No Fly July 2012 Delayed for Athens
July 6, 2012
By now, “no fly July” is usually nicely underway and the river beckons. This year’s edition is being postponed until after I get back from Athens on July 16th. That means it’s really going to be more like “no fly July/August conglomeration.”
Maybe Athens will look like this.
United: Small Patch of Light Replaced by Darkness
March 29, 2012
When I flew to Germany last week, I did not rely on getting an upgrade. I bought a business class ticket. Looks like United has trained me just like they wanted to.
The international flights were fine. On time. Decent equipment. Reasonable service.
Meanwhile back in domestic flying land, United is still broken and they still suck. The computer opted not to put me on the upgrade list for a puddle hopper flight (flown by the worst of the worst subcontractors, Mesa). I was added to the list only after I went to the airport to check in. By that time, First Class was full (duh). Nobody in customer service can explain what happened or do anything to guarantee it won’t happen again.
In the “no Upgrade for you” United is now 2 for 11. (I am not counting the business class fares I bought to fly to Europe in the tally.) That sucks. My million mile 1k status on United is utterly meaningless.
No Fly Noel 2011
December 1, 2011
Using last year’s new nomenclature, I welcome a respite from airplanes during the month of December for no fly noel. There won’t be too many hotel entries this month!
This year the “no fly July” and “no fly Noel” hack kept my travel almost reasonable. The ramping up of Coal Stove Sink helped too. We had 17 professional friends visit in 2011 and the data show another annual 10% reduction in travel (20% over the last two years). You go guesthouse. It’s almost always more fun to have people come visit than it is to hop on an airplane again anyway.
The 2011 tripometer. Trips are trending in the correct direction (down a bit).
During 2011, I flew 100,732 miles on United. My lifetime miles pile now tops out at 1,088,046 (FWIW, I started flying too much in 1996). And for the record, this has to have been the worst year for travel on United since I started doing it. United Airlines’ story of suckiness started with my first 2011 trip in January and kept up a consistent beat of suckiness even to the last trip. The worst flight all year had to be the economy trip to Europe in August. Supremely awful job United. Here’s to major improvement in 2012. (Jeff Smisek, less on Marketing and more on Operations next year, huh?)
I see no major respite from travel coming in 2012. There is simply no substitute to doing business in person, looking people in the eye, and developing a real human relationship.
I am looking forward to resting my bones beside the fire in the meantime.
Finally, No Fly December is Here (now known as No Fly Noel)
December 1, 2010
Years ago on the advice of my most excellent boss, I came up with a travel policy to help control my runaway travel problem. I don’t travel during “no fly July” or during “no fly December” (though the latter clearly needs a better alliterative name—see comments below). I also mark off one week a month in advance as a “no fly” week. This allows me to sleep in my bed and spend at least two whole months remembering why travel is not all that terrible.
Last year I added a new wrinkle to the non-travel regime by renovating the guest house and thereby getting people I want to meet with to come to me. I’m hoping to do more of that next year. The tactic did work, though, cutting my travel down by 10%. In 2010, I flew 115,735 miles on United (breaking 1,000,000 lifetime miles in December).
Even with this policy in place, I travel plenty. Here’s the latest version of the tripometer graph (updated this year to read left to right so people understand it better).
As you can see, plenty of trips for plenty of talks and plenty of in-person networking. There is really no substitute for doing this kind of work in person, so I intend to continue reviewing hotels for the foreseeable future. But for now, I get to rest my bones beside the fire.
Breaking 1,000,000 miles on the last trip of 2010
November 13, 2010
I broke the 1,000,000 lifetime miles barrier on United just in time before “no fly December” starts. Of course I know about this already, but United hasn’t figured it out yet. I was on a 777 to Amsterdam in business class. Sadly, the equipment was an “old” 777 instead of one of the new 767s or upgraded 747s. It seems the only way to get a 767 to Europe these days (from Dulles) is to fly to London and allow them to misplace your baggage. The new airplane pods rule, but not enough to fly through Heathrow.
My seatmate (I was in my usual seat 8B) and I toasted a “condolences” toast. The flight attendants didn’t understand what I was talking about when I told them I had just broken the one million mark. United needs better programmers. I’ll keep an eye on the mileage plus website to see when the computer over there clues in (see below). Anyway, if you’re expecting champagne and special service for attaining such a lofty goal on a particular flight—forget it!
All in all, the flight was just fine. A bit quick and turbulent for real sleep (especially without the lay flat pods found in real airplanes). I’ve been to Schiphol so many times that I know my way around and was at the College Hotel well before 8. The College Hotel people were incredibly great and let me sneak into room 109 to take a quick shower. My favorite room (105) is currently occupied and check out time around here is noon. It’s nice to be welcomed to Europe like that…feels kinda like home here now. A nice way to end the 2010 travel pile.
Guesthouse (undisclosed location)
May 30, 2010
I recently had a guest from Belgium stay in the newly-renovated guesthouse at my place. Here is what the guest had to say:
After having stayed some days at a Marriott Courtyard (cf. an earlier blog entry for a taste, they’re probably the same everywhere), the one night at the guesthouse (in an anonymous location) was a real refresher.
A spacious room, filled with a grand piano, big library, nice couch, a great bed, and free wifi. But above all, in the spirit of this blog, the shower is brilliant – spacious, nice mosaic finishing, sliding glass door, brushed aluminium handle, just perfect.
I had a great night, still being jet lagged that says much. And waking up in full green nature is a bonus, the birds welcomed the new day with beautiful songs.
To wrap up, it’s also worth mentioning the beautiful golden retriever that whipped its tail so friendly when heading to breakfast (real espresso, and eggs laid by the local chickens the night before, neat …). 5 stars.
[That is, five showerheads…]
No Fly December
November 17, 2009
No shower reviews for a while because I have officially entered “no fly December.” I also do “no fly July” which has a much better alliterative name.
As it turns out, my flight back from Amsterdam may be the last airplane ride of 2009! Hot damn. According to United, I traveled 139,989 miles in 2009. Youch. Five trips to Europe is pretty many for one year.
I’ve been tracking my trips since 1997. This year I did 33 trips.
Here is a little tripometer with data from the last few years going back to 2001. You can see how travel correlates with the talks I give (a subset of which are keynotes at major conferences).
Obviously, next year there should be plenty of fodder for the noplasticshowers blog. Stay tuned!
WTF is this blog about?!
October 20, 2009
I travel too much. Really. And that means I spend way too many nights in hotels.
I also pretty much abhor big chains (you guys can keep your hotel points!), so I am always on the lookout for interesting places to stay.
Over years of travel I developed a heuristic for separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to hotels. You can find the rule in the name of the blog —NO PLASTIC SHOWERS. Simple. And effective.
You see, hotels that don’t have plastic showers tend to be interesting places to stay. They tend to have good bars with a decent top shelf, interesting public spaces, and rooms that don’t have the same feel as a hamster cage.
The worst offenders of all are big chains featuring plastic showers built over plastic bathtubs with those bent out shower rods made to accommodate walmart shoppers. Eww.
On the other side of the spectrum, I do have a list of hotels I like. To give you some sense of where I stand, my favorite chain is the Kimpton boutique hotel chain. But I often travel to new cities and am foist into new places.
This blog will report my hotel adventures and will feature pictures of actual showers from places where I’ve stayed.
We’ll start tomorrow with an example of the kind of hotel to avoid!
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