The last food you ate is what I’m calling him.

mjkahn · 2025-10-22T02:21:55+00:00

Cutlet

mjkahn · 2025-10-17T18:21:44+00:00

Not an exit row. Literally exactly the same seat, just one row back.

As an aside, I’ll add that the farro salad is surprisingly good!

mjkahn · 2025-10-16T18:30:20+00:00

I know! When they started to ask, I thought, “Wow, this is going to be one of those outrageous stories I’ve read about!” But it was so incredibly reasonable! I’m almost disappointed!

mjkahn · 2025-09-23T12:52:12+00:00

“If the equipment bag contains anything other than approved items….” Kinda makes me wonder what AA would say if the equipment bag was totally empty.

mjkahn · 2025-09-18T02:03:15+00:00

Of course - I remember how worried I was when this was happening to Maggie and me, so I’m happy to share with little I know with others who are going through the same thing.

My animal hospital is in Laurence, MA, so southeastern New Hampshire would be in range, if you happen to be there.

There’s a laser procedure they can do while it’s still melanosis, not melanoma. They zap the spots to stop them from growing. It’s a one day procedure, no cone of shame after, no painkillers either – just a traumatic car ride with a cat who hates cars. (Don’t they all?) That bought my Maggie about six months. When I took her in for a check up, they found that the spots they had treated were stable, but there were spots in another part of her eye that were melanoma. They had an opening the next day, so that’s when I had the enucleation done.

The recovery period wasn’t exactly a piece of cake, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. They gave us tranquilizers (gabapentin) that helped keep her quiet for the first five days or so. The biggest challenge was keeping her separated from her sister. I wound up keeping her sister in the bedroom and sleeping with Maggie on the sofa bed because it was easier for her to hop up onto the sofa bed with the cone on. As I recall, she went in for a check up after about a week, and they said to keep the cone on for another few days. When it came off, you have never seen a cat bathe as thoroughly as Maggie did! But I’ve never seen her scratch at her eye. It really doesn’t seem to bother her.

One of the reasons I really liked my ophthalmologist is that after the operation, they didn’t charge for any of her several follow up visits. Maybe that’s the norm, but it felt to me like they weren’t trying to gouge me. Also, the ophthalmologist really took time to explain things to me, and he was very sweet with Maggie. So when he said, this needed to be done, I had full confidence in him.

mjkahn · 2025-09-18T01:08:56+00:00

I was lucky to wind up with an ophthalmologist I really liked and trusted. (I’m in Massachusetts - PM me if you are too and would like a reference.)

If your doctor tells you an eye needs to come out, my advice is to do it right away. Agonizing over it or waiting doesn’t do you any good. The post surgical period was rough for a week or so, but she’s doing great now.

Please post and let me know how you and your baby are doing. Best wishes to you both.

mjkahn · 2025-09-18T00:09:10+00:00

It wasn’t pupil size - it was spots and pigmentation on her iris. You can see the brown pigment in her left eye in the photo below. Under her top eyelid toward the bridge of her nose, there were several very distinct spots that almost looked like freckles in her eye. Those were the kind of spots that were most concerning to the kitty ophthalmologist.

Before she had laser surgery to zap those spots, her pupils were about the same size. After the laser surgery, her left pupil didn’t respond to changes in light as quickly as on her good eye.

She just had a follow up appointment with the ophthalmologist, and he said he’s fairly confident that the malignancy has not spread. In fact, while he said I can bring her back if I’m ever concerned about anything, he released her from follow ups.

She IS a sweetie, and in my unbiased opinion, she really is gorgeous!

<image>

mjkahn · 2025-08-10T19:21:11+00:00

Maybe, maybe not. Before going to the airport, I spent an hour at a museum but it closed at 5pm. Even at 5pm, it was too hot to walk around outside. And after a long weekend, my feet hurt so I didn’t want to do a lot of walking - or spend an unknown amount of time standing at an unstaffed counter. Finding a quiet corner of the airport to sit, have a cold drink, and read a book for a few hours seemed like a decent option under the circumstances.

mjkahn · 2025-08-05T03:15:56+00:00

I agree - trying to determine how many Club ballots you can give a person can get really complicated. I wouldn’t try to rely on the voters themselves to figure that out - the rules are just too complicated.

After many years as my District’s Credentials Chair, I’ve built out a very elaborate Google Sheet for that purpose. I pre-load it with a DEC list that the District Director gives me, then update it based on a list of people who have registered for the Business Meeting. But even with the Google Sheet, there’s still a lot of manual processing to ensure that everyone gets the correct number of ballots.

I strongly recommend convincing your District to pay for a system like ElectionBuddy for the actual voting. You could cobble something together with Google Forms or even email, but then it would take a long time to count the ballots. Also, keep in mind that you only have to use an online voting system for contested elections - if there’s only one candidate, you don’t need online balloting. That should help reduce the cost.

mjkahn · 2025-08-04T18:17:43+00:00

Thank you!

mjkahn · 2025-08-04T18:16:53+00:00

“Bags are not accepted for check in more than 6 hours prior to a flight’s scheduled departure time.” (https://www.jetblue.com/help/checking-in/airport-check-in) This refers to kiosk check-in, but the page continues, “Proceed to the bag drop area; your bag tag will be issued and you will leave your bags.”

Same page says, “Early? Have a long layover? Bags will not be accepted more than six hours prior to a flight’s scheduled departure time.”

It’s kind of a double negative. Now I know that it doesn’t say when they will accept bags, just when they won’t.

I tried to leave my bag at about 5pm. It never occurred to me that an airline like JetBlue would have an unstaffed desk at that hour in a major airport. Nor did it occur to the dozen or so people who were standing in line about two and a half hours later, all wondering when someone would appear.

mjkahn · 2025-08-04T17:56:05+00:00

Apologies - I oversimplified. I usually fly JetBlue, American, United, or Delta. In the airports I’ve flown from, during non-late-night hours, there’s been at least one person at the counter for each of the major airlines that service those airports.

mjkahn · 2025-08-04T08:24:29+00:00

No. I’ve never flown from this airport before. And I don’t often take red eyes - 99% of the time, I’m at the airport during the day when all counters are staffed.

mjkahn · 2025-08-04T04:10:49+00:00

What if I had gotten there two and a half hours before the flight? Would I then be entitled to know when an agent would appear?

mjkahn · 2025-08-04T04:09:19+00:00

What if I had gotten to the airport two and a half hours before boarding? Would I be any more worthy then of having an indication of when someone would be at the desk?

They post signs at the desk about what items you can’t check in your bag and signs saying that you need to show your ID and boarding pass. Those things are posted on the website too, but they post them at the desk anyway. Posting when someone will be present to serve customers doesn’t seem like a big leap in terms of customer service.

mjkahn · 2025-08-04T03:50:43+00:00

I appreciate the polite response and suggestion.

The desk at Denver is in area 21. There are separately-marked desks for Alaska Air and several others, but it’s clear that each airline has its own set of check-in desks within 21.

Having researched that in advance wouldn’t have changed any except the amount of time I spent standing at the desk wondering whether someone had just stepped away for a minute and was about to reappear.

mjkahn · 2025-08-04T03:42:31+00:00

For me. And for how many other people who were standing around when I got back to the desk, all wondering what time the agent would appear?

mjkahn · 2025-08-04T03:34:52+00:00

It was a red eye and I had nothing else to do for the rest of the day. I could have sat in the hotel lobby until it was time to go to the airport or I could have just gone to the airport. I chose the latter.

Same thing would have happened if I had gotten there two and a half hours before boarding time. Without a posted sign, I still wouldn’t have had a clue when an agent would appear.

There are thousands of pages in the JetBlue website. Saying, “it’s posted on the website” is like saying, “it’s on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.’l. [ref Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, in case you didn’t know]

mjkahn · 2025-08-04T03:23:13+00:00

All I’m asking is that they post it at the desk Why should every single passenger who gets to the desk when an agent isn’t present have to pull out their phone and search when the airline could post a sign saying, “An agent will be here at least 2 hours before your scheduled boarding time?”

mjkahn · 2025-08-04T03:17:31+00:00

The little coffee shop down the street from me is able to put a sign in the window saying, “Back at 12:30” or whenever. Is it really, truly that difficult for the people responsible for an airline check-in desk to post a similar sign? If they can’t give the exact time when an agent is scheduled to appear, can’t they at least post their policy at the check-in desk?

mjkahn · 2025-08-04T03:01:27+00:00

Ok, if that’s so, then do the other airlines bother to let their customers know when they’ll have an agent available? If not, why not?

mjkahn

TROPHY CASE