9.28.2007
Isotopes and the Polynesian Expansion
Robin Moroney writes in the WSJ's Informed Reader blog of new evidence that confirms Polynesian oral traditions of Hawaii-Tahiti migrations: isotope analysis places prehistoric Hawaiian tools on an atoll near Tahiti. (To those of us accustomed thinking of them as merely islands in the same ocean, we're talking about 2500 mile distances.) The prospect of crossing that stretch of the Pacific in an open, stone-age vessel kind of makes my rant about air travel... pathetic.
9.26.2007
The Dreaded "Mechanical Problem"
[Warning: Long-winded rant ahead]
My sister-in-law got married last weekend in Salt Lake. My wife flew on standby tickets because her work can be done from any location; no big deal if she gets bumped a day or two. I don't have the same luxury, so we bought tickets for my trip to ensure my timely return to work on Monday. Normally we fly Delta, but I had some American frequent flyer miles set to expire at the end of the year. Even though this meant traveling through Dallas, it was worth saving a few bucks by cashing in the miles, or so I thought.
(As any family member who has been within earshot when the letters "DFW" are uttered in my presence will tell you, I have a long and storied history with this airport, including an unplanned stay in what I call, with no exaggeration, a crack motel, courtesy of American when they refused to rebook me until the next day.) I thought this trip would be different.
Foolish person! [Darth Vader] You don't understand the power of American Airlines to ruin your weekend! [/Darth Vader]
The outgoing flight was merely annoying. AUS-DFW was flawless. We touched down a couple of minutes early and the connecting flight was already waiting at the gate for me. I wondered if my DFW woes were a thing of the past. This was short-lived, however. DFW reached out its scaled tentacle of mischief to inflict a "mechanical problem" on the plane, just as we were pulling back from the gate. Gotcha!
We sat on the plane, at the gate, for an hour while the ground crew fixed the problem, which was never really identified to the passengers. At least the door was open and they kept us tethered to the mother-ship, so we had air conditioning. A quick cell call to the family in Utah to inform them of the delay, and off we went. Overall the plane was only about 70 minutes late.
Fast-forward three days to the return trip. This time, we had actually made it a few yards from the gate before we were informed of the mechanical problem. We then sat (this time without A/C) for about 20 minutes while they figured out how serious the problem was before pulling back to the gate to de-plane; this one was being taken out of service. A replacement aircraft was en route to get us to Dallas. Once again, I had a momentary flash of optimism: my original itinerary called for a 3-hour layover at DFW before the connection to Austin. Perhaps they could get the replacement flight in by then?
No. My Austin flight departed from Dallas at 10:40. The replacement flight would arrive from SLC at 10:38. Not even my super-human, Marine-Corps-marathon-running brother-in-law could make that sprint.
Thirty minutes of wrangling with the American ticket folks produced no way of getting to Austin on Sunday night. Ultimately, having checked out every other possible option, I prevailed upon my lovely wife to drive the three hours from Austin to Dallas to pick me up. There was simply no other way to allow me to meet my commitments in Austin on Monday. Ironically enough, she flew standby and arrived in Austin with no hitches, where I, with the guaranteed seat, had the difficulty. She did suffer though, six hours in the car on a Sunday night on the horror that is the I-35 construction zone, because of American Airlines' incompetence. That's real love.
I got to bed at 3:00 AM. By the end of the next day, I realized I had caught one heck of a cold somewhere during the trek. That DFW-AA beast had a voodoo doll of me that they just kept pricking.
I am a lightweight by modern business traveler standards, especially after I got out of the consulting business and re-joined the cubed masses. But I have logged over 100,000 miles in the past two years, according to my frequent flyer account balances. Virtually all of the lousy experiences I've had during that time have involved American Airlines, most of them in Dallas. The media has covered the extensive problems with the entire air travel industry this summer. I'm not disputing that other carriers have problems. That being said, I believe I can improve my odds of avoiding problems by simply never flying on American Airlines again.
(Now, just wait and see... I'll be eating crow when AA has the only itinerary that will work for our Vietnam adoption trip.)
My sister-in-law got married last weekend in Salt Lake. My wife flew on standby tickets because her work can be done from any location; no big deal if she gets bumped a day or two. I don't have the same luxury, so we bought tickets for my trip to ensure my timely return to work on Monday. Normally we fly Delta, but I had some American frequent flyer miles set to expire at the end of the year. Even though this meant traveling through Dallas, it was worth saving a few bucks by cashing in the miles, or so I thought.
(As any family member who has been within earshot when the letters "DFW" are uttered in my presence will tell you, I have a long and storied history with this airport, including an unplanned stay in what I call, with no exaggeration, a crack motel, courtesy of American when they refused to rebook me until the next day.) I thought this trip would be different.
Foolish person! [Darth Vader] You don't understand the power of American Airlines to ruin your weekend! [/Darth Vader]
The outgoing flight was merely annoying. AUS-DFW was flawless. We touched down a couple of minutes early and the connecting flight was already waiting at the gate for me. I wondered if my DFW woes were a thing of the past. This was short-lived, however. DFW reached out its scaled tentacle of mischief to inflict a "mechanical problem" on the plane, just as we were pulling back from the gate. Gotcha!
We sat on the plane, at the gate, for an hour while the ground crew fixed the problem, which was never really identified to the passengers. At least the door was open and they kept us tethered to the mother-ship, so we had air conditioning. A quick cell call to the family in Utah to inform them of the delay, and off we went. Overall the plane was only about 70 minutes late.
Fast-forward three days to the return trip. This time, we had actually made it a few yards from the gate before we were informed of the mechanical problem. We then sat (this time without A/C) for about 20 minutes while they figured out how serious the problem was before pulling back to the gate to de-plane; this one was being taken out of service. A replacement aircraft was en route to get us to Dallas. Once again, I had a momentary flash of optimism: my original itinerary called for a 3-hour layover at DFW before the connection to Austin. Perhaps they could get the replacement flight in by then?
No. My Austin flight departed from Dallas at 10:40. The replacement flight would arrive from SLC at 10:38. Not even my super-human, Marine-Corps-marathon-running brother-in-law could make that sprint.
Thirty minutes of wrangling with the American ticket folks produced no way of getting to Austin on Sunday night. Ultimately, having checked out every other possible option, I prevailed upon my lovely wife to drive the three hours from Austin to Dallas to pick me up. There was simply no other way to allow me to meet my commitments in Austin on Monday. Ironically enough, she flew standby and arrived in Austin with no hitches, where I, with the guaranteed seat, had the difficulty. She did suffer though, six hours in the car on a Sunday night on the horror that is the I-35 construction zone, because of American Airlines' incompetence. That's real love.
I got to bed at 3:00 AM. By the end of the next day, I realized I had caught one heck of a cold somewhere during the trek. That DFW-AA beast had a voodoo doll of me that they just kept pricking.
I am a lightweight by modern business traveler standards, especially after I got out of the consulting business and re-joined the cubed masses. But I have logged over 100,000 miles in the past two years, according to my frequent flyer account balances. Virtually all of the lousy experiences I've had during that time have involved American Airlines, most of them in Dallas. The media has covered the extensive problems with the entire air travel industry this summer. I'm not disputing that other carriers have problems. That being said, I believe I can improve my odds of avoiding problems by simply never flying on American Airlines again.
(Now, just wait and see... I'll be eating crow when AA has the only itinerary that will work for our Vietnam adoption trip.)
9.17.2007
Props to the MSM
Browsing the WSJ this morning, and lo and behold! BYU's Marriott School is ranked as the top regional MBA program in the Journal's annual recruiter poll (I've landed the chart on our site for your viewing pleasure; the article is posted--temporarily, no doubt--on the WSJ free site here). Granted, Marriott does not have the cachet of, say, Yale or Duke... but it's a great program, if I do say so myself. Congratulations to the school and the program!
9.16.2007
Collapse: It's not a foregone conclusion
Jared Diamond's Collapse continues the same excellent tradition I expected after reading his earlier work, Guns, Germs and Steel. A series of fascinating societal profiles, from Easter Island to Norse Greenland to modern-day Montana, guide us through Diamond's central issues: Why and how do societies collapse, and how can we apply this knowledge to the benefit of our own society today?
The descriptive first half the book was more interesting to me than the later, prescriptive sections. I found myself inferring much of the later chapters' content from the allusions in the historical sections of the book. This doesn't invalidate his conclusions nor his recommendations to deal with them, which I found to be realistic and in some cases intriguing. (Who knew that some of the best nature preserves on the planet are in the middle of oilfields owned by the likes of Chevron?)
Overall, it's a very enjoyable book, with the only caveat being that the data geek in me would have liked to have seen more charts and tables to explore some of the premises he makes.
The descriptive first half the book was more interesting to me than the later, prescriptive sections. I found myself inferring much of the later chapters' content from the allusions in the historical sections of the book. This doesn't invalidate his conclusions nor his recommendations to deal with them, which I found to be realistic and in some cases intriguing. (Who knew that some of the best nature preserves on the planet are in the middle of oilfields owned by the likes of Chevron?)
Overall, it's a very enjoyable book, with the only caveat being that the data geek in me would have liked to have seen more charts and tables to explore some of the premises he makes.
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