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{ Monthly Archives } May 2007

Class distinctions

While I’m on a roll complaining about airlines this week, I’ll bitch for a moment about the differences between business and coach class. Oh sure, there’s the big seats and the free booze and food, but it seems that business class travellers are also given some special safety exemptions. For example, I’m on a flight to Las Vegas right now, and the seatbelt sign has been on for almost an hour, although there’s been no turbulence for at least 45 minutes — it’s pretty clear that they do this sometimes to keep the aisles clear or give the flight attendants a break or whatever reasons that have little to do with passenger safety. Since we’re almost 4 hours into the flight, people are getting up to head for the bathrooms, but we’ve already been chastised twice about sitting down and keeping our seatbelts fastened. However, just in front of me in business class, two people have been standing in the aisle for at least 20 minutes, part of the time chatting with a flight attendant, and several people have come and gone to the bathroom. Does that mean that there’s no turbulence in business class?

The best part was when I did finally get a chance to head for the back of the plane, and was waiting in a line of about four people (an hour of seatbelt signs can do that). A young woman of about 16 came up behind me, looked past me and asked “is this the line for the bathroom?” Um, no dear, we’re all learning to skydive and this is where we jump out…

2007 05 23 travel Comments (0)

Up and flying

Parts arrived today, and the remote-controlled helicopter is up and flying again, this time in the building gym where there’s high ceilings and no furniture:

2007 05 22 home Comments (2)

links for 2007-05-22

  • joox.net
    Streaming or downloadable movies and tv. How can this be legal? As seen on CommandN.tv.
    (tags: tv)
2007 05 22 Links Comments (0)

Car-pole incident cited

It’s funny the way things go around the web sometimes. On May 7th, while at the BEA user conference in Atlanta, I quoted one of the speakers (who is with a utility company) as saying that they refer to a car hitting an electrical pole as a “car-pole incident”. Now it’s being referenced in the Double-Tongued Dictionary, a “lexicon of fringe English”.

2007 05 22 off topic Comments (0)

Food in faraway places

For me, much of travel is about food: I love going to other places and eating whatever’s fresh and local, which is often tied up in the cultural aspects of the place.

This past week in Nova Scotia was no exception: on Wednesday, I ate a huge lobster that had been caught that day — best that I’ve ever eaten – then on Thursday, a kilo of mussels. Staying with Pat’s parents meant that this was all served in their comfort of their home; we only dined out once during the entire trip, which was to go to the Jubilee Cottage B&B in Wallace for dinner one night.

Jubilee serves a set menu (that is, no choice) that changes each night; Friday was the “Now and Zen” Asian spring menu. They use a lot of organic ingredients, and try to buy locally where possible, such as the organic salad greens from a local greenhouse that was almost within throwing distance.

Dinner started with an appetizer of sauteed shrimp flavoured with tomato, coriander and garlic, served with a salad of organic greens, cucumber, bean sprouts and grilled potatoes and carrots, dressed with a coconut/chili/peanut gado-gado dressing. This was an amazing dish, and I could have just had a few more plates of that and been perfectly satisfied. The potatoes were especially interesting: cut into long shapes like slightly oversized french fries, they were parboiled until still crunchy, then grilled. This course, like the main course, was served family style: a large platter on the centre of the table for the four of us to share.

Next up was a corn and egg drop soup, with water chestnuts and snipped chives and parsley. Delicious and smooth, a very delicate soup that was improved by a slight grinding of black pepper.

We had two main dishes following that: salmon marinated in garlic, ginger and hoisin sauce, grilled then simmered in rice wine, chili, soy and spices; and boneless chicken pieces marinated in lime and rum, stir friend, then served with a mango sauce. I found both of the dishes a bit too sweet – the salmon had sugar in the sauce, and the chicken had honey as well as the sweet mango — although the fish and chicken were well-prepared. I expect that this was catering in part to the widespread taste for North American “Chinese” food that includes much more sugar than anything that I’ve ever eaten in Toronto’s Chinatown. All of this was served with a variety of grilled vegetables and coconut rice, both of which were perfectly prepared.

The meal finished with completely non-Asian desserts, and we had to make a decision between two: tiramisu or “chocolate silk leaves”, a thick chocolate mousse between individually baked phyllo layers with raspberry sauce and whipped cream. We shared around so that we could try each of them, and both were good although nothing out of the ordinary.

Given that we were in small-town Nova Scotia, a couple of hours drive from a major centre in any direction, I’d have to give them pretty good marks for the dinner. The commitment to local and organic produce definitely makes a difference in the quality of the meals, and the couple who run the place seem to enjoy what they’re doing and interacting with their guests. We were the only people in the dining room that night, since it’s still in advance of the season and the weather was cold and damp, and they came out and chatted with us for quite a while after dinner.

The price was right as well: $35 per person for the four-course meal plus tea or coffee, and you won’t walk away hungry. They don’t sell alcohol, but you can bring your own wine (which we did) and they’ll serve it for a $4 per bottle corkage fee.

They have a couple of other set menus, depending on which night that you’re there: “Fire of the Caribbean”, featuring Caribbean curries and Creole dishes, and “Atlantica & Australis”, a marriage of Nova Scotia and Australian dishes served tapas style.

2007 05 22 food & wine
travel Comments (0)

My 15 minutes of fame

After my post on Sunday night about the Air Canada landing incident, I had a call from CBC New Brunswick, since the landing gear collapse was big news with the flight having originated in Moncton. I agreed to a quick interview, which was carried on the local St. John CBC radio station, and is now a story on the CBC website.

Show’s over, I now resume my regularly scheduled life.

2007 05 22 travel Comments (0)

Adventures in R/C land

Damir’s birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and I gave him a gift that I felt reflected the gravity of turning 46: a remote-controlled helicopter. Thanks to some advice from the swarm (thanks, Jeff!), I found Hobby Hobby, a store that specializes in remote-controlled everything: planes, helis, cars, and parts for anything that you want to build for yourself.

I gave it to him last Monday, then I left Tuesday afternoon for 6 days on the east coast, leaving him to presumably get some work done for his customers and maybe play with the heli a bit. Yeah, right.

Tuesday evening’s update arrived by email:

Here is what I’ve learned so far.

1. The heli can be expected to hover in spot without controls for up to a minute.

2. Blade balancing is very important. Will need set of micro-tools for that.

3. Temperature drift will influence gyro electronics so the heli will drift differently over time - several solutions for that. Also the thickness of tape used to glue gyro to the body is important - it should filter out the vibration.

So far I have managed to land on the island - few crashes along the way, nothing serious. Will try to land on bed in bedroom.

Hmmm. So he’s starting to do some tuning, and has found a reason to buy new tools. No big surprise so far.

Then, Wednesday evening’s update:

We had a crash. The ceiling got in the way, actually the top bedroom door rail.

Lower main blades cracked, left landing skid broken, rear body right stabilizer cracked.

Fortunately they have all the parts in hobbyhobby. Waiting for the shipment.

This is fun.

Apparently, he’d already been on some newsgroups that day and figured out how to hack the controller, then ordered a book about it from Hobby Hobby in the morning. By midday, the blades had been cracked and he ordered a couple of those. By the end of the day, the landing skid bit it and he was placing his third order of the day.

With the holiday weekend in the way, the shipment hasn’t arrived yet, so the heli’s been grounded since Wednesday, and I haven’t seen it fly higher than the 6″ that I captured in the video above. Since I’m leaving again tomorrow for a conference in Las Vegas, I may hide the package if it arrives today, so that I get at least a quick look at it before the next crash. :)

2007 05 22 home Comments (0)

Another on-time arrival with Air Canada

The good news: we landed 15 minutes early today on the flight from Moncton to Toronto on Air Canada Jazz. The bad news: we hit hard, bounced high, then hit even harder, collapsing the rear landing gear. Oxygen masks dangling and a slight smell of burning rubber in the cabin, the plane literally dragged its tail off the runway to the taxiway and stopped. Fire trucks arrived to foam us down, and emergency vehicles of all sorts converged — with unusually light flight schedules due to the holiday tomorrow, this was the most excitement that they were going to see today.

After 15 minutes, it was clear that fire was not imminent, and the flight attendant popped the front stairs (this was a Bombardier CRJ, low to the ground with the stairs built into the front door) and ordered us all off. Her only instruction: leave everything behind. Sitting in the front bulkhead seat, my friend Pat and I had our purses and everything else in the overhead bin, so while the rest of the passengers ignored her instructions and went ahead and grabbed their bags from beneath the seat in front of them, we left with nothing in our hands, although I luckily had my Blackberry in my pocket.

The plane was a sad sight, with the wing flaps and tail scraping the pavement (that explains the sound that we heard while limping off the runway) although the nose gear was still intact. We stood around watching the emergency vehicles for a while, then a bus arrived and we hopped on to get out of the chill wind. The flight attendant told us that we would be allowed back on to get our carry-on bags as soon as they determined that there was no danger, or that they would go on and get them for us, but she was clearly clued out about post-crash procedure since we were bussed off to the unused infield terminal without them. Although I didn’t really care about my jacket, book and DSLR camera, my purse was still on board with my wallet and passport; in other words, my whole life, and the only thing that was going to get me on a plane on Wednesday to Las Vegas to speak at a conference later this week.

Much waiting ensued, during which they offered medical treatment (none of the 37 passengers or 3 crew had any injuries), gave us a bottle of water and a $15 food voucher, and collected names and addresses. Several police showed up to assist with this — I’m sure that people move from scared to angry pretty quickly in these situations — so by now we had more ground staff than passengers milling around, although many of them didn’t seem to be doing all that much. Finally, we were bussed over to Terminal 1 where we could redeem our vouchers (as if $15 gets you very far with airport food, and we had no other cash because of the missing purses) and check with a desk that they had set up to handle the situation.

Thankfully, Damir was there to meet us, and had hung around for what was now a couple of hours; we were able to exit security and meet up with him. An hour later, we were at the desk checking out the situation, and were told that Transport Canada would be another hour with our luggage; apparently, they had to weigh it all, presumably to see if it had any bearing on the incident. Yeah, right: they have no idea how much we all weighed, which was certainly many times more than our carry-on luggage, and many people had taken their carry-on items with them, including laptop computers. I started fussing about what kind of security would be around the carry-on bags when they arrived, since anyone could just walk off with my purse, and was told that each bag would be checked for ID and only handed over to the rightful owner.

Another hour passed, and we finally were led down to the arrivals area to get our luggage. All carry-on items were in large plastic bags that were just being pulled out and dumped on a cart by baggage handlers; no security, no control, not even any separation from other arriving flights since it was right beside an active luggage carousel. Luckily, I showed up just as they were pulling out my purse and camera; I grabbed those then rooted around for my book and jacket before locating my checked luggage.

At the end of it all, we finally left the airport almost 4 hours after our “landing”, with a $21 parking fee and a sunny holiday afternoon that I’ll never get back.

What did I learn from this?

First of all (and I know that I’m going to get a huge amount of flak for this) unless there is imminent danger of fire, ignore the flight attendants’ instructions and grab at least the bag containing your wallet, passport and other essentials before departing. Like a complete fucking idiot, I followed the instructions, and was stranded with nothing. If I hadn’t stuffed my Blackberry in my pocket before landing and if Damir hadn’t been there to meet us, I would have been totally screwed.

Second, when you’re sitting in a bulkhead seat — the ones that we all covet for the extra leg room and absence of passengers in front of us that recline their seat backs into our faces — it’s tough to grab that essential bag since it’s in the overhead bin; that’s certainly going to have me rethink the bulkhead decision, or move to wearing something with pockets so that I can stash my wallet and passport. Maybe a photographer’s vest with multiple pockets. Or a bat-belt.

Third, when something like this happens and you ask a question that the airline staff doesn’t know the answer to, they will almost certainly lie to you rather than tell you that they don’t know. Or maybe they’re just incredibly misinformed, or undertrained. Or maybe there’s some other reason why both the flight attendant and the ground crew told me outright untruths about how my carry-on bags were going to be handled.

What could Air Canada learn from this?

First, if there’s no imminent danger, tell us to grab our purses or wallets, and leave everything else behind. Most people are going to ignore the instruction to leave everything behind anyway, so why penalize those who actually follow the instructions?

Second, provide better information, or say that you don’t know if you don’t know. At one point, we were told that we would be stuck in the infield terminal a “little while”, which Pat challenged by asking how long a little while was; they then admitted that it would be an hour, which was all that we wanted to know.

Third, cough up cash instead of vouchers, and more of it. We paid $21 in parking instead of $0 (usually Damir arrives and waits for me outside without parking), and I have to decide if it’s worthwhile to nag Air Canada to send me $21 in compensation. If they just handed over, say, $50 in cash to each person, we’d all be a lot happier.

Lastly, provide better security for carry-on bags when you finally get them back to people. These are things that passengers did not intend to leave their control, so they likely contain valuables and identification that can’t easily be replaced. Dumping them all out in the common baggage claim area was a total fuck-up.

2007 05 20 customer service
travel Comments (8)

links for 2007-05-14

2007 05 14 Links Comments (0)

Zipcar: a mostly good experience

I recently joined Zipcar for easy access to a car whenever I need it, since Damir needs his car most days and sometimes I need to drive to a client or run some errands. Although I live in Toronto, I did my first Zipcar rental in San Francisco two weeks ago, and will do my second here at home tomorrow to get to a business meeting in Mississauga. My experience so far: pretty good.

The good:

  • Signup online was fast and easy. I was approved within two days, and dropped by the Zipcar office (which is close to where I live) to pick up my Zipcard, although they would have mailed it.
  • Renting online is a great experience. I pick my starting location and rental period, see the cars available nearby during that time, and pick one. That’s it.
  • Picking up and dropping off the car is so much faster than a regular rental, I may never use a regular rental again. No paperwork, no waiting, I just walk up to the car and hold my Zipcard against the reader on the windshield, and I’m in. Same to drop it off. The previous time that I rented a car in San Francisco, it took more than 30 minutes to wait in line, sign all the paperwork, then wait for them to bring the car around. This time, I was out of the garage in less than a minute.
  • Almost everything is included: there’s no extra insurance, you get 150km free per day, and they even pay the gas. Although their daily rate looks higher than a standard rental car, by the time that you factor in gas and insurance it’s about the same, and way more convenient.
  • There are more than 20 Zipcars available within a 10-minute walk of where I live, almost half of those within a 3-minute walk. Unless they get a lot more popular, I’m unlikely to have a problem finding a car when I need one.

The not-so-good:

  • I was given a $50 credit due to a special deal when I signed up, and it wasn’t applied to my first rental, which has resulted in a few back-and-forth emails. The latest email from them says that their billing department will be in touch with me with 3 days.
  • I tried to use the gas card that was in the car, and it was refused at two different gas stations. Although they, in theory, could take that card, the sale was declined in both cases. This meant that I had to pay for gas in $US on my $C credit card. I was going to leave the car with less than 1/4 tank (that’s the limit at which you’re supposed to refill) but decided that was rude, especially for my first rental. In talking with someone else who had used San Francisco Zipcars, they said that this was a regular occurrence.
  • I’ve been trying for almost two weeks to get reimbursement for the gas bill, which is supposed to take only two days. First, I faxed it to the number that they say to use on their website. A week later, I emailed; they claim not to have received the fax, but said I could scan it and attach to an email, which I’ve done. Nothing has shown up; next, I’ll just walk it in to their Toronto office and see if that works.
  • Although they claim that there are no extra fees, I was charged taxes on top of the bill in San Francisco: although the theoretical daily maximum was $65, I had another $5.52 in California sales tax (7.25%) and county tax (1.25%) added on. Here in Toronto, I’ll be hit with an extra 14% in GST and PST on top of the listed price.

A few reservation gotchas:

  • If you bring the car back early, you still pay for the full reserved time, so you need to be pretty good with your time planning.
  • When you make a reservation of less than 8 hours, you have to cancel it no less than 3 hours before it starts, or you’ll be charged for it. If your reservation is longer than 8 hours, then you have to cancel at least 24 hours ahead.
  • If you bring the car back late, you’ll be hit with a $35 late fee since you could, potentially, be inconveniencing someone who has the car reserved after you — remember, when you reserve, you reserve a specific vehicle, not one of a pool. You can, however, call in (or access via internet, although their site doesn’t support my Blackberry or other mobile browsers) and extend your reservation while it’s in progress as long as no one is waiting for the car after you.

Overall, the rental experience itself is great, but they still have a few glitches to work out in the billing department.

Also, although the XM radio was a nice-to-have, I would have preferred that they spent the money on a GPS instead.

2007 05 13 travel Comments (6)