travel pre-plans

Something about my "empty" passport bothers me... and I haven't been on a real vacation in half a year and I'm not going on one for another half year. So... here's to some thinking...

Let's say Berlin, Istanbul, Jaipur, Hong Kong (and probably China along the way). Now prices (for my own personal future reference):
Star Alliance: $3907
Oneworld: $3900+tax+crappy flight options
Individual flights: $6000+

Hrm... not cheap.

random thoughts

No, I don't always keep $200 hidden in my shoes.
It's great that I'm finally in a time zone where my friends are awake when I am, although they still won't be awake for at least another few hours (it's 6am on Sunday... EST).
It's great that my phone is no longer a fire hazard (as it was with the AirTel SIM in India).
I feel like I've spent more time working at Gate 90 at Newark International Airport than I have back at the office these past weeks.
Mmm... Dunkin Donuts
I have a presentation to give tomorrow. Maybe I should get started with that. Or maybe I'll do that when I get home.
If I know you, but I don't want to see you even if I had to travel halfway around the world and you happen to be there, you shouldn't be a facebook friend.

um... i think i've had this tour guide before

what lif would call a small taj mahal

cruisin' down the rajpath towards india gate

Trust me. It's there.

the metro is hazy

red? fort

a smoggy day for sightseeing

Day 6?

Um... I've been busy, so no blogging during this trip. But today was a
free day where I could "be myself" and shake myself free of the
business trip... and the five star hotel.

So yes, I am the guy that negotiated the fare for the auto rickshaw
ride back to my five star hotel from 150 Rs to 50 Rs (or from $3 to $1).

Things here are cheap when I am not at the hotel. A meal at a decent
restaurant goes for about 120 Rs ($2.50) a dish. Breakfast here (I'm
at the hotel) costs around 750 Rs ($15). The tea itself is 180 Rs.
Yes, the tea is good, but not *that* good.

This morning I had a Parantha Aloo and Tea for breakfast (530 Rs. I
refused the upsell to the buffet), then used the 220 Rs ($4.5) I saved
for the 10 mile cab ride to the Red Fort.

Outside of the hotel, I used about 1500 Rs ($30) today. Good thing I
didn't take the hotel's insane offer for a car for 4000 Rs. And no
for the 2500 Rs car to the airport. I'll find my own way, thank you.

wasted on me

I just discovered that I'll be staying at a 5-star hotel in Delhi. What's up with that? All I usually need is a simple, clean room and not much else. Here's a run down of the places I've stayed at in my Fall 2009 traveling circus.

Hyatt San Francisco - 4 stars! Decent room, fantastic location.
Hilton Garden Inn Manhattan (Herald Square) - 3 stars. Fantastic location, great room.
JW Marriott Rio de Janeiro - 5 stars!
Hilton Sao Paulo - 5 stars! Great room. Great location for business, crap location for seeing Sao Paulo.
Melia Buenos Aires - 5 stars! I have absolutely no idea why this hotel is "5 stars"

My personal ranking - based on the quality of the room, location, and cleanliness (not price)
3 star Hilton Garden Inn Herald Square
5 star Hilton Sao Paulo
4 star Hyatt San Francisco
5 star JW Marriott Rio de Janeiro Copacabana
5 star Melia Buenos Aires

My personal ranking based on smoothness of service
5 star Hilton Sao Paulo - smooth
3 star Hilton Garden Inn Herald Square - everything just worked. We asked them for nothing.
4 star Hyatt San Francisco - everything just worked. We asked them for nothing.
5 star Melia Buenos Aires - charged extra for Internet
5 star JW Marriott Rio de Janeiro Capacabana - lots of screwups followed by ass kissing.

My personal ranking based on ass-kissing
5 star JW Marriott Rio de Janeiro Capacabana - lots of screwups followed by ass kissing. Lots of free stuff at their restaurants
5 star Hilton Sao Paulo - somehow all their recommendations for restaurants for almost gaudy, with OK food
5 star Melia Buenos Aires - even if that only means awkwardness from excessive door opening and button pushing
4 star Hyatt San Francisco - we asked for nothing, they did nothing
3 star Hilton Garden Inn Herald Square - we asked for nothing, they did nothing

Lesson? Get a five star hotel if you want someone to kiss your ass

breast cancer

Just heard on the PA on my flight to NYC:

"You may have noticed that some of the flight attendants are wearing
jeans today... this month is breast cancer awareness month."

I always knew that breast cancer has been a very well marketed cause,
and I've participated in a fair number of drives and run a number of
Race for the Cure events. This year it seems like they've crossed the
line.

With jeans wearing flight attendants, the NFL creating custom pink
gear for players and the refs, and their usual huge marketing
campaigns, I not only wonder how much money is blown on marketing
overhead, but also what other causes are missing out on the
philanthropic dollars being drawn to breast cancer. Nothing against
breast cancer, but last time I checked there were a ton of other
health and social issues that need a ton of work.

the browns

For some reason I was thinking back to the Browns of 2002. So many first round picks it's sickening. Our offense featured:
QB Tim Couch
RB William Green
WR Kevin Johnson
WR Quincy Morgan
WR Dennis Northcutt

On the defensive side, we had two first round picks:
DE Courtney Brown
DT Gerard Warren

Where are they now? It's 7 years later, so with all these young players, they should still be around, right? After all, Couch, Green, Brown, and Warren were all first round picks. Of all of these players, only two are still in the league today: Dennis Northcutt with the Detroit Lions and Gerard Warren with the Oakland Raiders, two teams that are almost as bad as the Browns are this season. The rest of them are all out of the league. So much for using the draft to stock up on talent.

correction

I won't be flying American to India after all. I'll be rocking a flight on Continental. I have fond memories from 7 years ago or so when Continental had all these new planes. Those planes are not new anymore. That said, they are a hell of a lot newer than the MD-80s that American continues to fly. Those shiny planes are only a few years younger than I am!

So as it stands, as I am flying back from Delhi to Newark, I'll attain elite status on Continental's OnePass. As I fly back to Seattle from Cleveland after Christmas, I'll attain elite status on AAdvantage. No elite status on Delta though.

43696

You know, up till this year I've never flown in American Airlines. I don't particularly like them, but it seems like this year I'll be spending 43696 miles with them, and about 30000 miles with them in the span of three weeks.

what i want for the holidays

Yes, it's a bit early, but here's what's on my mind:

Bike stuff:
Another Ortlieb Messenger Bag (for work and dirty stuff, so I can keep that separate from groceries)
A decent, fast road bike with a super wide range of gear rations both high and low (for the summer and longer rides, especially the Burke Gilman)
Some panniers? (maybe... I haven't used these before)

Computer stuff:
A 2TB WD Green HD (I've already almost filled up 1TB with photos and movies)
A decent 24" 1080p display (might do more work from home?)

General stuff:
Sunglasses (last pair finally broke down and disappeared into an alpine lake up in the Grand Tetons)
Bike glasses (getting bugs in your eyes at 20mph is not fun)
Amazon gift certs (Kindle purchases?)
REI gift certs (I'll inevitably need something bike, ski, or hike related)

yummy!

mount rainier, adams, st helens, and hood

bike safety and cougars

With various people showing excessive concern about bike safety, I want to make it clear that I don't plan on dying in a bike accident and that I also do many of the things that prevent such things from happening. Here's my excessively detailed TMI response.

Top level, per mile biking is 3-11 times as dangerous. That sucks. I should be at least 3-11 times safer than the average "statistic" of a injured/dead cyclist. Joy.

Three good sources for cyclist accident/injury/death data:
http://www.bicyclinglife.com/Library/Moritz2.htm
http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm
http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/almanac-safety.html

From the Moritz study, we can see that the most dangerous paths (by crashes per distance ridden) are other/sidewalk and off road. I don't bike off road (except the short distance on the field when I bike to play ultimate). I don't bike on sidewalks except for short distances where the alternative is going on a major non-bike friendly road, such as the occasional few blocks by Montlake. Based on where I bike, I'm roughly 2x better than the average stat. Yay me.

For biking fatalities (second link), I'm not susceptible to 20% of the causes since I check for cars, I check for cars, I check for cars, and I use lights anytime there is low contrast or backlighting. 56% of fatalities happen at night with no lights. I use lights at night. I'll also be biking less when it gets completely dark, so no more bike commute. )-:

So to summarize, the studies show that sidewalks are bad, off road is bad, bike lanes are good, paying attention to traffic is good, and no lights at night bad. I'm looking pretty good. Bad part is that that gives me a 2x advantage, which means it's still 1.5-5.5x as dangerous as driving. Ouch. I'll rely on the "soft" stuff for the remainder, like how the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risk and the other stats on those linked pages that use the most optimistic lenses when looking at all the data.

If you're curious what my typical routes look like, here you are:
5x/week - 2.5mi - Morning ride to Montlake
5x/week - 1.4mi - Morning ride from OTC to the office
2x/week - 1.4mi - Afternoon ride to OTC from the office
2x/week - 0.5mi - Afternoon ride from bus stop home
1x/week - 18.6mi - Bike home on I-90
1x/week - 26.4mi - Bike home on the Burke Gilman

You can cross reference those routes with the local bike maps to see the facilities I'm on (or zoom in on the satellite view). Also note that on Boston/15th coming up the hill they are putting in more sharrows, which aren't reflected on the map. It's good to see that since I've moved here they've put these in along all the major corridors by where I live.
Seattle Bike Map
Bellevue/Redmond Bike Map
King County Bike Map

Lastly, I'd like to point out another danger of my west coast life that I haven't gotten many concerned messages about: Cougars. They are out there.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009818853_cougar07m.html

Not the location of where the second cougar was - 520 and 51st - that is precisely where I work. I'm only on a bike a few hours each day and I'm usually looking out for things that could happen to me. I'm at work 9 hours a day and I'm usually not looking out for wild predatory animals sneaking around campus. Perhaps that is what y'all should be more concerned about!

goodbye passport

The passport that I have been using for the past 10 years has been retired. )-:

6 continents
15 countries (EU counts as one)
6 full page visas
68 stamps

It's been a good run, but now it's time for my new passport for the next 10 years. We'll see how many pages need to be added to this one. This year alone I may need 7 pages, thanks to full page visas. That leaves 10 pages for the remaining 9.5 years. Hrm...

ophelia's place

I watched Trading Places again (great movie) and I noticed the address of the place where Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtiss' character) lived. Looks like the building is still around, but the rest of the neighborhood has been rebuilt.