Posts tagged Misc

Christmas is coming soon so I thought I’d do a few posts with gift ideas based on things I’ve used this year and found to be exceptionally useful and or fun. Here is the first post and I’ll try to do a few more as I think of ideas and have time to write about them. If you have suggestions, please add them in the comments. You might be able to suggest the perfect gift that another reader hadn’t though of.

Fingerless Gloves

Fingerless Gloves ~ $3.50 

My office is in the walk-out basement of our home. It is typically 60 to 65 degrees in the winter, but when there is a strong wind on the walk out portion of the house, it can get a lot colder. This isn’t to big of deal because I can usually just put on a sweatshirt, but I have to be able to type. These gloves keep my hands warm but let me still use my fingers. I wish I had of had these when I was getting my  undergraduate degree in music because it would have made early morning piano practicing much more comfortable and productive.

GPS Unit

GPS Units – $99 to $350

If you add a navigation package to a new car it will probably cost you thousands of dollars.  I’ve never understood why this is, when a typical GPS unit can be had for $100 to $300. If you are looking to get someone a GPS, you might want to consider units that come with lifetime map updates. My first unit didn’t have this and with map updates costing $99 I put it off for awhile and eventually just bought a new GPS when it kept trying to send us to restaurants and stores that were closed or moved. In addition to the lifetime map updates, some of the newer models include free traffic updates–something that you previously had to pay $20 per month to get. This will try to route you around road closures and congestion. It is particularly helpful in a big city.

One of the best deals I’ve found is the 5 inch TomTom XXL. It isn’t the newest GPS, but it does come with lifetime map and traffic updates for just under $100.

Amazon Kindle

Amazon Kindle ~ $79 to $199

While a lot of people will be getting the $99 Kindle Touch and the $199 Kindle Fire for Christmas, I wanted to point out some of the advantages of the $139 Kindle Keyboard 3G. It has the 3G support, but allows you to browse the web from the device over the 3G network–something you can’t do with the other devices. Obviously this is a horrible way to do general web browsing, but it is a great way to read longer form web content–particularly Wikipedia articles. So if you want to carry around something that lets you read live content from the web over 3G, this is probably the only way to do it without paying a monthly fee.

The 3G connection means you can look up things on the fly on the road. While most smart phones can do this as well, it isn’t nearly as comfortable to read on your smart phone screen as it is on the e-ink display of the Kindle.

Inspirational leadership quotes from Leadership501.

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Thank you to everyone who participated in the Holiday Shopping Challenge. We had a lot of great Christmas shopping tips and suggestions.

The winner of the $250 gift card is Jennifer Marie. She was chosen based on a random number from www.random.org.

So how did my shopping, turn out? You can read about it below.

My Dad

The local hardware store was offering a sale on “gear wrench” sets. These are wrenches with the normal open end on one side, but the closed end has a gear mechanism in it that allows it to turn the bolt in one direction, but it “slips” when you push it the other. So it lets you ratchet the wrench back and forth to turn the bolt without needing to take the wrench off and replace it.  I bought this the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so not only was it on sale, but I got the $25 credit from American Express as part of their Small Business Saturday promotion.

My Mom

My mom is a teacher and has an older MacBook that gets a lot of use. She has been saying that it seems to be slowing down. Whenever I’ve looked at it there were noticed dozens of programs open–something that its built in 1 GB of RAM just couldn’t keep up with. Crucial has a nice website for identifying what memory works in what devices. I bought her an upgrade that maxes her computer out at 2 Gigs. Now I’ve cheated just a bit here and gave her the upgrade as an early present and installed it of course. She said it has made a world of difference and she can actually use her computer again to get stuff done.

My Nephew (10 years old)

I got my nephew a small remote control helicopter. He had an AirHog, but it was nearly impossible to fly. I got him an Syma S107 because I have one and know it is very flyable. The biggest difference is that the S107 has a built in gyroscope to keep it from spinning unless you are trying to turn.  I looked at getting him the S110G which is a bit smaller, but I decided to stick with one that I know he will be able to fly.

My Brother-in-law

I got my brother-in-law a remote control helicopter as well. I think most guys wanted a remote control helicopter or airplane when they were kids, but the light batteries have just recently become available at a a low enough price point to put into toys instead of pacemakers. So while this obviously isn’t the most practical gift, I’m hoping he’ll find it very entertaining.

My Niece (13 years old)

What my niece likes to do is go shopping. I considered getting her some gift cards by redeeming some Membership Reward Points, but I’m not really a big fan of giving gift cards as Christmas gifts. My sleuthing revealed that she is really enjoying her art classes, so I got her a nice set of colored pencils, a set of pastels, a set of sketching pencils along with a case to keep everything in.

My Sister-in-law

She reads a lot of business books, so I got her several of my favorites:

• Anything You Want
• E-Myth Revisited
• Four Hour Work Week 

Luggage Tags

A few weeks ago I ordered a new dog tag for our dog.  Since the shipping was more expensive than the tag, I went ahead and ordered a few “dog tag” style with my name, address and phone number on them to use as an id tag on my laptop. It turned out pretty nice so I thought I’d get some as small gifts for family members who could use them, three tags that they could use for their keys, luggage, laptops case, camera case, etc.  When I got ready to order them, I realized that it was going to take me quite a while to build the order up by adding the addresses one at a time. Instead I just copied the addresses into an email and sent it off to American Express Concierge asking them to order it for me.

Benefits of Using a Credit Card

I’ve written about some of the benefits of using credit cards before. But lets look at some of the specific benefits in this shopping experience. By using my Platinum American Express card all of my purchases are protected against theft or damage for 90 days. In addition, if a gift turns out to be the wrong thing, but the merchant won’t let me return it, I have coverage through the card for that as well. The purchases are also covered by an extended one year warranty.

Your credit card probably has at least some of these type of benefits and it is worth taking a look at some of the fine print so you know what benefits you have if you ever need them.

Thank You To American Express

A big thank you to American Express for sponsoring this giveaway.

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The Domino Project has released a new book called End Malaria. The book is available for the Kindle and in paperback. It is a great idea! They got a bunch of authors together and put together a book where $20 from every sale goes to help end malaria.

The contents are short essays by many famous business authors. There are three sections: Focus, Courage, Resilience. The contents of the book are great. They are all short and you can pick it up and randomly read any page to get something out of it.

What most impressed me though was just the idea for the project. It is a great example of how creative thinking and a little organization (ok maybe a LOT of organization) can bring people together to make the world a better place. The proceeds (at least $20 from each book) wil go to Malaria No More which has a mission to eliminate death from malaria in Africa by 2015. It is a big goal, but with projects like this to fund it, they just might do it.

Everything you wanted to know about money from the Debt Free Dude.

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My wife, two kids and I had a trip planned to Florida to spend a week with her family on the beach. Originally we were going to drive, but at the last minute decided that was a bad idea and bought plane tickets on Delta. My parents graciously drove us to the airport in Kansas City. We checked our luggage and paid the $50 to take the pack and play and our suitcase. The fee was expected, but it still amazes me how much airlines can get by with. Oh well, at least Delta doesn’t charge for using the restrooms like some airlines are trying. We went through security, found we had drastically over-estimated how long that would take, and settled in to wait for a few hours watching the planes with our kids.

The gate next to ours was supposed to be heading to Chattanooga and every 15 minutes they would announce that the plane was still being repaired and that the flight had been delayed yet again. When we boarded our flight, the plane to Chattanooga still hadn’t pulled up to their gate. We got our luggage stowed and the kids settled in. Katy our 4 year old had the window seat and Benjamin our 22 month old was sitting on my wife’s lap in the middle seat. Even after spending two hours watching the planes from the airport, they were still fascinated with the ground crew as they prepped the other planes.

This would be the first leg of our flight which would put us in Memphis. An hour later our second plane would take us to Panama City Beach.  Traveling with kids sure is a lot more work. We had carefully planned what time we put them to bed the night before in order to make sure the youngest would be tired enough to take a nap on the drive up to Kansas City so he’d still be relatively happy when we made it to Florida and took a taxi to the condo around 9pm–about 2.5 hours after he normally goes to sleep. So far everything was going according to plan.

Everyone was seated and the crew was getting ready to close the door when there seemed to be a bit of confusion.The stewardess went to talk to the pilot and after a few minutes the pilot came on the PA system.

“Dispatch just called me and said that this plane isn’t going to Memphis. I tried to get them to let us take it, but we are going to have to get off.”

That seemed a little odd. It also seemed like we weren’t getting the whole truth. But with all the airline security issues, I figured it was best to just get off quickly and orderly and then just get on whatever plane we were supposed to be on.  As we got off the plane, they changed the sign to say Chattanooga and loaded up all the passengers who had been waiting for the broken plane. “Good for them,” I thought. Although I did wonder how they could have been delayed for hours when their correct plane was sitting right there and no one noticed. Since we had an hour layover, I figured a 15 to 20 minute delay to board our plane wouldn’t make too much of a difference.

I asked a stewardess what had happened, and was told that we had been boarded on the “wrong plane”. This seemed pretty odd because it would have required a huge number of errors from a very large number of people. They would have had to pull the plane to the wrong gate in the first place. The pilots would have needed to overlook the fact that it wasn’t the plane they were supposed to fly. The technicians would have had to  overlook that it wasn’t the right plane. The plane would have had to be the exact same type or the seat numbers wouldn’t have matched up, etc. The chances that an airline could make that many mistakes without having serious safety issues elsewhere is pretty much impossible.

The more I thought about her explanation the more nervous about the safety of flying Delta at all. We were supposed to get on the “right plane” in a few minutes with an airline that had just told me they couldn’t keep track of which plane went where.  What if someone got confused again and only put half the amount of fuel on the plane thinking it was headed somewhere else. What if they accidentally got the water truck and the fuel truck confused and the bathroom sink was now dispensing jet fuel?   What if they took off and then realized that the “pilot” was actually a bagage attendant who and momentarily forgotten his job and thought he was the pilot?

I wasn’t sure if I felt very safe putting my family on this next plane that they were getting ready to direct us to.  That should happen any minute right? Well no. Somehow our plane was now broken and the mechanics didn’t know if or when they could fix it, but instead of leaving at 3:45, the soonest we’d be leaving was 7 and that was looking unlikely. The new time strangely matched the time the people waiting on the broken plane for Chattanooga had been last told. Then I realized what had happened. Some computer had shown the airline that it was going was cheaper to bump and re-route everyone on our flight than to try to re-route the people on the Chattanooga flight. That way the airline wouldn’t have to put all of them up in a hotel. That made me feel a bit better about the safety of the airline, but not so good about our chances of making it to Florida on time.

Evidently the computer had said that our flight was one where they could put the fewest people in a hotel because almost everyone could reach their destination through other flights that afternoon. There was one destination that they couldn’t reach–Panama City Beach where we were going. In all fairness the people who helped arrange a hotel for us were courteous and friendly.  They gave us our tickets for the next day along with vouchers for the hotel and a few meals. I carefully checked the tickets to make sure we were all sitting together and discovered there were no seat numbers. I was told the seats would be assigned the next day.

After an uneventful (but not particularly restful) night in the hotel, we checked in our luggage and got our seat assignments. Unfortunately the person making the seat assignments decided that the best place for us to sit was in the very back–where the engine completely covers the windows and the kids can’t see out at all.  Maybe I didn’t adequately explain that yes we all needed to sit together and yes the ability to see out was somewhat important–something I had put a lot of effort into earlier when selecting our flights.

We finally did make it to the beach a day late. It was a nice week spent talking with family, watching dolphins, playing in the waves, making sand castles and swimming in the pool.

So back to the “wrong plane” thing.  Either the airline told us the truth and they had accidentally put us all on the wrong plane or they lied and it was just cheaper to have us get off and put other people on that plane. I am almost certain that it was option 2 because if they did make all the mistakes that would have been necessary to put everyone on the wrong plane, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t admit it. Mistakes of that magnitude would require a huge number of people to do the wrong thing at a scale that would mean the airline would probably have planes running out of gas in mid-air and bumping into the terminal.

So assuming that we were on the “right plane” until they decided they wanted to use it for something else, why would they make up a lie that made them look horribly inept? Imagine this exchange between a police officer and a thief who stole money from a vending machine:

Police: So did you steal money from that soda machine last night?
Suspect: No.
Police: What were you doing last night from 8 to 10 pm?
Suspect: I was murdering someone.

In this case:

Me: Did you make a business decision that will make us miss a day of vacation?
Delta: No.
Me: Then why is the plane I was on headed somewhere else.
Delta: We have no idea where are planes are or where they go. Our employees don’t even check to see if a plane is the right one or if it is at the right gate.
Me: Are you sure it wasn’t just to get the most people to their destination?
Delta: Yes. It definitely was caused by a general state of confusion about what plane goes where.

Assuming it was a business decision, I can understand what Delta did. Now I think they should have made the decision before we all got on the plane, but it is understandable even if I don’t like how it change my family’s plans. But I can’t at all imagine why they would lie about it–particularly with something that makes them look far worse.

I propose that Delta needs a CLO–chief lying officer who can oversee that any lies being told don’t make the company look worse than the truth. The first thing this person would be tasked with is creating a lying handbook or maybe some type of online employee portal where you can select what the situation is, and it will give you a list of lies to tell that don’t make the airline look worse than the truth and a list of lies that you aren’t allowed to use.

For example if a plane is grounded because of maintenance, unacceptable lies would be:

• The FAA has grounded all of our flights because our planes are held together with rubber cement and twisty ties.
• Three of our pilot’s pet rattlesnakes got loose and we haven’t been able to find them. We think they escaped on this plane, but it could have been any of our planes.
• The plane is infested with bloodsucking cockroaches and will need be radiated for 5 months before anyone can enter it.

Note: If someone from Delta wants to set me straight and say that the flight going from KC to Memphis on August 13th was somehow pulled up to the wrong gate, prepped without anyone noticing it, boarded by the pilots and crew without anyone noticing that they weren’t on the correct plane until right before they closed the door, I’d be happy to update and clarify that I was wrong and we were told the truth.

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Here is a short collection of very random links that may or may not be of interest. They are just various things that I’ve found interesting and wanted to share.

• Non-Profit Donations – Most people are involved in some type of non-profit organization.  This post lists some of the options available for accepting donations online.  The good news is that it is a lot easier than it used to be.
• The Thin Home – I’m not sure I’d want to live in a house this thin, but it sure makes efficient use of the space between two buildings.
• Throwing a tomahawk - I spent many hours trying to figure out how to do this with hatchets growing up.
• First and last shuttle launch – This is a picture of a father and son at the first and last shuttle launch. It is kind of hard for me to believe there won’t be any more.
• Stravinsky’s opinion of Mozart – I ran across this quote the other day. Best I can tell Stravinsky though Mozart was a monkey. (And Victor Borge was anti-violin and viola.)
• Weird people search for time travel – This is a post I wrote about the “proof of time travel”. If you checkout the comments you’ll find that many of the people who look for time travel related terms are….well a bit different.
• SMS Polls – This site lets you do simple polls by letting people send their response via SMS. Its free for classroom sized polls.
• Khan Academy – Lectures and exercises on a significant portion of a highschool education.

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