Fascinating

Cool story on the American Airlines all you can fly first class program.

LINK

Just what you want to be picked up in

After a long day at a corporate training center.

Found him

He's in line at dca at 530 am.

Project updates

A couple of projects for a friend's boat that I helped with. A teak table new floor.

Go TSA!

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Train trippin'

So, Amtrak doesn't exactly set the standards for transportation service but I was pleasantly surprised the other day...in addition to mystery meat hot dogs, they have Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA available in the snack car. It's almost like someone was trying.

NYC

NYC for the weekend. Was recovering from a nasty cold but still had fun.

Went to the High Line park for the first time.

Good coffee shop at the southern end.

Quick Trip

Just got back from Mexico. Spent a few days in Punta Mita, about an hour north of Puerto Vallarta. For a complete change of pace, I didn't take a single picture during the entire trip. Very odd for me.

Did a bit of diving. Water was cold at 63 degrees. Visibility day one was awful. Day two was better at the Marieta Islands. 

Didn't do any fishing, would have liked to but the locals say it is a bit early, so I didn't bother.

Virgin America

Flew Virgin America recently. Airline is fine. They need to refresh some aspects to make it more interesting again. Their preflight safety briefing was cool the first few times, it's stale now and they should make a new one. Also, some of their equipment isn't holding up. 

And their website? Awful. Horribly slow. 

When you know you stay at Marriott's too much

Mr. J.W. Marriott and his wife at their Christmas party. Intimate gathering for 250.

Better

I use my IPad to take notes ...I'm trying to get away from paper as much as possible. I have found that typing notes during meetings doesn't work for me. So I use a stylus. I have tried them all...and hadn't found any I liked until recently.

Just Mobile's AluPen..it's thicker than all the others and feels better. The tip is nice and doesn't stick on the surface. So far, it's the best one I have found.

Electronic Payments

Green sneakers with a suit just doesn't do anything for me.

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The US Postal Service is slowing down the delivery time on first class mail from 2 days to 3 days. This is going to have an impact on the working capital for companies as the most common practice is to mail an invoice and to then wait for a check to show up in the mail. This change by the Postal Service will add 2 business days to that process.  

This should be a driver for companies to push towards electronic invoicing and electronic collection of funds. With those processes the lag time can be avoided. An added benefit is that most companies start the clock on their Accounts Payable when they receive the invoice in the mail. If you send it electronically you are removing 2 to 3 days from that cycle. So, you could be getting your money 4 - 6 days earlier.

QR Codes

I was noticing some QR codes (square barcodes in advertising) the other day and got to wondering, who uses them? I would like to think I am pretty tech savy and I have no interest in downloading additional applications so I can scan the bar codes and hope that the applications on my phone work for the code in question. 

I wonder if I can find any of my friends and coworkers who have ever used them.

university

I read an article the other day that got me thinking again universities asking alumni for donations. There are a lot of reasons why people defend the practice and support it through donations. However, what other industry has created a business model where they charge you for services rendered and then expect you to keep giving them money long after they stop providing you with service?

This is not an area where I expect people to behave rationally. For many people I think a university creates a sense of belonging and self worth. I will never understand that as I just wanted to get an education...I was not looking for a way of identifying myself for the rest of my life.

Don't look up

Seafood in Toledo.

Not sure what else to say about that.

Shorts organizer

A byproduct of all the shop work I have been doing is that I have lots of short pieces of perfectly good wood. So I built a cart to store at least some of it in.

Of course 20 minutes after I took this picture the cart was full...I need another one. Or time to make more stuff.

Really?

Where I come from

We call it a 'bell'

A place to post it all

Made a couple of corkboards. The wood is Sassafras. The cork....well, that came from a different hobby.

But they don't specify what purposes

Forks and knives however, are strictly single purpose devices.