No more Flexcars, and no Zipcars either

Wow. Uhh. It seems I'm out of luck for the plan I'd had to reserve a Flexcar for today. Well, yeah, sure, they're converting to Zipcar cars. OK, that's fine, I'll reserve it as a Zipcar. And if the car nearest me is unavailable, that's fine, I'll just reserve a different one. But no. No zipcars available either. I called customer support, figuring there was some sort of error, only to be told that no, no Zipcars would be available until the 21st.

What? No cars available until the 21st?

I'd distinctly had the impression that the impact of this transition was supposed to be minimal. I had speculated (OK, I know, it's then "my" error) that they'd do a rolling transition. But I hadn't really cared how they did it, exactly, so long as I'd be able to at least get some sort of car at some point.

I should have known better, when I noticed on the reservation site two days ago that all cars were becoming unavailable at 7pm yesterday.

It seems I'm not alone. Others are out there with the same problem.

No manager was available when I talked with Zipcar's customer service, so I left my name and number and was told one would call me back. Formally, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they may in fact make good on this SNAFU. I hope they do. Reading between the lines, you can probably guess how high my expectations are set at the moment.

More to come, one way or the other.

REQUEST:

If you have had a similar experience, please post a comment on this blog post with any other information you have (even if it's just a link to another blog post about this). I want to get a sense of how wide of a problem this is, and group together with others who are experiencing it. Thanks!

Caucus, Obama, etc.

Wow. I highly recommend y'all go watch this video about Obama versus Clinton. I was a bit unsure who I wanted on the Dem's side before that video, and I'm much less unsure (more sure I want Obama) afterwards.

Seriously, go watch it. 20 minutes well spent. (Even if the style is a little... different; that's ok, though... change is something we want, right?)


Meanwhile, I went to the Washington state Democratic Party's Caucus today for my voting precinct, and boy am I glad I did. A room full of people (all neighbors, no less -- though I only saw one person who I particularly knew in my precinct, though one of the workers was a familiar face from somewhere or other) actually talking about things with each other. Neighbors. Talking. We need more of that, in all sorts of ways, and for all sorts of reasons. Very cool. I'll definitely be going back again.

And alas that I was not elected as a delegate. My uncertainty at the time on how I would vote surely cost me the ability to get that roll (or at least an alternate position). Fortunately, Laura will be going, and my across-the-hall neighbor (the one person I actually knew there) is an alternate. So, my hope is that I can tag along with Laura when she goes.

And if any of you are in states where there's still an option to go to a Caucus, or just wanting to know if you should go next year: I highly encourage you to attend. No matter who you're supporting.

Don't forget: watch the video.

More Spam than Ever

on the 5th of February, I got over 10,000 messages which my spam filtering classified as spam. The good news is that they were classified as such. The bad news is that resources had to be spent on doing that classification, including (alas) a not-entirely-insignificant amount of my time.

I'm currently evaluating a possible alternative mail solution. We'll see if it works. I may have to seriously re-work the way I do e-mail, which would be a downer, because there's a lot of existing stuff out there that I'd have to change or get changed. Or try to -- not all of it is even changeable, really.

This sucks.

OK, venting over... back to my evaluation.