LGA

The Trip Home From New Mexico

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Today we had to get up early and make the drive from Santa Fe back to Albuquerque to fly home.  I will take this time to mention we rented a XM Satellite radio for the trip from the rental company since we knew we would be in the middle of nowhere.  Wow, those things suck.  There were times when we didn’t even have any obstruction and it had trouble playing music.  Next time i thin we will be ok with just using music on my iPhone.  The iPhone had a few moments but otherwise it worked pretty well as a GPS.  The problems we had were with the TomTom app having really bad data on POI’s.  Wow it had stuff in there with addresses that were flat out wrong.

Because Santa Fe was so far from the airport and we had to get the rental car back by noon and we didn’t have a flight till 2:30 we got to the airport way too early.  Our luck there was no airport club, wifi or much to do.  We got some more reading in and found a sports bar for lunch.

To yet again prove how small a world it is, when we were boarding the plane M saw her friend Cormac settling into his seat for the flight home.  After we were in the air he came over to talk and it turns out he was in New Mexico for a conference.  We had the same connecting flight in Dallas so we all grabbed lunch before taking off back to NY.  We got back to LGA so late that all we did was head home and crash.

This vacation turned out to be just what we needed.  It was restful, fun, and a great trip.  It is hard to compare to our last trip to Europe but it was awesome in its own way!

New Mexico Day 1

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I am finally writing about our New Mexico vacation.  As I usually do if I write about stuff in the past I post date the blog entry so i know when everything actually happened.

Today was our first day of M and I’s New Mexico vacation.  In August we planned going away and after throwing around over a dozen North American cities we both thought lets go to Santa Fe.  Leaving on September 11 was not our original plan but I was actually glad to get out of New York City on this day.

We had a really early flight out of LGA.  M cashed in some American Airlines points she has been wanting to use on a vacation and got us free tickets for this trip.  The kicker was we even got a first class upgrade going to New Mexico.  We had to transfer in Chicago but it wasn’t too bad.

We got to Albuquerque a little before noon.  After we picked up the rental car (we opted for a small SUV) we headed out to our hotel outside of Albuquerque.  We were hungry so we stopped off in down town Albuquerque to try a cafe that M’s guide book suggested.  We didn’t notice until we were out of the car that it was closed on Sunday:(  We were then off to the hotel.

We were staying at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort & Spa outside of Albuquerque for the first 3 nights.  Our room wasn’t ready when we got there so we hit up the hotel bar for some lunch.  I had some fantastic flat bread with blue cheese and other stuff.  It was good.

Once we dropped our stuff off at the room and hit up the pool.  It was really cool.  We got back to the room to find a complimentary bottle of wine and cheese plate.  I was very impressed with American Express travel’s Fine Hotel & Resorts for this.  I never booked anything through them before but Joe recommended using them since I had a card already.

After snacking we had dinner at the hotel’s regular restaurant.  It was good.

We had a long day but it was a really good start to the vacation.

Custom Order!

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Are you a custom order guy? Or gal? You know the person who orders something off the menu, then changes like 5 things about it. Lets say extra crispy this, hold the that, not allot of this, and cut the crusts off. And then you get upset with staff when they mess up your order that NASA scientists would mess up? If so, get over it. Don’t be like my mom, or Danny and get upset about it. What did you expect?

I have a theory, and it is usually accurate. Well usually. It goes like this, you can make ONE change to any order. After that you are asking for it to be messed up. You want no lettuce and no mayo, ask for no mayo because you can pull lettuce off something. if you ask for both removed you will get both. This theory is except if it is Kai going to BK for me at the drive through! Then no matter how small the change is, they will mess it up. But I digress.

Why I am going off about food order changes? Tonight I have learned (well I knew it already but I let myself believe it was not true) change requests no matter what industry you are talking about cause chaos. Why you may ask? It goes to another theory I have. Well make it a law, it is that certain. It goes like this. 95% of the people out there are stupid. They are. I am not pessimistic. Prove me wrong! Really I want you to!

Today I flew home from Portland. I got to the airport really early so I asked to see if I can fly standby on the earlier flight. They (US Airways) said the earlier flight was booked but they would put me on standby. Boarding time comes around for the early flight and I am in luck, there are extra seats. As they give me my boarding card I ask for the second time “will my luggage get on this flight ok”? I am reasured by the gate agent that she is calling the luggage people right now and it will be taken care of. There was 20+ minutes to departure so no issues. Sure enough we waited on the ground for a while. I figure, plenty of time to put my bag on.

I get to NYC and proceed to get my bag. Well it doesn’t come off the carousel. Why you may ask? Well change is the answer. A simple change like modifying someone’s flight to an earlier one caused the system to be messed up. It was a simple change, one that you would think happens all the time, but it got messed up anyway. You may be saying “Scott, it was just one bag. Maybe they made an honest mistake”. That is a good theory. It gets flushed down the toilet when I tell you a lady with 2 missing bags (and a 2 year old) also lost 2 bags on the same flight for the same reason. The US Airways people called it a communication issue in Portland. I laughed and told them I can’t understand that because the gate agent said they were going to call right as I asked. So either one person is retarded or someone didn’t do their job.

The moral of this story. If I is food or flights, change is just a way of asking for your plans to be messed up.

Oh, and on another note. I do technology for a call center. We go to great lengths to make sure the customer always has choices, and can always get to a live person. it is possible to operate a Call Center like that, so NO ONE should tell me it is ok to have an IVR that does not have any way to get to a live agent. US Airways, a bit of a heads up. If I press 0, I better get a f–king live agent. if I press 0 several times I better get an agent, not an automated response telling me to try back later when I have my proper information. I am going to goto sleep tonight knowing that you are in chapter 11 for a good reason!!!

Yes I am pissed. But the agent at LGA was at least halfway decent, and I did get my luggage 7 hours later. I did however miss returning my Tux, and will have to pay the late fee when I return it.

Mobile Technology

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I tell everyone I used to hate traveling for work. That is partially true. In the end I dreaded the trips, the waits in the airport, getting lost in po-dunk towns in rental cars, etc. In the beginning I loved traveling. I think I did too much too quick. Also I did this during a period of the worst air traffic delays in the history of US air travel. I also flew out of the most delayed airport in the US. An airport that the FAA said accounted for 25-30% of all delays at the time, Laguardia airport (LGA).

This entry is not about my love or dislike of travel, that I can save for many entries later. What I am thinking about is the cool technology you can use or rely on when traveling.

Studies are coming out now saying more and more people are “cutting the cord” or becoming wireless phone only households. I have been using my cell as my primary (or only) home phone since 1998. Earlier than that I lived at home with my parents and they did have an extra line, even though I never used it.

When traveling you can use the coolest tools that keep you in touch or working. The stuff out now is even better than what I was able to use when I traveled regularly 3 years ago. Wow, it has been 3 years since I did that.

When I was on the road I relied on a laptop (Compaq Presario 1875 or something with an AMD K6-2 180mhz processor, then a number of Micron 15″ TFT laptops, and eventually a Dell latitude CPx). The laptops I have now kick the ass of the ones I had then. My thinkpad T-40 I use for work is literally half the thickness of the micron’s I used and 3-4 times more powerful. The battery lasts like 4 hours. If I got 90 minutes on the micron or 60+ on the Compaq I was happy. Even my tiny Powerbook gets better battery life than the old desktop replacements.

My cell phone back then was several flavors of the Nokia 6160, Motorola Timeport, or later on a Nokia 8890. The service actually was as good as it is now. T-Mobile’s coverage has gotten better, but I used to go everywhere with my AT&T Tri-mode TDMA Nokia’s. The phone was big but worked all over. From Canada, to Portland Oregon, to Portland Maine. The difference is I am paying about half the price I paid back in 1999 for about the same amount of minutes or even more minutes now.

The other difference with cell phones are that my Treo 600 is a handheld and a phone. I also get wireless internet access on it. For me between 1998 and 2001 that was impossible for me. now I can get email on my phone or use another phone with bluetooth to get mail on my laptop. I didn’t even have a blackberry then. I would have killed for a blackberry when I traveled. I take it for granted now.

The WiFi hotspots would be awesome to have had when I traveled. I used to use Laptop Lane at some airports back then, but they weren’t everywhere.

VPN software and Exchange 2003 with RDP over HTTPS would have been awesome. Either would have been awesome. At Datastream we had to use outlook from outside the firewall using AT&T Global net dial up. It was so slow. Now it would be trivial and fast to use, especially with high speed internet in some hotels now. When I went to vegas last winter I plugged my Powerbook (then a 15″ TiPowerbook) into the network jack in the hotel and I was able to VPN back to work. It came in handy when Keith needed something when I was out. That is the coolness I am talking about. Technology that just works when you are on the road.

If I was still traveling I would probably look at the bluetooth GPS receivers they have out now. Connect it to my iPack 1945 and know where I am. It would be killer.

What is also funny is that more and more people are using gadgets on the road. Besides the pain in the ass people on cell phones everywhere (writing this as someone’s phone goes off on the train). I mean laptops PDA’s, and other neat stuff. Around me right now on the train is 4 ladies with huge laptops doing work. One has to be my mom’s age. 4 years ago that wouldn’t be going on. When I am on the train to kingston I always see several people with blackberry’s or Pocket PC’s & Palms of several varieties. Then there are the iPods. They are everywhere. Note to self need new iPod for train trips like this. must replace sold one ASAP.

I just find these observations amusing. Why, because all this stuff that I see I have been doing for years. That is no big deal, but I always used to get made fun of by some of my friends about doing it. Then like clock work 6 months later they would be doing the same thing. I don’t consider myself a trendsetter but some technology stuff I get right away because I think it will work for me. I was that way with the first bluetooth phones. I got it and used it to connect to my PC and use a bluetooth headset. Turns out that it didn’t work very well, but it worked and I used it for months.

Enough of my observations. I am off to stretch my legs on the train for a while and maybe take some pictures with my Treo and post them to my MoBlog!!!

This blog entry was written while listening to Higher from the album “Human Clay” by Creed And Superman from the album “America Town” by Five for Fighting