Fed up? Feel free to vent here, and get it off your chest!

I might have already said this, but it annoys the daylights outta me to click on a news story online and get a video to watch. If I wanted to watch a video, I'd watch a video. I want to read the story. Read. Usually, there'll be an "arrow" thingie to indicate a video so I don't bother, but very often there's no clue that it's a video. That really ticks me off :mad:
 

Georgiagranny said:
I might have already said this, but it annoys the daylights outta me to click on a news story online and get a video to watch. If I wanted to watch a video, I'd watch a video. I want to read the story. Read. Usually, there'll be an "arrow" thingie to indicate a video so I don't bother, but very often there's no clue that it's a video. That really ticks me off :mad:
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I totally agree.
 
i think i am a magnet for freaks. a friend of mine is non stop preaching about how our future looks with this government. yes i am concerned but i can't spend the next four years worried about it every minute. she is so depressed and tells me WE have to do something now and WE cant let them! rah rah rah. i find myself avoiding her. ugh
 
AnneTeak said:
i think i am a magnet for freaks. a friend of mine is non stop preaching about how our future looks with this government. yes i am concerned but i can't spend the next four years worried about it every minute. she is so depressed and tells me WE have to do something now and WE cant let them! rah rah rah. i find myself avoiding her. ugh
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Please do not feel alone. A friend called to give me a tongue lashing about her political view and some reasoning behind it that smacks of high school. I chat with her brother several times a week and we agreed to disagree and will only occasionally touch a political subject but end it with a smile. We connected because he asked me to but he understands that this ended things.
 
Yes, I'd imagine I'd be fed up. Expressing this with concern for our neighbors south of our border... as someone who has occasionally, and judiciously, used one of these for 50-some years... only for apt and reasonable purposes...
Chainsaw.jpg

I've gotta say, I'd hate to live under the effects of someone entrusted with enormous power, who applies that power figuratively wielding one.

Better the wise use of a scalpel than an incompetent flailing with a chainsaw!
 
My vent of the day....raccoons. They come out of the woods and dig in my yard for grubs, then just to be mean they tare up my nicely edged mulch beds and pull plants out. This morning it looked like someone had been tossing sticks of dynamite into the mulch beds, and guess who has to rake them all back in shape?20250509_101057.jpg
 
C50 said:
My vent of the day....raccoons. They come out of the woods and dig in my yard for grubs, then just to be mean they tare up my nicely edged mulch beds and pull plants out. This morning it looked like someone had been tossing sticks of dynamite into the mulch beds, and guess who has to rake them all back in shape?View attachment 421818
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🦝 :mad: Frustrating.
What can be done about such a problem? I'm assuming they could easily get over low-height fencing.
 
C50 said:
My vent of the day....raccoons. They come out of the woods and dig in my yard for grubs, then just to be mean they tare up my nicely edged mulch beds and pull plants out. This morning it looked like someone had been tossing sticks of dynamite into the mulch beds, and guess who has to rake them all back in shape?View attachment 421818
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You are pre-digging for them so to say.
 
Believe me, this is no big deal and I didn’t get mad or upset, but I was frustrated,

I flew for United Airlines for 33 years. Most of my flights were flying either the Boeing 757 or 767. I did fly the Boeing 747 for two years while flying Chicago to Honolulu mostly.

We had got word near the end of my career that the B-757 and 767 were going to be phased out from the lineup of planes we flew. They were going to be replaced by the Boeing 777 or, Triple 7. I started asking my supervisor when Iwould be starting my training. He told me that the management was talking about us men that flew the 757 and 767 and what they should do to get us training. After a few hours of discussion, they decided that any of the pilots that had three or less years before retirement would not be receiving training.

I went into a real hissy fit and was asked to leave and they would resume the conversation in a few days. It was a Friday and I went to work as usual and was in a good mood and looking forward to my flight down to Miami and back home later that evening. My supervisor stopped me and said I was taken off the schedule that day, but would still be paid for our normal flight time. Instead, I was invited to a meeting with 4 other pilots who were all in that three years or less time period I spoke about earlier.

The top dog, (Vice President in Human Relations) gave a presentation about a new program United was beginning. It was an offer for an early out package. Depending on our pay grade and years of service, United would give us “X” amount of dollars, plus full insurance coverage, including dental and eye coverage, until we got Medicare and then the United insurance would act as our supplemental. I listened very intently until the end. I wanted to wait and find out what they were offering me in cash as a buyout.

End of story. I was very satisfied with everything they offered, but wasn’t ready to retire yet, so I spoke with the VP and told him I would make him a deal. I told him I would accept the deal, but I wanted to fly for the three years I had left, which would have carried me to 62 years old. He said he needed to think about it. It only took him two days to call me at home and agreed to my terms. I could have stayed in the cockpit until I was 65, but I didn’t want to walk away from their offer. We all agreed and we all left happy and are still friends.
 
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oldman said:
After a few hours of discussion, they decided that any of the pilots that had three or less years before retirement would not be receiving training.
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oldman said:
I spoke with the VP and told him I would make him a deal. I told him I would accept the deal, but I wanted to fly for the three years I had left, which would have carried me to 62 years old.
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oldman said:
I could have stayed in the cockpit until I was 65, but I didn’t want to walk away from their offer. We all agreed and we all left happy and are still friends.
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Question - If you were only 59 years old when the 777 training was announced, and you could have flow until age 65, doesn't that add up to 6 more years before retirement rather than 3?
 
StarSong said:
Question - If you were only 59 years old when the 777 training was announced, and you could have flow until age 65, doesn't that add up to 6 more years before retirement rather than 3?
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Not if I wanted to get the buyout money. I had to leave by age 62. If I would have stayed until 65, I wouldn’t have received the total buyout package. With the amount of pay I was receiving, plus my benefits, by leaving three years early, I saved them a lot of money.
 
@oldman, what I meant was, since you technically had 6 years of flying in front of you rather than 3 when they first discussed who would be trained on the 777, why would you have been excluded from that group?
 
As I'm typing this, the garden person is out there with a leaf blower. He was by my patio with all that confounded noise. He's moved on but I still hear that annoying deep buzzing. I hate those #@%# things! :mad: Unless someone has a back issue, why don't they just rake the damned leaves and be done with it ! Seems to me that all leaf blowers do is blow the leaves around until they can be gotten in a just right pile, which takes longer than raking.

While I'm at it. I hate it when I go to read an article and the publisher has used small, gray font. It's bad enough that the font is small, why not make it easier to read by using either bold print or at least black ink? I have several news apps on my devices and I've come across this problem often. Those articles don't get read.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
As I'm typing this, the garden person is out there with a leaf blower. He was by my patio with all that confounded noise. He's moved on but I still hear that annoying deep buzzing. I hate those #@%# things! :mad: Unless someone has a back issue, why don't they just rake the damned leaves and be done with it ! Seems to me that all leaf blowers do is blow the leaves around until they can be gotten in a just right pile, which takes longer than raking.

While I'm at it. I hate it when I go to read an article and the publisher has used small, gray font. It's bad enough that the font is small, why not make it easier to read by using either bold print or at least black ink? I have several news apps on my devices and I've come across this problem often. Those articles don't get read.
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Oh, right there with you!! :mad:

The leaf blowers have been out, in our area, since around Easter Sunday and I fracking despise them!

They are so freaking loud and, as you've said, seem to accomplish very little. The leaf blower guys will be out there for hours doing what seems like nothing but disturbing the entire neighborhood.

I am usually on the phone with a friend or listening to a book when walking the dog and, of course, I can't hear a thing when anywhere in the vicinity of those cursed things.

They are slowly being banned, but sadly, the bans have not gotten to my area yet.

Map of Leaf Blower Bans
 
OneEyedDiva said:
While I'm at it. I hate it when I go to read an article and the publisher has used small, gray font. It's bad enough that the font is small, why not make it easier to read by using either bold print or at least black ink? I have several news apps on my devices and I've come across this problem often. Those articles don't get read.
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Add that popular small, grey font to instructions, especially for medicine. Do they think by using a small piece of paper they’re saving money.
 
@oldman, what I meant was, since you technically had 6 years of flying in front of you rather than 3 when they first discussed who would be trained on the 777, why would you have been excluded from that group?

A couple of reasons. The first is because the 757 and 767 would still be around for who knows how long? We were never told. They needed experienced pilots to continue flying the those two planes. Those were the only two planes a pilot could fly without additional training. Not all planes are the same, so if you were trained to fly the Boeing 737, you wouldn’t be qualified to fly an Airbus A-310 without additional training. There are a lot of differences between a Boeing plane and an Airbus. Yes, the concept of flying is the same, but the cockpits are not, so it would be nice to know where the lever is to set the auto brakes. There are major differences.

Once a pilot is trained on a certain plane, that’s the only plane the pilot will fly, unless he asks to be trained on a different plane like an Airbus A-330. If he gets certified on the A-330, then that’s the only plane he or she will fly. Familiarity is very important in flying and flying the same aircraft continuously is like driving the same car day in and day out. You will know where all the controls are without hardly looking.

I flew the B-757 and B-767, which contradicts what I just wrote about only flying one plane. United allows pilots that are trained to fly the B-757 or B-767 is approved to fly either aircraft because the controls and cockpits are all but identical. When I started flying at United, I flew the B-737. I flew that plane for close to eight years. I was getting bored flying this small plane, so I saw an opening to fly the B-767 and applied. After six weeks of training, I was flying the 767 and the 757.

After twelve years flying those two planes, I bid on learning to fly the B-747. You know it when you see it. The plane with the humpback. I flew that plane for only two years because I didn’t want to fly International routes, the only route available to fly the 747 was Chicago to Honolulu. After two years of that and having to deadhead to Chicago, I went back to flying the 757 and 767. Plus, I got tired of flying over water.

When United decided to phase out these two planes and replace them with the Triple 7, a handful of us that were still flying these two planes were offered a buyout. Had we not taken the buyout, we would have received training on the Triple 7. I told the Vice President at United he was making a big mistake with phasing out these two planes. He asked why, I told him the Triple 7 seats about 350 passengers and normally on the flights I traveled on the 757 and 767 were about 175-225. That’s a lot of empty seats, but he thought he new better.

So here we are, 16 years later and the 757 and 767 are still flying. When I saw the VP about 10 years later, I asked him what happened to the Triple 7 flying the routes for 757 and 767. He kept walking.
 

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