. I got Anthony situated in one seat, then started looking for a place to shove the carry-on bags...
...when the gate agent appeared, waved me over, and apologized quietly that she'd have to pull us from the flight because a ticketed passenger had finally just arrived. Doh! Easy come, easy go! I was disappointed, of course, but mostly was still basking in the glow of the act of kindness by that guy at the gate who had given up his seat, and now felt really bad for him because now he had done it for nothing.
I called Anthony from his seat, and we walked back up the deserted boarding ramp and into the now-deserted gate area. I dumped our luggage and started to organize things and make a plan for what to do next. First on my mind was to check the Cleveland flight leaving in an hour from the neighboring terminal, but the smell of popcorn from a nearby vendor had Anthony's attention.
When traveling with not-small kids like Anthony (who is 10), their attitude can make or break the situation: when he's fussy, I'm fussy, and everything is much worse than it needs to be, but during this entire trip he was an absolute angel. Every time things got tough, he'd say “it's our buddy time!”, and we'd fist bump, and get through it together. He was perfect. So it was with this in mind, on my knees in the deserted gate area trying to organize my luggage, that I thought to defer on the next flight and get the popcorn.
Then the gate-agent lady appears again, and says they found room, and hurry up we can get you on. So we rush down the boarding ramp again, and I'm calling my folks again to say that the 8:10pm arrival in Cleveland is on again. It turns out that one of the passengers was a United Airlines pilot, so he could move to an extra seat in the cockpit, freeing up a second seat in the cabin. Other passengers made volunteer seat changes, leaving two seats for us next to each other. It felt like a miracle.
A flight from Chicago to Akron or Cleveland always feels a bit odd because you taxi at the airport for about the same amount of time it takes to actually fly (about 45 minutes each). We arrived to Cleveland at about 8:15, and Anthony ran into Grandpa's arms.
It took quite a while to file the report about my bag, but I was confident that it would arrive into Akron later that night, and so hopefully they could deliver it to us the next day. Dad let me drive, and we arrived at my folks' place an hour later. It was below freezing so much so that we couldn't make snowballs when Anthony and I tried. I took an Ambien CR to fight jet lag and help me stay asleep, and we were in bed by 11pm.
I got up at 6am... I would have liked it to be 8am or 10am, but seven hours of sleep is better than I usually do. As of 9am this morning, my bag is still in Chicago, so Anthony and I may head out to Walmart for some clothes. Christmas Mass is this evening at 4pm.
All in all, we were only a few hours later than our original plan, and I'm still touched by the anonymous man who gave up his seat for us. Thank you anonymous hero!
Now we look forward to Fumie arriving with her folks in a few days...