Tuesday, May 31, 2005

I’m flying JetBlue today for the second time. The first time was also a round-trip from Oakland to DC. The first time was fine, although I never actually watched any of the television that so many people find to be one of JetBlue’s best, most innovative features. Anyway, I’ll report from the road.

Posted by Shel in • General
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Monday, May 30, 2005

I was sitting at the San Antonio airport, getting the last installment of ”For Immediate Release” edited and uploaded. It was easy, since San Antonio’s airport has WiFi access at one of its food courts. It cost $9.95 to tap into the WiFi network for one day. That’s steep, since I pay $30 (three day’s worth) for a month of access through T*Mobile. But when you have no other choice, you just pony up the payment and do your work.

I made my connection at Los Angeles International Airport, and needed to get online again. My day’s worth of access through Never2Late, “a member of the Airpath Provicer Alliance,” didn’t help, since LAX is affiliated with Bongo, a completely different provider. I would have had to pay another $9.95.

This situation is no surprise to frequent business travelers. Familiarity certainly breeds contempt, though. Since I don’t believe the WiFi providers are involved in a massive conspiracy to bilk travelers, I have to believe it’s just a case of massive stupidity in the marketplace. Not too many people are familiar with the National Exchange Carriers Association (NECA). I only know of them because I’ve done some consulting work for them. This group administers the payments long-distance telephone carriers make to use local telephone companies’ networks. That’s why you can make a long-distance call and only get billed by your provider, even though your call went over some other local company’s lines.

Why can’t the WiFi industry figure out a way to do something like this? The balkanized nonsense of paying whatever company happens to be servicing the airport or hotel you happen to be in is getting ridiculous, particularly when you wind up in two airports and a hotel in the same day.

Posted by Shel in • General
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

I’m sitting in a Courtyard by Marriott in San Antonio. Second night here. My daughter dropped me off at the BART station on Tuesday morning. I took BART from the Concord station to MacArthur, transferred to the Fremont line, got off at the Oakland Coliseum station and caught the AirBART bus to Oakland International. Took a Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to Vegas, connection on a Vegas-San Antonio flight. The cab driver didn’t know where the hotel was. The hotel took my driver’s license to make a copy for identification purposes and neglected to give it back. This morning’s cab driver was pissed off that I only wanted to go a mile to my client’s offices.

And this is a goodtrip.

So I’m thinking about this, and about the miserable travel experiences I had last week (Tuesday to New Orleans, Wednesday to Ottawa, Thursday to New York, Friday back home) and wishing for the umpteenth time that I had a blog where I could talk about it. I don’t really care if anybody reads it; I just need an outlet for the next travel-related aggravation to arise (and it will arise, sooner rather than later). And sitting here in my hotel room in San Antonio, I finally decided to stop wishing I had it and just create it.

So here it is.

If you want to feel better about being stuck in the same city and never getting to travel for business, this is the blog for you. It’ll make you feel better. As the tagline says, if you wish you could travel more for work, be very careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

Posted by Shel in • General
(6) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink