TEXAS LIVING!

So many opinions – so little time! Sometimes I get asked, sometimes not! In this case, I was asked, so feel free to skip over this posting. FIRST – today’s paper has an article in the business section about Dallas’ own American Airlines and their new on-board web service. Quite frankly I think they should be working harder to be more customer service oriented with “on-time” departures and arrivals. Back on June 5th, I had an earlier posting about the published ranking of carriers and their 'on-time' placing - and American ‘sucked’! They were ranked LAST! I mentioned American’s late departure from Cabo, but I didn’t mention that when Donna flew to Portland, Oregon the following week, her connecting flight from San Jose to PDX was cancelled. They bused everyone to San Francisco. And now last night when she was leaving for Portland again, American was an hour late departing. Now Donna is three-for-three with late or cancelled flights with American. SECOND – How about those Mariner’s? Since re-locating to Texas, I have maintained my loyalty to the Seattle Seahawk's and the Mariner’s. But holy cow! It is getting harder and harder to watch the scores when they are the worst baseball team in both leagues. I still like to watch the box scores though to see how Richie Sexson and Ichiro Suzuki are doing. Richie is from my old stomping grounds, Battle Ground, WA. and was a ‘star’ player in the Battle Ground Little League around the time I was league president. THIRD - Today’s Dallas Morning News also has articles on improprieties in local government. The Dallas Independent School District audit; the Dallas County budget issues with an outstanding $240 million dollars in traffic tickets/fines and court fees; and DART’s controversy over employee’s being able to buy jewelry through a contracted vendor and having the reduced costs deducted from their pay checks. How about you? Do you feel good about your local government officials and their accountability? And PLEASE, someone ask me about SW Washington legislators and constituents and their “head-in-the-sand” attitudes about the future for transportation and education for our next generation!