British airline Ryanair has a pilot program allowing cell phones in flight. One hopes, if this comes to the U.S., for special "quiet" areas:
Within six months 50 planes will be kitted out. If it proves popular, the service will be rolled out across the whole 170-strong fleet.
Passengers will be able to make and receive calls for €2-3 ($2.50-3.80) per minute, send and receive text messages (50c plus) and use e-mail (€1-2).
... To be fair to Ryanair, it does not claim to be anything other than a noisy shop in the sky. So a new noisy service that earns money is in keeping with its ethos. As Mr O'Leary said: “You don't take a flight to contemplate your life in silence. Our services are not cathedral-like sanctuaries. Anyone who looks like sleeping, we wake them up to sell them things."
You may not like Mr O'Leary's approach, or his plane's interiors, but it's hard not to admire his honesty.
Combine cell phones with the unexpected silence inside the new Airbus A380, and it's only a matter of time before someone gets his cell phone stuffed in an awkward place by his fellow passengers.
<rant>
The temperature at O'Hare just hit freezing for the first time in five days. This has been the coldest winter in 23 years, and the snowiest in 30. Enough already.
</ rant>
Sometimes upgrading or replacing something can expose deficiencies in one's own processes.
Last week, my four-year-old MP3 player died. It's pretty sad, actually. It's tiny (20 GB) hard disk just stopped spinning. So, not wanting to hear every background conversation of everyone in my client's office, I decided to replace it.
After much evaluation I chose the Apple iPod Classic 120. Then I fired up iTunes and sync'd up my library.
It turns out, that phase in the late 1990s when I ripped all of my CDs in Microsoft .wma format—not such a good idea ten years later. It also turns out, all those CDs I ripped at 64 kHz to save space—the new iPod has good-enough sound reproduction that I can hear it. And another thing, all those album art JPEG images I routinely deleted until about 2005, again to save space—yeah, the new iPod shows album covers, but (duh!) only when they're available.
So, now that terabyte hard drives cost about $150, and I have an iPod with excellent sound reproduction and the ability to show full-color album covers, I have a new project: re-rip all the CDs I ripped before mid-2006, this time at 256 kHz and retaining the album art.
There are only 700 or so. Shouldn't take too long...
A report released today says the century-old Illinois Sanitary and Ship Canal is crumbling, which could be bad news for Joliet:
"We have 39 feet of water that we are holding off Joliet," [Lockmaster Dave] Nolen said, pointing downstream to downtown Joliet as he stood Thursday on a deck overlooking the watertight gates at one end of the lock. "People in Joliet probably wouldn't be able to sleep at night if they knew how devastating the flooding would be because of a breach," he said, raising his voice to be heard above the roar of 25 million gallons of swirling water being released downstream after a barge traveling up-river passed through the lock.
... "Modernizing the nation's waterways provides an incredible return on the dollar," said Jim Farrell, executive director of the chamber's infrastructure council. "It's a relatively minor cost compared to fixing O'Hare [International Airport] or modernizing the rapid transit system in Chicago." A single barge has the cargo capacity equivalent to 15 jumbo hopper freight cars or 58 large semitrailer trucks, according to transportation experts.
Of course, the Godforsaken Old Party would call fixing the locks an "earmark," so it's unclear where the money will come from.
Some readers, I know, will find this as interesting as I am: the GPS track (in Google Earth format) of my very long walk around Sint Maarten.
Other readers will just figure I'm waaaay too geeky.
Both sets will be correct.
I mentioned yesterday that my grade-school friend's restaurant got a great review in the Trib. His wife (also an old friend of mine) emailed this morning that the local ABC affilliate also mentioned it favorably.
Rich is having a special event April 14th: he's re-creating the Titanic's last meal, so to speak. Details to follow—but I've already made my reservation.
One of my oldest friends—I mean, 5th-grade-old—opened a restaurant this past fall: Mint Julep Bistro, 53 W. Slade St., Palatine, +1 (847) 934-3000. The Chicago Tribune has now reviewed it:
Without reservations on a recent Saturday, we waited in the intimate lounge where, to management's credit, nobody pushed apps or booze on us. But we wanted both, and it fortunately didn't take long to fill our order. There's plenty of bourbon and a lovely wine list by the glass/bottle. We bypassed the bourbon (we’ll be back for that) and ordered a glass of French viognier ($6.25) and a winter white ale ($4.25) to accompany an order of three scrumptious, sizable crab cakes ($10.50). Fall-apart tender and made with the prime meat from the claw, the cakes were further enhanced with the well-balanced remoulade sauce.
But don't fill up too much. The menu is big, with one tempting entree after another starring seafood, beef, poultry and a vegetarian platter. (We heard a grateful remark from a nearby diner, who hadn't expected that.) I opted for seafood, and the menu’s plainly titled Shrimp 'n Grits ($16) belied a far more evocative entree: Six firecracker shrimp elegantly plated with a trio of perfectly fried, crunchy-tender grit cakes in a velvety bourbon cream sauce. Rich and almost over the top. My companion’s butcher’s cut steak ($22), a grilled-to-order cut from meat above the filet, arrived with melt-in-your-mouth acorn squash and potato-andouille hash that offered a fresh departure from plain mashed spuds.
Both chefs made appearances throughout their restaurant, stopping at tables and chatting with the clientele. Nice touch.
It's a long haul from the city, but some of us have plans to go back up there again soon. Rich, the aforementioned friend, has a smoker, and the pulled pork is worth the trip.
My 30-ballpark Geas continues into its second season. Just booked: Houston, April 7th, against the Cubs (of course).
Astute observers will note that I've visited the Houston ballpark before, when I was on a consulting assignment for a well-known energy trading company that no longer has naming rights to the park. But I decided at the beginning of the Geas that parks I visited before the Geas started didn't count. (This makes New Yankee Stadium and Citi Field problematic, so I split the difference: Old Yankee Stadium counts for the Yankees, and Citi Field for the Mets.)
My first Cubs game will be April 19th.
Update: Since I already had a trip to San Francisco planned, I've also booked Oakland for the April 25th.
As promised, more photos from last weekend. First, South Beach:
As much as I enjoy the beach, I actually think the Art Deco buildings are the coolest aspect of Miami Beach.
Three iconic images of Sint Maarten follow. First, a reminder that Sint Maarten and St.-Martin have two distinct identities:
I took this, for example, in St.-Martin, in Sandy Ground:
And this, on Simpson Bay in Sint Maarten:
More tomorrow.
California, apparently, has passed its budget, prompting The Economist's observation, "It turns out that the only way to negotiate a budget for the world’s eighth biggest economy is to issue politicians with toothbrushes and lock them in a building."
Illinois, meanwhile, is trying to pass a Senator.
(For both passings, imagine kidney stones.)