Car User Rules:

This especially applies to west coast commuters. Rides from the airport after 11pm or before 5am are not required.  If someone is at the house with a late show time and is willing to give you a ride that is up to them. Otherwise you can expect to take a cab to the house. It simply isn’t fair to people with early call out or show times.

Also if you are using Fedex or UPS NO rides will be given to and from the cargo area to the terminal nor should you bend the rule and ask to be taken to the house for an hour and then to the terminal.  If you are the last person to get a ride you are the first person to give a ride unless other arrangements are mutually agreed upon.

Thanks

GroupMe site for car users is: http://groupme.com/groups/781-437-6721 You can see an archive of all the messages sent.

Well if you haven’t figured it out by now we have a shiny new Laser printer! Neato I still ask you not to print bid packets or anything else with a large amount of pages. If you have any problems with the printer consult the manual on the bookshelf. It is much faster than the old one.

House -

New Tenants – Lots of people moving out and in with the growth of ORD for ExpressJet. Now is your chance to move beds if you want. If you see something open take it but let me know which bed you chose. I can then update the cheat sheet I have to let new guys know where they can bunk. There will be 2-3 new people for March so show them the ropes.

Timm, Theron, and Travis are all headed to ORD. Jon Arnet bailed on Colgan and went to Republic.

Current Bed Status:

Fridge and Pantry –

Please be courteous to your pad mates and don’t overload the fridge with all of your stuff. I am still willing to provide ketchup, dressing, butter, etc to keep from having duplicates. Just let me or Ricardo know what we need. LABEL your stuff. Left overs will get chucked EVERY week when one of us cleans unless you date it. No date? I don’t care if it is a day old we don’t know that and it will get thrown out.

Computer –

Other than the printer I installed new Anti-virus on the machine. It is called WebRoot. This machine still runs Windows XP and when I start to have any issues with that it will be converted to run Linux. You will still have multiple web browsers and Office applications available but Linux is less processor intensive and will keep this machine humming along. I have a new spare machine in AZ that I am working on getting here as well and it will have Windows 7 installed.

Car – No longer need to use the Voicemail system. Please use the text service only. Make sure you leave a message when you are going to go pick the car up. 3 of us we trying to get the car at the same time the other day and the 1^st person didn’t update the message.

Just text – Chris is going to get the car/has the car or something similar. Of course this doesn’t mean you can’t call the house to try to get a ride. Generally even though one person is on the text message there will be others in the pad sharing the driving duty. The text service is provided by GroupMe.com iPhone, Android, and Blackberry apps are available. They give you a bit more flexibility if you want to give them a try.

Other Car Stuff:

• Quit leaving it to the next guy to put gas in the car. The Shell Card is in there so use it. If it gets low please shoot me a text message
• The car had an oil change this past week there will be some other preventative stuff done to the car but that probably won’t happen until May.
• Some of you have experienced the dash going dark (No Gauges) The fix for this is a major pain and may not even fix it. So give the dash a LIGHT tap in the center of the console towards the windshield and you should see it come back to life. I may address this in May but it just depends on how often it happens and the charge to fix. I am sure it is not cheap. If you can’t seem to bring it back to life FILL the car with gas and leave a note.

The vast majority of the car users are now working out of terminal A. If one of you can secure pay parking on Will Clayton from Colgan I am willing to give this a try. The drive would be much shorter and you could all go to whatever terminal you wanted.

That’s enough for one update. I am headed back to ORD this month but will try to pass through IAH every once and a while. Ricardo is the care taker so let him and me know of any issues with the pad. If you don’t tell us we CAN’T fix it!

PayPal issue: For some reason PayPal was charging shipping. I believe that is now corrected and if you were charged anything it has been refunded.

Headed back to ORD: I am headed back to ORD but will pass through IAH whenever possible. Bring issues to the attention of me and Ricardo.

That’s it. I will send out an email as well. Thanks, Chris

I will be returning to the pad in February. I have vacation in January and you might see me passing through town. Until I determine my fate, I am going to stay in IAH or go back to ORD I will not be adding a second cleaning person. Remember it is your responsibility to PICK UP after yourself.

New car by now you all should have had a chance to drive the Civic. It is a serious upgrade. Please take care of the care. Don’t eat in it, smoke, etc. I am going to have it cleaned each month. We will be transitioning away from the voicemail system and to the new group text messaging system in January. You MUST use this service if you want to use the car. I realize you will get text messages when not using the pad but this is the best way to inform everyone the status of the car. There is a way to “mute’ messages if you are on vacation and then “unmute’ when you are read to receive them again. There is also a way to view the message archive online. http://groupme.com/groups/781-437-6721

More later….

So like most of you I am working oh well. Chicago is nice and snowy and will put anyone in the holiday spirit. My Santa tie is helping.

Now on to the bitch fest. We are all a part of an exclusive club called crash pad tenants. That means EVERYONE, yes even YOU. If you don’t believe me go look in the mirror and you will realize you are with EVERYONE else in the pad. People are complaining that others are not taking care of their stuff and helping with simple clean up duties like taking out the trash and loading and unloading the dishwasher. Let me spell it out to you below:

All tenants are required to clean up after themselves. Do not leave ANYTHING in the sink. If you have dirty stuff and the dishes in the dishwasher are clean EMPTY it.

If the trash needs to be taken out. TAKE IT OUT! It takes less than 1 minute. Quit waiting for others to do it.

This kind of stuff drives me INSANE. You are all adults. If you are a lazy SOB at home fine. That doesn’t cut it in the pad. Have respect for others. If you can’t abide by these simple rules move out. There is a pad in the neighborhood with the same set up but I hear it does not get cleaned weekly. So if you want to live in a mess it will be perfect for you. If I find out who the offenders are I will ask you to leave. The airline business is a crappy one and there are plenty of people interested in the pad.

Thank you for your attention,
Chris, Ricardo, and those that are doing their part to keep the pad clean

Now for the changes….

• I am outta here in August. It was a very difficult decision but I am going to give ORD a try. I can hold a line there and after the abuse in June and now the bullshit written warning I have courtesy of the company I need a break. I appreciate the struggles we are all going through and all I can do is give you the nicest place to stay as possible. If ORD doesn’t work I am not sure what I am going to do but we all know that a Phoenix base is coming soon. J

• Changing of the guard. Shane is leaving after August. Justin will be taking his place to help take care of the pad. As always if I need to come down to take care of anything I will. Ricardo and Justin have the ability to purchase supplies when they get low. Please contact me if you have any issues. Good luck Shane he’s going to be a dad soon YIKES!

• Potential new crash pad car but I need to sell the current one first. If I can sell the current car I have a much newer car to take its place. It is a 2002 Honda Civic 4 door. I am asking $1000 for the cp car which is a fair price. See details below. If you are interested or know someone that might be let me know.

Other news. I believe Theron will be back in August. Hope so we miss him! I still have a couple of openings so if you know someone send them my way. I will up the referral fee from $25 to $40!

In my absence we have two quality people to maintain the house. You all just need to do your part to keep things going.

Thanks! Chris

Car Details: $1000.00 firm

1995 Toyota Celica with 205,000 miles (It’s just getting started!) High mileage but running fan. A/C nice and cold

Repairs/Upgrades I have made since purchase:

1. New tires (They are not cheap but long lasting higher quality. I paid close to $500 for those
2. New brakes less than 6 months old that was around $350-400
3. Battery is under 2 years old
4. New windshield under 2 years old around $225
5. Various hoses and belts have been replaced in the past 2 years
6. Just had the oil changed and the dealer found no glaring issues

Known issues:

1. The passenger door key lock does not work
2. The left rear wheel bearing needs to be replaced. I am guessing the cost for this is $300-$500 but don’t know for sure.

We had one car issue so far this month. If you pick up the care IMMEDIATELY update the voicemail. One of your fellow car users was walking around the lot for over 30 min looking for the car when someone had recently picked it up and not updated the message nor answered their phone.

I have one opening starting in June so if you know anyone have them give me a call.

Thanks,
Chris