And as his reward, Dave has now partnered with Richard Hue of Harbour Capital Management Group to form Gripevine a platform to help companies manage customer service. They've raised $1 Million in seed funding. Again, way to go, Dave.
WELCOME TO
This is the place to share your favorite travel stories of the mayhem and destruction that the airlines (or hotels, trains, buses or the like) have brought down on your luggage. My goal is to collect the best baggage annihilation stories from around the world in one place. Eventually, I’d like to compile enough great tales to make a book, preferably a hardback with a cover that is already bent and dented, not unlike a pair of pre-stressed jeans.
So I ask you to share your best stories. Submit them as comments to any post. I’ll review them and post them on the blog. And here’s the QUID PRO QUO (I used to be a lawyer so there had to be some Latin somewhere). The Quid – if you send me your story, you agree to let me use it on the blog and in any future books/publications that might surface some day in the future. The Pro – if I am lucky enough one day to get a great collection of tales, find a publisher who likes the idea, actually deliver a publishable manuscript, yada yada, yada, a book will spring forth. The Quo – if you send me your email with your post (promise I’ll only use it to contact you and share Gorilla stories), I’ll let you know if a book ever publishes and send you a free, signed first edition.
WHY ME?
“Why me?”, as Alfred E. Neuman once blurted out. First, like most of you, I’m a victim. I’ve traveled for a living for years and have logged over a million miles on Delta alone. Just two weeks ago, they got me again! Arriving at Dulles International in Washington, D.C. for a Labor Day weekend wedding, my wife, son and I snaked through the Dulles labyrinth to the baggage claim area to collect our three Roll Aboards and one garment bag. This time the garment bag was the casualty. It came up the belt and slid down onto the carousel with its contents of suits and dresses spewing out in every direction. It was soon followed by my toothbrush and an aerosol can of shaving cream. I guess I’m lucky they didn’t try to charge me for two extra pieces of baggage. My other toiletries weren’t so lucky. Somewhere in the bowels of Dulles Airport, another baggage handler/Gorilla smells nice.
Second, and before we go further, an admission – I’ve been on both sides. I was once legal counsel to The Gorilla. No, not the International Baggage Handlers Union. The actual American Tourister Gorilla. First as a partner in a D.C. law firm, and later as Trademark Counsel for Hillenbrand Industries, the company that owned Tourister. The Gorilla was created to suggest that the luggage was strong enough to stand up against the real band of Gorillas, the one that lurks under every airport, merrily playing hurling games with our luggage. So I know Gorillas.
“Every ape needs a top attorney!”
Me, The Gorilla (actually Hollywood actor Don McLeod) and my mentor and law partner Bill Mathis, in an earlier time
“Every ape needs a top attorney!”
You can also find me at
Leitten Consulting
Friday, April 6, 2012
United Breaks Guitars - The Sequel - $15 per View!
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