Gary
Author Comments aka Comic News
At least it's in color
Well, at least I colored it in this time. Sorry for the lack of funny and inspiration lately, a major project at work has been coming to a head lately, so I've been putting most of my time towards that. An example, outside of the crazy long hours, is that this project, which took something like six months has been restructured massively three times in the past two weeks, for performance reasons. It's considerably better now than it was. New functionality added, and the time per record went down slightly, unfortunately, CPU usage went up. I'm still trying to figure out why the database cpu has gone up, I mean.. I'm caching everything now, no db hits, but still it goes up. Very weird.
On to a different subject, my trip to STL last weekend. It was a really good time, and in the airport, someone was trying to prove to the flight staff that their bag was of carry-on size. They took their bag, and crammed it into the luggage check, the flight staff said ok, and then the guy fought with the luggage check for like 2 minutes, trying to get his bag out, literally picking up the check box while trying. It was hysterical, and then the same thing happened to his female traveling companion. It was so good, that Jen turned around to watch it.
Now on to the last of my three thoughts this evening/comic, American Airlines. It's rare that I sing the praises of an airline, but these guys really did a great job. So, as most of you know, I've been a bit out of it lately due to massive work, and this causes mistakes. I booked a trip to STL for one day to celebrate my friend's birthday. I booked the flight during lunch, on a particularly hectic day. I had meant to book for Sunday, so Saturday night, I get back from a dinner with my family and I start to check my laptops to make certain that they're all ready to head out with me, and I get a call from my friend in St. Louis. The conversation went something like this:
"Hey, Gary. I was just looking at the itinerary you sent me, and it says you're supposed to be here today."
"uh... what?"
"It says you're supposed to fly out on Saturday."
Lot's of explicitives by me.
By this point, it's late, and both flights are over. I swear more and more, both internally and externally. Finally my friend convinces me to call American Airlines (the company I booked on line with). I call, expecting nothing, since both flights are over, and they have my money. I figure the best I can hope for is new tickets with a massive rebooking fee. So, I call. I make it through their voice automated system, and make it to an individual. I explain to them that I booked these tickets online and I booked them for the wrong day, and I was wondering if there was anything they could do for me. The lady on the phone was quite nice and checked to see if there were any flights for the next day (Sunday). I was still uncertain as to whether or not I would end up having to pay for these new tickets. She finds 2 flights very close to the times I had. My heart jumps with joy, and my cell phone cuts out (reception in my apt isn't the best). I swear profusely again, and call in again. This time I try some different options on their automated system, to see if there's a way to get back to the person I was talking to, I couldn't find anything, but then, while I'm searching through their automated system, the lady I was working with calls me back.
"Hi, I just wanted to see if you wanted me to change the flight for you. I know there's a long wait tonight, and it seemed like your cell phone cut out, so I thought I would give you a call back."
If I hadn't been afraid of losing my signal again, I would've jumped up and danced a jig. I was happy that there was a flight, and that they would book me, but I was still somewhat reluctant to say yes, since I didn't know what the cost would be. I do however say yes.
"Well.. it looks like this flight is the same cost as your other flight, so I'll just transfer you over. I'll also assign you some seats, since it's better to have seats, than not have them. There. All done, you should have a confirmation email shortly. Was there anything else I could do for you?"
I held back my squeal of joy, but this was quite awesome to me. So yeah, they rebooked me for the same cost. All I know is, this has definitely pushed American Airlines up in my list of airlines.
Ok, I've probably babbled on too much as it is, I'll let all of you get on with your lives. Enjoy. Oh, FYI, I didn't forget about redoing Monday's comic, I'm hoping to get it done Friday night or Saturday before the new X-Men movie (X-Men origins: Wolverine)
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