人生行路 — The Journey of Life

The news is out that five Indian (dot, not feather) sailors aboard the INS Jalashwa, formerly the USS Trenton (LPD-14), were killed because of H2S leakage.  Perhaps journalists might start hyping up the fact that we own older Austin-class LPD’s, but none of this would have happened if the sailors had worn a little device called a breathing apparatus.

They come in various forms, such as OBAs and SCBAs, depending upon whether a ship’s equipment has been upgraded.  You put it on, and you can breathe in otherwise unsafe spaces.  Simple, isn’t it?

Worse yet, every ship in the U.S. Navy trains to fight toxic gas leaks and keep personnel safe.  It’s called gas-free engineering.  And I wouldn’t consider it a stretch to bet that every ship in the Navy has a CHT gas leak at least once every year or so.  It’s something we deal with, and when it’s done right, nobody gets hurt.

*Note to outsiders: If you don’t know what CHT is, replace the ‘C’ with an ‘S.’  Then try to pronounce it.

After completing a school on the CONUS east coast about a week ago, I rebooked my flight to an earlier time due to confusion over the time length of the school. I eventually find the base travel office, rebook the flight, and get to the airport the next day.

Resultingly, the first two flights were overbooked. I was able to get on the first one to Chicago. In Chicago, they’re too overbooked to get me a flight, so they stick me on the next one along with a happiness bribe of $200 in travel vouchers. No problem so far; I’ll take it.

I get to Narita, and there’s no guitar. It’s been missing for a week, and it’s driving me nuts. Supposedly they drop off the guitar on base for people like me, but they still haven’t. I’ve lost my patience, and I’m going to just go and buy another one tomorrow.

Okay, sorry for ranting. I just feel the need to disendorse United Airlines. I won’t be paying them another dime, ever, though the Navy still could force me on them again and probably will.

Easy: don’t list APO/FPO states on an address form.

If there’s anything to be said about usability, I shouldn’t have to email you about how to enter my address merely because I’m at an FPO.  Zander Insurance wouldn’t let me enter “AP” as a state, so they lost my business.

LifeLock ended up looking too creepy for me, so the safe bet was TrustedID, which listed “AP” as one of the available states.  Good on them; they understand.

Unfortunately, Zander isn’t alone.  For as long as forms have simply listed 50 states, military members — and often residents of U.S. territories — have been left out.  Or rather, companies have unnecessarily limited their customer base by doing this.

I encountered a related problem a couple of months ago when ordering from Kashi.  I emailed them to ask about entering an FPO address, and they replied that because UPS is their exclusive shipper, they can’t send products to FPOs.