I've wanted to hike the New York Highline since I first heard about it. I should go back when it's warmer, of course, but I still thought it pretty cool:
The Highline shows that an elevated urban park can work, both as public space and as a great way to preserve historical (or expensive-to-remove) infrastructure. I hope Chicago's Bloomingdale Trail follows the same model, once the city sees fit to authorize it. (The Bloomingdale Trail umbrella organization has comparison of the two projects, about half-way down.)
I love weekends like this past one. I went to New York ($150 round-trip, including taxes), saw a couple of friends, and did something fun I would never have done without being taken along by people who refused to tell me what it was all about (more on that later).
I also managed to get from Grand Central Terminal in New York to the Whole Foods in Lincoln Park, Chicago, in just over four hours, in part because American Airlines and I like each other so much.
Details later.
I'm at O'Hare for the first time this year, wicked early for my flight. This happened because I left lots of time to dig my car out, get Parker sorted, get to the airport, etc. As it turns out, the howling wind cleared my car overnight; there was no traffic; the main roads are already clear because, really, it wasn't that much snow; and when I got to remote parking, an enormous pickup truck pulled out of a parking space, leaving a patch of cleared ground the size of Connecticut. So...I brought a Kindle, and my flight is on time. No stress, no worries, no checked baggage.
Rumors abound that American Airlines has two suitors, one we knew about and one we didn't. Since filing for bankruptcy in November, industry analysts have wondered with whom they would merge, twice-spurned USAirways the most obvious choice.
The new rumors, however, have Delta puttin' the moves on, which, if consummated, would make Delmerican (Amelta?) the world's largest airline and put the oneworld alliance in existential peril:
Since I'm generally bullish on the airline alliances (and competition between them), I'd tend to think the US Airways/oneworld route would be better for competition, and thus better for travellers. But the real question is what American government regulators and anti-trust authorities think about the whole idea. A Delta-American merger would produce a company that would control a huge chunk of domestic market—29.6%, double the share of its next biggest competitor, Southwest Airlines.
Another issue is whether Delta's supposed interest in acquiring American is serious or simply an effort to cause problems for US Airways and oneworld. It's hard to imagine that Delta's executives aren't aware of the regulatory problems a merger with American might face. Whatever happens, this struggle will be interesting to watch.
Blogger Matt Yglesias argues that an American/USAirways merger would be more patriotic, and "would give the United States three really big global carriers—United, Delta, and US/American—with the merged entity ideally joining the OneWorld alliance so we'd have strong representation in each of the three major global airline alliances." And it would keep Chicago one of aviation's world capitals, since a merger with Delta would encourage shutting either O'Hare or Delta's nearby hub in Detroit.
With this many rumors circulating, I expect we'll hear something definitive relatively soon.
Apparently the flight was unprofitable:
"The historical financial performance of the route and its future outlook given the global economic climate and high oil prices has resulted in a decision by American to cancel its New Delhi-Chicago O'Hare service," the airline said in a memo to American managers.
The last flight to leave for India from Chicago will be on Feb. 28, while the last return flight from India to Chicago will be on March 1.
The flight from New Delhi to Chicago had been problematic during winter and early spring. The flight would often arrive at O'Hare earlier than 5 a.m., the time that O'Hare's customs agents start work, stranding passengers on the plane for an additional half hour to an hour.
Oddly, AA292 is scheduled to arrive in Chicago at 5am, so the possibility of it arriving before Customs opened must have occurred to someone. This unfortunate schedule probably comes from Delhi's odd penchant for launching international flights at midnight. AA292 takes off at 00:55 IST, about an hour before Cathay's flight to Hong Kong and two hours before a British Airways flight to London. The takeoff time certainly isn't dictated by the O'Hare arrival slot, as O'Hare, to my knowledge, doesn't require reservations between 11pm and 6am.
A couple of us have come to Brown Deer, Wis., to work with a vendor on an upcoming software release. (Brown Deer is about 160 km north of Chicago.) The vendor has been über-cooperative, the trip up (for me, anyway) took less than two hours, and we're getting everything done we weren't able to do from our respective offices in other states.
Two of the guys are from Texas, one is from Delhi, and I'm from the Greatest City in North America. So the only thing we're having any difficulty negotiating is food.
At lunch today we scouted Google Maps rigorously for anything other than Applebee's, and found the only place better within a 20-minute drive: Olive Garden. Between discussing the project and other stuff about work, we decided that Brown Deer is a food desert. So tonight, after scanning Yelp and getting other recommendations, we're heading into downtown Milwaukee for some real food.
Unfortunately, that means tomorrow night we'll have Applebee's. But at least we'll make the effort.
I caught a mention of this on the Marketplace Open this morning, and now Gulliver has picked it up. Apparently the Department of Transportation now requires more transparency in airline price advertising:
Beginning Jan. 24, the Transportation Department will enforce a rule requiring that any advertised price for air travel include all government taxes and fees. For the last 25 years, the department has allowed airlines and travel agencies to list government-imposed fees separately, resulting in a paragraph of fine print disclaimers about charges that can add 20 percent or more to a ticket’s price.
“Requiring all mandatory charges to be included in a single advertised price will help consumers compare airfares and make it easier for them to determine the full cost of their trip,” Bill Mosley, a department spokesman, said by e-mail in response to questions about the rule.
The government and the airlines are being guarded in discussing the full-fare advertising policy, since Spirit Airlines, Allegiant and Southwest have asked the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to block the proposed change, arguing that it violates their commercial free speech rights.
Yes, I suppose the First Amendment gives people the right to lie, dissemble, exaggerate, and defraud. Oh wait—regulation of commercial speech seems well-established in the U.S. Good luck, guys.
Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see if airlines change their booking software before the 24th. If you book flights between, say, Chicago and London, on aa.com, you can find one-way fares as low as—no kidding—$86 outbound. Of course, the lowest return fare is $466 (connecting through Toronto on February 14th), and taxes add another $204.30 for a total fare of $756.30. (Part of that includes the asinine £60 ($95) tax to leave Heathrow that probably won't die before the Olympics.)
The airlines will claim, of course, that they can't calculate the taxes and fees in some cases, like departing Heathrow, because they don't know from the start whether the customer will be subject to the tax. This is a technical problem that a competent programmer can solve, I think. Let's see after the 24th whether they solve it.
In 2011, I:
- took 8,198 photos, including 4,352 in Chicago, 881 in Japan, 588 in Portugal, and 337 in the U.K. (and only 71 of Parker). This is almost as many as I took in 2009 and 2010 combined (9,140), and more than I took in the first 8 years I owned a camera (1983-1991, 7,671).
- flew 115,845 km but drove less than 4,500 km
- visited 5 countries (the UK, Spain, Portugal, Canada, Japan) and 8 states (California, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Indiana, North Carolina, Texas, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin) in 35 trips. Sadly, this meant Parker boarded for more than 100 days
- spent more than 186 hours walking Parker, which partially made up for all those days being boarded
- wrote 539 blog entries, with the most consistency in the blog's 6-year history (averaging 1.48 per day with a standard deviation of only 0.11)
- got 2.3 million hits (object views) on the Daily Parker, and 1.7 million on Weather Now, including 47,956 and 181,285 page views, respectively. According to Google Analytics, the blog had 28,613 unique visitors, and Weather Now had 26,539.
- read only 34 books, but as these included the first four of the "Song of Ice and Fire" series, it should count as 46
- started and ended the year in the same place (Duke of Perth, Chicago)
- went to only 8 movies, 3 plays, 3 concerts, and 3 baseball games, which is terribly sad
Oh, and I also got a master's degree. (Almost forgot.)
The Air Force has released a report about a F-22 crash that killed the pilot:
Capt. Jeffey Haney had his mobility and vision restricted while flying an F-22 at 11,580 m feet and 1,925 km/h [true airspeed], at night, and then the jet cut off his oxygen supply. According to the accident report released last week, Captain Jeffrey Haney became distracted when his oxygen system stopped delivering oxygen. After initiating a descent, he allowed his F-22 to roll past inverted, unchecked. The fighter's attitude resulted in a vertical speed of 293 m/s.
According to the Air Force accident report (PDF), Haney "was recognized throughout his career for exceptional performance." On the accident flight, he was outfitted for cold weather (wore bulky clothing) and night operations (wore night vision goggles). That personal equipment would have "reduced mobility in the cockpit" and interfered with his "ability to look from side to side and down at the consoles" without bracing himself "on various areas in the cockpit." The applicable checklist for failure of the oxygen system includes activation of an emergency oxygen system. That system is actuated via a pull ring that requires 40 pounds of force to actuate and is mounted low and aft to the side of the pilot's ejection seat.
Right before the crash, Capt. Haney attempted to recover, pulling 7.4 G before slamming into the water at Mach 1.2.
The Air Force, naturally, blames the pilot, because the possibility that a $347m airplane has enormous design flaws doesn't exist in the defense appropriation universe. This continues the august tradition of military procurement that includes toy rifles that won't fire in jungles and over-reliance on GPS selective availability in UAVs.
Codey might want to play tug, but Roger couldn't care less:
