Better than flying reindeer

Last year Canadian airline WestJet made the prestigious Parallax Views Holiday Flash Mobs list, as you may recall. They seemed like a company that knows how to have a good time.

And, of course, breaking up the tension at airports, especially during the stressful holiday travel season is always a good thing. As long as it doesn’t disrupt the actual takeoff and landing schedule.

But I believe they’ve topped themselves.

This year they picked a couple of Toronto-to-Calgary flights to give their passengers just that little bit extra: they had a virtual Santa Claus ask what they wanted for Christmas at Toronto, and by the time they arrived in Calgary, the gifts came out—wrapped—onto the baggage carousel.

The gifts ranged up to and including a big-screen TV.

Take a look:

(I’m betting the guy who asked for socks and underwear wishes he could have a do-over.)

Frankly, it looks to me like the WestJet employees who went shopping and wrapping had at least as good a time as the passengers.

I wonder what they’ll do next year?

It's in the mail again

I had one last package to send for the holidays, and I finally got it all suited up to mail on Friday. I went to the USPS Agnew Station in Santa Clara, figuring I’d try for something different from Sunnyvale.

Only it turns out that the US Postal Service basically trains all its customer-facing employees in techniques of idiocy, disdain and general unhelpfulness.

As with both Sunnyvale stations, there was quite a line; and as with every post office I’ve been to in the past several months (Los Altos, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara), they only had two windows open.

I had plenty of time to observe the three staffers (as one came up to serve passport applicants, another just closed her window and walked away) display the maximum of disinterest in their job and the public.

When I finally got up to the counter, the woman threw a hissy fit because my return address had only my street, number and zip code. “You have to have the city! And the state!” “The zip code incorporates not only the city and state, but a specific area within the city; that’s the definitive placer.” “You have to have the city and the state.”

(Which, BTW, I did not on any of the packages I’d mailed three days before. Maybe it’s a Santa Clara thing. Or maybe it’s just a “you have to have something wrong with this package” thing.)

Whatever.

But my packages are sent; they are in the hands of the shipping gods.

And next year I’m going UPS. Enough is freaking enough.

Deck the halls and lawns

You know, you just gotta love people here in the Valley they call Silicon; tradition just means…who knows what to them.

I’ve already mentioned how they go whole hog on decorating for Halloween. Turns out they have a somewhat different take on the whole yule thing.

Here’s one:

Because nothing says Christmas like Darth Vader duking it out with Yoda. Especially since they’re on the same lawn as a whole Snoopy contingent.

Then there’s the house that just can’t get beyond Halloween:

But one that quite grabs my attention is the one so full of joy...

That it has no fewer than three nativity scenes out:

Plus Mickey, Minnie and the Peanuts gang behind one of the nativities.

Since I first took those pictures, they’ve added this sign urging us to simplify the holiday. Which I find rather droll.

Shooting story

For my birthday this year, a friend gave me a Canon PowerShot P&S camera. It replaces the POS Nikon I bought a couple of years ago, which went bad shortly after the warranty expired. (That clunker makes me rethink ever getting another Nikon product, and I’ve been shooting with them since I was in high school. In fact, my Nikon rangefinder was what inspired the name of this blog.)

That POS replaced my old Canon PowerShot. And look how they’ve compressed the tech, from 2003 to 2013:

This baby will pretty much do everything except the dinner dishes. But what they’ve also trimmed back is what they send you by way of operating instructions. The little green-rimmed thing is what comes with the camera. It’s divided into English and Spanish versions so you barely get 70pp of info. 

They expect you to use their online user manual—online meaning it doesn’t just come on a CD, but you have to be connected to the Internet to access it. You can’t download it onto your hard drive.

And it’s a PDF file with no way to get through it except by paging through—no hyperlinks, no go-to-index option. Seriously, Canon—WTF?

What I ended up doing was emailing their support people and whining that I can’t read the dag-blamed online manual, so would they please send one to me. They didn’t want to—“We have to print it out. On 8.5” x 11” paper”—but I insisted.

And what arrived was indeed on letter-sized paper. One hundred ninety-five pages worth. That’s how complex this puppy is.

Anyhow, I love my new toy, and I’ve been slowly figuring out the various functions. Playing a lot with low-light shooting, taking pictures of latte art and carrying it around when I take walks. It's even inspired me to pick up the DSLR and try to learn more about its functions.

Color me happy. And digital.

Gratitude Monday: Mechanical perfection

I was reminded last week of how great it is to have a good auto mechanic, where you can take your no-longer-in –production car for maintenance and repairs, know they’ll be done right and that they’re not going to rip you off on the charges.

I’m so grateful for Swedish Auto Factory in Santa Clara—a small shop that I’ve come to know well in the three years I’ve been in the Valley they call Silicon. (A lot better than I would have liked, on account of having to replace the antenna something like six times in the past two years. There was one period a few months ago when I had it replaced three times in four weeks.)

Dan, the owner, always calls me “kiddo”, which would be enough to make me propose marriage, except that I know he already is. And he never ridiculed me for the whole aerial thing, which I really appreciated.

SAF specialized exclusively in Saabs and Volvos for a long time. When Saab went down the GM drain, they added on Subarus to try to make up for the lost business. But apparently that’s not filled the hole, so last week, when I went in for an oil change (and an adjustment to the parking brake, because it…well, it just wasn’t holding at all. And I would have gone in earlier if there’d been anything wrong with the foot brakes, but, you know, you can’t take the key out of the ignition unless it’s in Reverse, so that always holds it…), they had a banner out proclaiming them “European Auto Specialists”.

Although they’re still servicing Subarus.

Dan appreciated my contribution to their bottom line but six aerials in two years apparently does not feed the bulldog.

I hope they find the right mix, because I have no plans to give up a car that doesn’t even have 90K miles on it and runs fine (if you don’t mind having to occasionally thump the back panel to get the antenna to retract), and it’s so hard to find good, honest mechanics who treat their customers as well as they treat their customers’ cars.

So today I’m grateful for SAF, and hope that other drivers in the area come to appreciate them, too.