Friday, November 16, 2007
(Salt Lake City, Utah) Hey, I'm Blogging from Utah!
by Tom Bozzo
Like the unblogged Wichita visit last week, this is a whirlwind visit for business purposes that are unbloggable less because they're super-secret than because they're super-boring to nearly the entire audience of this blog. (Apologies to those of you who are the exceptions.) After skimming some high overcast en route, the approach to SLC from the north did allow splendid Wasatch Range views, right up there with the Sandia Mountains views available to air travelers to Albuquerque.
After a day spent in the industrial flatlands of the Salt Lake valley, my colleague and I were relieved that SLC does offer some weekday-after-9 P.M. dining options. For lovers of hoppy beers in the audience (you know who you are, too), I can recommend the Red Rock IPA Junior even if it's perhaps a shade less hoptastic than Bell's Two-Hearted Ale, Three Floyds Alpha King, and Madison's own Ale Asylum Hopalicious.
It might be funnier, if invisibly so, to maintain the purity of not blogging from new states that I visit. But anyway.
Like the unblogged Wichita visit last week, this is a whirlwind visit for business purposes that are unbloggable less because they're super-secret than because they're super-boring to nearly the entire audience of this blog. (Apologies to those of you who are the exceptions.) After skimming some high overcast en route, the approach to SLC from the north did allow splendid Wasatch Range views, right up there with the Sandia Mountains views available to air travelers to Albuquerque.
After a day spent in the industrial flatlands of the Salt Lake valley, my colleague and I were relieved that SLC does offer some weekday-after-9 P.M. dining options. For lovers of hoppy beers in the audience (you know who you are, too), I can recommend the Red Rock IPA Junior even if it's perhaps a shade less hoptastic than Bell's Two-Hearted Ale, Three Floyds Alpha King, and Madison's own Ale Asylum Hopalicious.
Monday, September 24, 2007
(Washington, D.C.) Advantages of Monday Morning Meetings
by Tom Bozzo
- Counter-commuting by air (and a $900 business fare, yikes) enables a full upgrade despite mostly lapsed frequent-flier status.
- The $299 Tuesday hotel room is $109. The room even has a fairly grand view — looking down Connecticut Ave. NW towards Dupont Circle — of the West End, anchored by the Washington Monument.
- While I can't help but think that many of the vinyl-and-chipboard four-story hotels sprouting in 'burbs everywhere will end up reverting to some state of nature, a D.C. hotel price explosion suggests that selected private equity investments in hotel capacity might not be totally irrational.
- It's easy to get a table for unfashionably early Sunday dining-out.
- But, among stuff I only do in hotel rooms but shouldn't, could morning TV news be more vacuous? I know, sun rises, sun sets. Still, seeing Wild Bill Donohue invited to discuss the Ahmadinejad appearance at Columbia may require therapy. Minor irony: the Columbia dean who was the other guest could have been Donohue's long-lost twin, and both were wearing an identical-on-SDTV dark suit/white shirt/red tie combination. And, it was a frightening lesson in the state of Iran war drum-beating. But never fear, after the "hard news" segments, they were on to Britney and K-Fed!
Labels: Random Bullets, Travel
Sunday, June 03, 2007
(MSP Airport) Why Are We Still on Scary Threat Level Orange!!!1!
by Tom Bozzo
Just wondering, what TSA genius came up with the idea of re-screening passengers who have (1) been subject to a couple layers of pre-screening, (2) been through security in the EU, whence we've exported our stupid frackin' liquids restrictions, (3) otherwise been trapped in a widebodied tin can for 9 hours, then (4) disgorged into your supposedly sterile immigration and customs areas. Isn't there some totally unscreened air cargo still in the system towards which those resources might be better targeted?
Thanks to the NWA agent who directed me to put [liquid treat redacted] into my checked bag. I was only surly because my body clock is telling me it's 1 A.M. Should [liquid treat redacted] not make it to Madison intact, I'm blaming the frackin' government.
Update: Liquid treat made it to Madison just fine.
The perspective afforded by two decent nights' sleep leads me to think that the concern may be the possibility for passengers to shift items into carry-ons that are allowed in checked baggage but verboten in the cabin. Technically, passengers may be allowed to check a variety of weapons and potentially dangerous articles — though you might reasonably wonder why some of those articles (swords? sabers? firearms?) should be allowed in any form of baggage. The result is that, to offer a guess as to the order of magnitude, maybe 999,999 parts of a million of the effect of the regs falls on (mostly) harmless liquids.
Don't they realize it prevents them from re-raising the threat level the next time the WPE is in (even worse) political straits?
Just wondering, what TSA genius came up with the idea of re-screening passengers who have (1) been subject to a couple layers of pre-screening, (2) been through security in the EU, whence we've exported our stupid frackin' liquids restrictions, (3) otherwise been trapped in a widebodied tin can for 9 hours, then (4) disgorged into your supposedly sterile immigration and customs areas. Isn't there some totally unscreened air cargo still in the system towards which those resources might be better targeted?
Thanks to the NWA agent who directed me to put [liquid treat redacted] into my checked bag. I was only surly because my body clock is telling me it's 1 A.M. Should [liquid treat redacted] not make it to Madison intact, I'm blaming the frackin' government.
Update: Liquid treat made it to Madison just fine.
The perspective afforded by two decent nights' sleep leads me to think that the concern may be the possibility for passengers to shift items into carry-ons that are allowed in checked baggage but verboten in the cabin. Technically, passengers may be allowed to check a variety of weapons and potentially dangerous articles — though you might reasonably wonder why some of those articles (swords? sabers? firearms?) should be allowed in any form of baggage. The result is that, to offer a guess as to the order of magnitude, maybe 999,999 parts of a million of the effect of the regs falls on (mostly) harmless liquids.
Labels: homeland security, just life, Travel
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Where the Elite Meet
by Tom Bozzo
(Click through for bigger versions.)
In the second row from the top, not L-R as such, that's Josephine Baker, King Hussein of Jordan [*], Kurt Waldheim, and FALCO.
Alles klar, Herr Kommissar?
[*] The vacancy of Wingnuttia is on clear display in its attempt to demonize Barack Obama over his middle name. How soon they forget the Hussein that was a good friend of the U.S. Me, I've lost faith with Obama over subsidies for coal liquefication, at least if Edmund Andrews's reporting can be trusted. And shame on Dick Gephardt for shilling for this piece of crap.
Some Famous People who have stayed at the Hotel Panhans:
(Click through for bigger versions.)
In the second row from the top, not L-R as such, that's Josephine Baker, King Hussein of Jordan [*], Kurt Waldheim, and FALCO.
Alles klar, Herr Kommissar?
[*] The vacancy of Wingnuttia is on clear display in its attempt to demonize Barack Obama over his middle name. How soon they forget the Hussein that was a good friend of the U.S. Me, I've lost faith with Obama over subsidies for coal liquefication, at least if Edmund Andrews's reporting can be trusted. And shame on Dick Gephardt for shilling for this piece of crap.
Labels: Austria, Travel, Wingnuttia
