Be The Pigeon

I picked up a little morsel tonight that I thought you would all profit from: It's generally preferable to have an actual reservation at the car-rental agency if you expect your name to appear on the big board! Apparently, not having a reservation will cause you to not show up in the system. Go figure. It's generally preferable to make an actual reservation at the hotel you want to stay at if you expect it to have any rooms left when you arrive. They don't ask other people to leave just because you arrive without a reservation. Hmmm. So I thought I'd made reservations for my latest trip, but it turns out I was mistaken. Whoops. Good news is that after calling for help, I have a room, although at a different place, and I have wheels that will be fine for the week. (In my defense, I did try to make the reservation weeks ago, but it erred out and I simply forgot to do it again. Too bad close only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades...) Lesson learned.

I've seen it all now, I think.   Any of you who travel with any regularity have no doubt observed the guy or gal who thinks he/she's just too busy to stop the phone call long enough to use the bathroom at the airport.  A least once a year I have the pleasure of sharing some bathroom time with the guy who's sporting the too-cool bluetooth headset, which allows him to tend to his bio-business while continuing his phone call.  And since he's just talking away it's rather apparent that no, he's not on mute. Dude, on behalf of every other traveling American out there, I'd like to share with you that this is not cool!  Not even a little bit.  You need therapy.  You need to have your phone taken away.  You need public ridicule.  What the heck does the guy on the other end think you're doing, anyway?!   But as if that weren't the worst bathroom infraction one can encounter in an airport, I think I have a new chart topper.  This week I tended to business next...

Anyone who has ever been to a movie theater or on an airplane has done it at least once.  You know you have, you just won't willingly admit it in public, right?  What's that, you ask?   ... No no no, not that!  Come on, keep it clean!  This is a PG-rated blog, after all.  I'm talking about how we have all fought over control of the armrest at one time or another. As personal space in public places--particularly on airplanes--continues to decrease, it's obvious that the traveling public has gotten progressively more serious about elusive control of the all-important armrest.  Afterall, he who controls the armrest controls the comfort. I'm guessing that if we took a straw poll, most everyone would say that when they purchase a ticket somewhere, they expect that they are puchasing usage of a seat and a couple armrests, not half an armrest.  Yet there just ain't enough armrests to go around.   I used to feel kind of sorry for the guy in the middle seat when I was l...

I was able to attend my first BYU Football game in at least two years last night with a bunch of friends. We drove up to Ft Collins (about an hour north) to watch them play an away game at Colorado State. I was surprised at how much beer was flowing at this game. Wow. Nearly everyone in green had at least one cup in hand. Those in blue...not so much. :-) We had a great time. It's a nice field, and we were very entertained by the back-and-forth scoring nearly the entire game. BYU is presently in the top 20 (though we were top 10 before an ugly loss a few weeks ago). It's the first time in a long time that we're back in the national spotlight, and it just raises the fun level for everyone. As is often the case, the last 5 minutes on the scoreboard were the most intense, and we wound up coming away happy after a close win. In two weeks we're taking the kids and another large crew down to Colorado Springs to attend another away game at Air Force. If the weather ho...

OK, here's a few questions I've had for some time now. Maybe one of you is much more intelligent regarding airport security and can answer these questions. Why do you have to show a boarding pass as you go through the magnatometer in some airports but not others? Shouldn't it be consistent? Is there any actual security value to needing a boarding pass? Why do I never set off the detectors at some airports, but often at others? It's obvious to me that they are not all set with the same sensitivity. Does that mean that I'm safer at some airports than others? It's kind of like when taking off your shoes wasn't quite mandatory. Some airports thought you had to do it and others weren't as concerned. I actually asked these questions a while back to a TSA guy at the airport. The answer was a cursory government-smokescreen response: "the TSA boss at each airport gets to choose." Reassuring. If something is a threat, is it not a threat for al...