Elizabeth Houck

Paris 1997

I left work in LA to go to home to Silicon Valley. Fast forward and I’m in France at the 50th Cannes Film Festival representing Sun Microsystems Video Server group. Weekend-ing in Paris before returning home, I ran into man in his mid-fifties in the lobby of my little ** hotel. Turns out he lived 30 minutes from me in California and couldn’t get online via an antiquated switchboard/dial up to check email. While helping him to get on line, he told me he and his wife had ‘downsized’ and were in Paris for two weeks before renting an apartment for a month near Nice before heading to Russia for a consulting job interspersed with several months of vacation before heading back to the bay area for holidays with their family. They didn’t want to wait until retirement age to travel.

Yeah, that sounds good.

It was this chance encounter that made me focus on quality not quantity; it made me think differently about what success means to me. I may not have oodles of cash but have a great deal of personal freedom and my time is my own.

It took time, effort, and a lot of throwing the proverbial darts to see if they would stick, but here I am, 20 years later heading back to Paris for dinner with friends before traveling on to Portugal and Morocco.

Yeah, that sounds good 😉

Europe – here I come 3 x !

Took advantage of the One World sale on Business Class tickets to Europe. One to Portugal for my bday; one to Italy for – who cares – it’s Italy!! (Italy with a friend,) and the last one in March – don’t know where I’m going yet but it will be to places anew!

one year on – a lifetime ago.

Protected: Truth is an absolute defence against lible

Yes, I can have chickens!

Since I’m in the City Limits of Santa Fe, I can have chickens – hen’s only! Time to start building the coop. Woop, woop!

The house that broke me. First World Problem #1529

Today I realized I’m 34-38K over budget on a budget that was already 31K over budget (not including attorney’s fees – 25-30K, and the money I have in it ~410k).

So, I’m putting together a list of shit I can sell. Quite frankly, the list is pathetic. IPad Air 2 maybe $350. Then I start getting into 24 bottles of port/wine – 2K, and the junk silver 1K, consignment furniture/rugs. Mom’s ring, my bling. A rental property…

I need an attitude adjustment and some good brainstorming.

Just because I haven’t posted on in a while – here is a view from the house-in-progress

Excited to be headed out on an inaugural flight with Norwegian Airlines to, wait for it…

The French West Indes! And, even better, I won the flight on an Inside Flyer contest. And, even better am able to take a couple of good friends with me! Stay tuned.

American Airlines – epic fail…

First of all – what does EPIC FAIL mean? Epic fail means more than three specific, autonomous, and moderately benign events, when combined create an epic event. The Grandslam, the tri-fecta, the epic.

Epic sequence of events – pick any three:
* Flight cancelled due to 1st Officer being ill
* Really, truly, poor communication from @AmericanAir (the Gate Agents, the Phone Staff, the Lounge Representative)
* Not being booked on another flight when they knew I did not have a Visa for Brazil, therefore could not go to the provided hotel/meals.
* Not being told that I would need a Visa for an Airport Hotel.
* Almost being stuck in a country where it could take up to two weeks to get a Visa.
* Being told to wait while they all pointed fingers at each other.
* Not being put on the United flight I suggested that left 1.5-2 hours after American knew my flight would be cancelled and I was a ‘transit’ person (didn’t hold a Visa for Brazil.)
* Being told to wait yet again. Again, not being told I would not make it out of the airport for the next 26 hours.
* Talking to or waiting for one of five American/TAM Employee’s who mostly told me to wait (I was the Buck being passed.)
* Not getting my fellow non-visa passenger on a flight he was able to book a ticket on that left over an hour and more than two hours after our flight was cancelled.
* A TAM flight leaving when they had empty seats – seats that could have been given to the desperate pax on my flight.
* Not arranging for roll-a-way, or cots for us to sleep on when they realized we (the other non-visa pax and me) had no where to sleep for the next 26 hours.
* Not divulging there were no showers, wifi, or real food to be had for the next 26 hours.
* Not even trying to book us on other flights that may not have gotten us home much sooner but would provide meals, showers, and get us a sleeper seat (instead of the floor.)
* Pretty much leaving us abandoned with nothing but a tiny airline pillow and blanket for the night.
* Not having someone, anyone, there to help us rebook until 4PM the next day and for not telling us that there was NOTHING they could do for us until late the next day – after some of the options above were no longer options.
* Having the next to worse phone support staff that had no authority or inclination to actually put us on another airline that would get us closer to our destination.
* Even when they did, they couldn’t execute – 4 times.
* Supervisor putting no pax compensation in my file because I agreed to decline compensation if they were able to rebook me to my destination (because I had missed my first class connecting flight,) and then was unable to book the tix.
* This ‘no pax comp’ kept the people from coming on the next day to do anything to change my tix got get me to either my destination or on another flight.
* GIG supervisor for @AmericanAir approved putting me GIG-IHA-ABQ United flight and that it was booked and would be ticketed when Lounge Staff was in at 4PM but all was greased for them to tix it.
* It was not.
* Meal vouchers for breakfast (lunch could be eaten in the lounge…) didn’t work.
* Took 3 hours 30 minutes, 15 phone calls, (including to the home number of the sup who said it was all approved at 1pm,) to make it happen.

Pick 3 – hell, pick 5.

Yep, Epic Fail…

Hanlon’s Razor –

“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don’t rule out malice.” Or Stupidity…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor