Last week Kristen, Adam and I took a trip to Notre Dame for a Philosophy Conference on the Problem of Evil. Kristen was asked to present a paper at the conference long ago, before we had to worry about traveling with an infant. Now the time came for us to be that annoying couple with the screaming baby on the airplane... or were we?

Being the family (its weird to use that word) that we are, a lot of research and planning went into this trip. We had a packing list that went onto a second page. We talked with people who had done this before. We read about what TSA does and doesn't allow (by the way, even folks without infants - you can take frozen items through security). We read about what to do with strollers and car seats. Yes, all that effort paid off. We took our Bob Revolution stroller and car seat through security (LAX had us put it through x-ray, South Bend wanted to hand inspect it). We brought along breast milk. We had lots of rags, clothes, swaddles, toys and blankets. I brought the fancy camera to get some nice photos. In the end, there was nothing that we could have anticipated needing that we didn't bring along. Go planning!

The actual flights went better than we anticipated. We fed adam during takeoff, landing, and anytime he was slightly upset. On our LAX->ORD flight they gave us an extra empty seat to put Adam's car seat in so we didn't even have to hold him the entire time. That ended up working well because he slept a good part of the trip. I doubt anyone around us even knew he was there unless they saw him. However, there was no good place on that flight to change his diaper. We ended up using the toilet seat in the bathroom after sanitizing it as much as we could. The ORD->SBN leg is very short, 20 minutes in the air -- just up and down, and Adam was pretty happy most of that flight too. Coming home they upgraded our seats to the economy-plus section for free, so we had extra leg room which made it much easier to endure the flight with an infant. We opted to check the car seat because Adam seemed like he wouldn't be happy in it by himself anyway. He was well behaved for the first half, and the 2nd half of the flight he was on the verge of breaking down but he never let out more than a couple cries.

Kristen tells me the conference was superb. Lots of smart people, lots of good discussions. I don't know anything more so if you want to know about it, ask her or read the Notre Dame website.

My time at the conference with Adam went rather well too. Adam and I spent two days touring the campus both in the stroller and our new baby carrier. Another day was pretty rainy so we stayed in the hotel room, which was smack in the middle of campus, for most of the day. Adam very much enjoyed (i.e. was calmed/soothed) the fountain on campus. Go white noise! I enjoyed all the green and open spaces, as well as the two lakes with trails. I was glad to have the Bob along, a normal stroller wouldn't have been too good on those gravel paths!

It was also nice to have time when I didn't have anything to do but spend time with Adam. Having had this opportunity I'd highly recommend other fathers out there to take some time off work (Read up on FMLA) and to take advantage of the intermittent leave, such that you can spread it out and enjoy some time with your child beyond when they're first born. They give you 1 year to use the time.

Now Sprint... Sprint... Sprint. What happened to the company that was striving to improve customer service and lower their churn rate (the rate at which customers switch between wireless carriers)? I'm not sure. They changed their policy on applying discounts to family plans. Now they only apply the discount to the base plan (which includes the first two lines) and no longer apply the discount to the additional (3-5) lines. I really applaud Sprint for their rates being significantly better than their big competitors (Verizon, AT&T, etc.), and I understand that they need to start making money as a company. I even don't have a problem with their policy change on the discounts. I do have a problem with them making the change to lines that are under contract. I say wait until the contract expires, or until the contract is renewed and then at that point change the billing. But no. They opted to do a one shot change to all plans. And because they even know that they're in the wrong, you could cancel your account without paying an early termination fee. What kind of !@#$ is that? Just make the change, violate their own contract, and the only option is to let people leave for another carrier? What happened to improving customer satisfaction and reducing churn?

I'm not happy with Sprint. I'm not getting anywhere with their customer service, just idiots who read off their computer screen to me and write me emails that are uninformative. Seriously, Sprint, what happened? 3 months ago whenever I emailed I received responses that didn't come from India. When I talked to people on the phone they spoke proper English. And not just that, but they were actually helpful, nice, understanding, and had the power and authority to make things right. Now you're just asking for a class action lawsuit.