My trip to California last week (see post below for reason) was the epitome of awful travel. After I found out last Wednesday at 5:00 AM I began looking at booking a flight to get home ASAP. I'm convinced that airlines no longer have bereavement rates, as none of the airlines I called offered them. The cleapest flight for that night was on good ol' America West and ran at $700. I really had no choice, so I took the hit on my credit card.

I rushed up to Dulles only to arrive 15 minutes before my flight was scheduled to depart. Because I was so close to the departure time, I wasn't given a boarding pass. I pleaded with the person at the counter to call her boss at the gate and hold the plane for five minutes. But who was I kidding? America West is afterall the airline of drunk pilots, sending young passengers to incorrect destinations, and the most delayed flights. The woman at the counter refused and told me to call the 1-800 number to reschedule my flight for the morning. I called the number and demanded a refund so that I could get on another flight tonight and get home. The supervisor that I was talking to refused, staying hard on her line that the ticket that I purchased was a non-refundable ticket, despite not being told that when I bought it over the phone. I explained my circumstances to no avail. I then got mad and hung up the phone. I called my credit card company to dispute the charge. While I was doing that Ally's mom called the airline back and talked to somebody (and likely the only one) at America West that had a pulse. After going back and forth he finally talked to his higher up to get a refund and agreed to it. I couldn't believe that Ally's mom pulled that off. Simply amazing.

The next hurdle was getting me onto another flight. Ian offered to let me use some of his Jet Blue frequent flyer miles to get home. I had 15 minutes to call him, get his Jet Blue account number, book the flight, and get past security. It was amazingly close, but 15 minutes and $20 later I was on my way to Oakland and on down to Long Beach the following morning. Despite so many problems, it ended up working out better than I could have ever imagined. Thank you Ian and Mrs. Gold.

When I got on the Jet Blue airplane I was amazed. I was sitting in front of a baby, got no sleep, and it was the best flight I've ever been on. The service from the staff is beyond excellent. They are extremely courteous, helpful, and just plain nice, unlike other airlines (I'm looking at you, America West), which throw pretzels at you and go away. I'm not talking about an isolated incident, either. Every person that helped me from the counter to the plane on all 3 flights was great. Besides that, Jet Blue has 24 Channels of TV that you can watch on the flight. Watching World Poker Tour was a nice distraction. The 24 channels aren't for people who pay extra, either. Everybody gets a TV. Speaking of paying extra, there aren't first class seats on Jet Blue, which I like. Anyhow, Jet Blue is the best bet for your money. I highly recommend it.

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Linda Hughes

Linda Ray Hughes, 53, of Palm Desert died March 16, 2004, at home.

She was born Feb. 14, 1951, to Duncan William and Rose Urquhart in San Mateo.

She was the owner of a process service company for 20 years.

She is survived by two sons, Ryan Hughes of Virginia and Kyle Hughes of Big Bear; sisters, Sharon Urquhart of Graton and Susan Urquhart of Santa Rosa; her mother, Rose Martin of California; and her father and stepmother, Ted and Delores Urquhart of Foster City.

Services were held with private arrangements under the direction of FitzHenry Funeral Home Palm Desert Chapel.

The family suggests that donations be made to Guide Dogs of the Desert in Palm Springs.

(From The Desert Sun, all the way on the bottom)

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Yesterday started off rather lackluster. It was the day before Spring Break started, during which I will be staying in Charlottesville. My first class of the day was more exciting than usual. I had lunch and sent out a last round of election emails (see later in post). Then I went to my last class, which dragged on and on.

Election Results

Soon afterward the polls for the student council election were about to close and the results would be announced. At this point I got really tense because I wasn't positive on the way the election would go. I knew that numbers were on our side from the endorsements that Noah got and the amount of campaigning that we did (and that the other candidates didn't do). However, I was still nervous because of the new instant runoff system that lets voters rank their preference for candidates and uses the preferences to have an automatic runoff if an absolute majority is not attained by any one candidate. This was also troubling because two of the candidates got in bed with each other, telling their supporters to vote the other as No. 2 choice. I didn't think people would much listen to the "No. 2" message, but it had some potential.

Noah's campaign crew arrived only to wait around as we do each year for election results. The above picture is of me and Dave looking at turnout figures that were released before the actual results were. After the UBE finally put together a pompous Power Point slide show, the results were announced.

I'm not going to give a lame philosophic analysis of the results. I'm just gonna say happened that was important and why.

First, the joke referendum failed:

Greg is delightful
No: 2660, 52.22%
Yes: 2433, 47,77%

The joke referendum, which had no reference to Greg Scanlon whatsoever (even though it was initiated by Scanlon's first year room mate and Scanlon was running for President) took a close dive. I was especially happy about this because I've got some beef with a certain Greg.

Second, the domestic partner benefits referendum passed overwhelmingly:

Partnership Benefits
Yes: 4158, 73.92%
No: 1467, 26.08%

The fight for domestic partner benefits has heated up quite a bit recently at UVA, although it's always been an issue. This was a resounding blow to the UVA administration, which is dragging its heels on the issue.

Finally, the Student Council presidential election:

Noah: 2877, 50.52%
Scanlon: 1279, 22.46%
Ofori: 998, 17.52%
Haspel: 540, 9.4%

After more than two weeks of campaigning, Noah blew the competition out of the water. We thought that there would for sure be an instant runoff, but since Noah got over 50% of the initial vote, it wasn't necessary. I personally would have loved to see what would have happened if the runoffs took place. I bet Noah would have ended up with about 65% had we been able to see it. What is most surprising is that Elliot Haspel got taken for a ride. I thought Scanlon would be close to where Haspel is and vice versa. Ofori did better than expected, especially after some pretty bad news about him started circulating. Here is Noah with Amanda and Sam in the background:

Lastly, UDems endorsed candidates almost swept the race. 14/16 candidates or positions that UDems formally endorsed or took stances on passed, which is an 88% efficiency rate. I like to think that this may be in part due to the fact that my campaign email program sent 10,624 emails out urging people to vote. Last Spring our rate was 70% and this past Fall it was 80%. Do you see a trend developing?

The results from the domestic partner referendum coupled with the clout that UDems and the Minority Rights Coalition have in elections makes it clear that the conservative tide at UVA is changing.

Oh, and the fascist, racist, right wing, ultra-conservative Individual Rights Coalition went 0-5 last night with their endorsees.

Led Zeppelin

After the results for the election were announced I went home, put the finishing touches on a paper, and went out to see Zoso, a Led Zeppelin tribute band. Their show was damn good. It's by far the closest I'll ever come to seeing Led Zeppelin in a small college performance like the previous generation did.

Not only was their sound damn near authentic, they also looked like the band. Here are some pics from their website:

I think the best song they played last night was most definitely D'yer Mak'er. If there were one song I wanted to hear Led Zeppelin play I think it would be that. They also had a killer drum solo that spanned several minutes in the middle of Moby Dick. 'John Bonham' even put down his sticks and played with his hands for a while. The set of course closed with Stairway.

I definitely recommend seeing the show if you can because it really is the closest you'll come to a real Led Zeppelin experience. They're coming back to UVA on April 27th. I definitely plan on going. The band is from LA so I'll probably end up seeing them again once I get home.

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