I feel like I went to bed on Sunday night and woke up and now the week is over. Where did it go?
OK, I know today is Thursday, but in a frustrating move, Megan ended up in a gymnastics meet on Friday. Tomorrow. In SAN DIEGO. Couple that with the fact that Monday was a school holiday -- and you can see that I've been trying to cram five days' worth of juggling into just three days of actual time to do it in. And (of course), I have a couple of project deadlines I'm dealing with.
No wonder I'm feeling so scattered. No wonder I haven't posted anything since my Sunday complaint about cooking dinner. No wonder I haven't bothered with trying to cook anything since then. (In preparation for the meet, Megan has been at the gym until 8:00 three nights in a row. I'm going to do a roast chicken tonight, thank you very much.)
But I do want to follow up on a couple of items:
1. Last week, the Los Angeles Unified School District came to an agreement with United Teachers Los Angeles, thus averting the strike I was worried about a couple of weeks ago. I am delighted -- that the school year won't be disrupted and that some effort (although not enough) will be made to reduce class size in the upper grades. Now I can go back to just being annoyed with the District and its byzantine bureaucracy.
2. I received this email from the CEO of JetBlue:
Dear JetBlue Customers,
We are sorry and embarrassed. But most of all, we are deeply sorry.
Last week was the worst operational week in JetBlue's seven year history. Following the severe winter ice storm in the Northeast, we subjected our customers to unacceptable delays, flight cancellations, lost baggage, and other major inconveniences. The storm disrupted the movement of aircraft, and, more importantly, disrupted the movement of JetBlue's pilot and inflight crewmembers who were depending on those planes to get them to the airports where they were scheduled to serve you. With the busy President's Day weekend upon us, rebooking opportunities were scarce and hold times at 1-800-JETBLUE were unacceptably long or not even available, further hindering our recovery efforts.
Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for the anxiety, frustration and inconvenience that we caused. This is especially saddening because JetBlue was founded on the promise of bringing humanity back to air travel and making the experience of flying happier and easier for everyone who chooses to fly with us. We know we failed to deliver on this promise last week.
We are committed to you, our valued customers, and are taking immediate corrective steps to regain your confidence in us. We have begun putting a comprehensive plan in place to provide better and more timely information to you, more tools and resources for our crewmembers and improved procedures for handling operational difficulties in the future. We are confident, as a result of these actions, that JetBlue will emerge as a more reliable and even more customer responsive airline than ever before.
Most importantly, we have published the JetBlue Airways Customer Bill of Rights—our official commitment to you of how we will handle operational interruptions going forward—including details of compensation. I have a video message to share with you about this industry leading action.
You deserved better—a lot better—from us last week. Nothing is more important than regaining your trust and all of us here hope you will give us the opportunity to welcome you onboard again soon and provide you the positive JetBlue Experience you have come to expect from us.
Sincerely, 
David Neeleman
Founder and CEO
JetBlue Airways
Last week's ice storm, which caused the delay of 10 JetBlue flights out of Kennedy (one stranded for 11 hours!) was not the first weather-related disruption to our nation's air traffic. Just two months ago, a similar incident made the news when an American Airlines flight was stranded on the tarmac for eight hours. And Ed Hewitt of MSNBC recalls getting caught in a huge delay back in 1999. He reminds us that the threat of legislation forced the airlines to create a "customer service initiative"... which was quickly abandoned when they went back to the business of trying to stay out of bankruptcy.
I heard an estimate that JetBlue's efforts to make it up to their passengers (through refunds and free flight vouchers) will cost the airline something like $30 million. I think it's a wise investment. Seven years of good word of mouth gave JetBlue a cachet - it was the "fun" airline, the happy airline, the airline that touted their great customer service and passenger experience. I can vouch for all those things, based on my family's experience flying JetBlue to New York last year. My daughter even decided that she liked JetBlue better than our beloved Virgin Atlantic (and was disappointed to learn that they don't fly to London).
All of those good feelings were wiped out on one wintry President's Day weekend. It will be a long road to gain them back.
I'm willing to give JetBlue the benefit of the doubt. For one thing, I don't see any other airlines jumping on the bill of rights bandwagon, despite years of passenger suggestions and complaints.
Weather delays are an inevitable part of flying. I would way rather spend several uncomfortable hours in an airport than have my pilot attempt a trip in hazardous conditions. But the airlines need to treat their passengers like the valued customers they are, instead of mere cargo in a crate. This is a good start.
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