Tactics for a new era...

From Commentary in the Washington Times:

The captain had turned off the "fasten seat belts" sign, and announced it was OK to move about the cabin. The young man seated in the window seat next to me asked if I would let him step out to get something out of his bag. I did.

I stood back between the first class and the main cabin, looking out the windows. Suddenly, I heard someone shout, "sit down." And again, for added emphasis, "sit down." It was the flight attendant, standing behind a cart about 20 feet up the cabin in front of the cockpit.

The young man sheepishly sat down. As I went back to my seat, I saluted the rude flight attendant and said, "Yes, Sergeant Major!"

It turned out that one of the flight crew members was in the restroom. Guess there must be some new government regulation that requires passengers to be seated while the captain is in the john? [...]

"That's all fine and dandy, but that's no way to talk to a passenger," I said. "How about some politeness?"

"I am here to keep you safe," she declared pompously.

Seeing that it was a waste of time trying to talk sensibly to her, I said I would report her rude behavior to the American Airlines.

That was it. A verbal exchange that lasted less than a minute.

A few minutes before landing in Chicago, the flight attendant came over and handed me a piece of paper titled "Notice — Your Behavior May Be in Violation of Federal Law." The flight attendant had underlined the words, "threatening, intimidating or interfering with a flight crew member (Federal Regulation 91.11). I felt as if I were getting a ticket from a police officer

There was apparently some minor delay upon deplaning, during which the author of the piece was interviewed by airline officials, and while nothing bad ensued, there's nothing to say that the incident hasn't been recorded on a 21st century version of the "permanent record card" that teachers intimidated generations of students with, at least in my neck of the woods.

The lesson is clear: Since the damage was done (rudeness, in this case), there was absolutely no reason - aside from ego gratification - to tell the attendant that he was going to report her.

Cheers...

...and now this

So I go visit the old man this morning, and he continues to look chipper. I even manage to wheel him out onto the patio where we sit for about 15 minutes and chat. We go back in, I take my leave, and go about my business.

Part of which has to do with wondering why, given how farblegargling hard they make it to use their audio products, I'm still an Audible.com customer.

You see, they sell their product - principally audio books - in a proprietary file format (with an .aa extension) that can't be converted into, say, an mp3 without having to jump through hoops (more about which momentarily). The company does support the iPod, fo course, along with a handful of other players, and I'm currently trying to figure out just how necessary iTunes is to Audible's iPod support.

Specifically, I want to know if there is a way to successfully get Audible audio on to/off of an iPod without having to use iTunes, as it is my intention to dump iTunes as soon as reasonably possible. (I've already determined that, ceteris paribus and with a little elbow grease (say, to download podcasts), iTunes can be disposed of; if, however, Audible requires iTunes, then other measures are called for (including canceling my Audible membership).

Meanwhile, the Audible files cannot be listened to on one's Windows machine if you're not connected to the Internet (because their AudibleManager needs to verify you, dig it?). So much for taking Audible with you on your computer to a place with limited or no connectivity.

Further meanwhile, the Audible files cannot be burned to CD unless you use a product called Nero.

I took advantage of an offer to install a trial version of Nero on my machine and indeed, burned a few CDs of one of the items I bought, but Nero is just such a mind-blowing piece of bloatware (and bloatware that doesn't work right, either: something called NMIndexStoreSvr.exe kept throwing exceptions and restarting on a frighteningly regular schedule) that frankly, I couldn't delete Nero from my hard drive fast enough. I felt 30 minutes was more than enough time to evaluate the product. My VAIO may never forgive me.

So what is left? A search of the 'net revealed that, for example, a program called Total Recorder will let you capture the audio output from a number of programs - including AudibleManager - and redirect/branch it to a data file in, say, mp3 format. As it turns out, I bought the program ages ago but never got much use out of it. I still had the registration email, too (there are some advantages to being an e-packrat!), so I downloaded the latest version, upgraded my registration code (for free, thank you High Criteria!) and tested the setup.

It works, even if it's a little cumbersome (a 6-hour audiobook takes 6 hours to play, after which I may feel a need to split the file into more manageable chunks). All of this because I don't want to use iTunes or Nero... ye gods!

Meanwhile, I get a call from the rehab center about 30 minutes ago. My old man developed a fever and began throwing up, so they've sent him to the hospital again. Based on experience, going there right now will just increase my blood pressure along with my uncertainty and not do a whit of good, so I will give the staff time to get their act together before calling in a couple of hours. This is a most disappointing development.

Cheers...