Jarrett House North: Travel

Back to Carnegie Hall

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:54:14 GMT

I'm on the Acela this morning, heading back to New York for my second ever concert at Carnegie Hall with the BSO. This time feels more like a real performance; last fall when we sang Debussy's Daphnis et Chloe, the chorus part was more atmosphere than anything else. We didn't even have words to memorize, just vowel sounds.

Well, we have words this time. Thanks to Mr William Blake, whose prophetic vision has been stuck in my head for weeks now. I know thee, I have found thee, and I will not let thee go! Thou art the image of true God that dwells in darkness of Africa...

The cold that has been sneaking up on me for the past few days is almost here. I hope it holds out for a few more hours. There's this weird thing that happens to my singing voice right before a cold settles in, when all the awful stuff in the back of my throat hits my vocal cords just right and smooths everything out and I'm hitting notes that were trouble the day before and will be unreachable for a week afterwards. With a little luck this is that kind of cold. I can hope, right?

A new use for that Boingo subscription

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:23:19 GMT

I have a monthly Boingo subscription. It was mostly so that I could get online at Logan, back when I was flying out a few times a month (or, week) without having to pay $6.95 a shot. I’m not traveling nearly so much for my new job and was considering cancelling—until I saw the news that AT&T is taking over the Starbucks hotspots from T-Mobile.

Since AT&T is a roaming partner of Boingo, I’m thinking about keeping the subscription. Prepaid high-speed at any Starbucks for my iPhone sounds like a pretty good plan.

Synchronicity II: HDI ITIM and Blogworld collide in Vegas

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 02:43:55 GMT

As always, I’m out in Las Vegas representing iET Solutions at the IT Infrastructure Management (HDI ITIM) conference. But this year, the timing is fortuitous, since not only ITIM but the Blog World Expo are in Vegas at exactly the same time. Looks like the last day of ITIM is the first day of the Blogworld conference, featuring back to back panels moderated by Blogcritics founder and publisher Eric Olsen.

Not only that, but Tony Pierce will be on the afternoon panel. Now that’s a cool conference.

I’ll be working the show floor at ITIM during the day, but maybe I can catch up with any Blogcritics or other bloggers who are in town for Blogworld. If you’re interested, drop me a line.

Like a well-oiled machine

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 15:01:23 GMT

I have been flying regularly—at least once or twice a month—since I took this job in early 2005. I have my security regimen down to reflex: on the way out of my car, my keys are already clipped inside my briefcase, my wallet is in my hand and I am tucking my parking pass inside and my license in my shirt pocket; by the time I am in reach of a bin in the security line, my laptop and one-quart bag are out and my jacket and shoes are off. I scoff at those occasional travelers who slow the line.

Well, I got my comeuppance. I waited about 20 minutes to show my boarding pass and photo ID to the bored worker at the head of the line so I could get in the stationary line to go through screening. He took a look at my boarding pass and said, “This is a JetBlue pass. This is the United line. Go back up the ramp and to the other side of the terminal.”

Thankfully, I left plenty of time this morning. But what a blow. My perfect system: busted.

Twister = 0, so far

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:48:28 GMT

I didn’t hear any twisters during the night, and a quick scan out my window shows only some leaves on the ground, so I guess I survived my first experience being on a tornado alley. So far, the only actual indication of a twister coming through has been a report of a possible tornado that went through a town about 12 miles up the road.

It is perhaps a sign of how sleep deprived I am that I say: the actual outcome wasn’t worth the sleep I lost. I should have stayed in bed.

Of course, I’m sure that my flight home will be disrupted; hopefully they are able to resume flights this morning.

Fun...

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 04:23:21 GMT

...is being in Michigan in the midst of tornado warnings. They just moved everyone here down to the ballroom of the Marriott (which is, oddly, on the second floor—a strange place to take shelter). Still waiting for the all-clear. One of my coworkers couldn’t take a flight out tonight because of the weather—all planes were grounded.

So I’m sitting in the hotel bar, working, and waiting for the all-clear. What a weird night.

Update, 10:33 PM: Well, it looks like we’ll be down here for a while. They cut into the Red Sox game on the TV a few minutes ago and are now only showing weather maps, with a big red spot right over the town where we are. Still no signs of any trouble from inside the hotel.

Update, 11:28 PM: The game came back to the TV half an hour ago. There will be more storms moving through overnight, but if someone tries to roust me from my hotel bed again they’ll be sorely disappointed. I won’t be moving for anyone.

Rainy in Michigan

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:31:20 GMT

I’m on the road this week, accounting for the slow posting. It’s been an interesting few days, learning how a prospect does business and getting deep into their data. I’m also feeling the pain of being a Red Sox fan on the road when we’re two down in the championship series; I had a hard time sitting in the same room with some Cleveland fans on Tuesday night. Here’s hoping we turn it around tonight.

Photo catch-up

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 05:39:19 GMT

I’ve been heads down at work for a bit, so posting has been slow. However, I did manage to get some photos uploaded to Flickr in the last day or so, including a few summer studies at Crane Beach and the photo to the right.

A word of explanation, perhaps, is in order. The flight from Boston to Seattle (which I took back in August) is long, almost six hours. Perhaps to make up for this, some daytime flights manage to arrange their flight paths so that they come near some of the spectacular Northwest mountains, such as Mt. Rainier. The picture to the right was taken out the left window of an airplane just as some high-altitude cloud cover broke. The photo was not zoomed and was taken with my ordinary Canon PowerShot. The view from the plane window really was that spectacular. The accompanying photoset features some other images, many of which have been tweaked a bit to remove the general blue wash that the photo took on. (I will have to figure out how to get the exposure set correctly in the first place next time.)

Other favorites in the batch of uploads: the Harvard Lampoon building looking particularly Hogwartsesque, taken on the night that Harry Potter 7 was released; a nifty little flag shot and sand texture on Crane Beach; and a mountain sunrise from my folks’ place near Asheville. (There are also some special treats waiting for friends and family; make sure you sign into Flickr to see everything.)

Eating in Charlotte: a non-representative sample

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:24:16 GMT

I had the opportunity to try exactly one non-convention-center meal while I was in Charlotte this week. A few of us went to Ratcliffe on the Green, which is a very cool restaurant in a former Beaux Arts florist building (the Ratcliffe Florist neon sign is still out front).

The wine list was OK—I’ve been trained to look for certain Italian wines and am always a little miffed when Tuscany is the only part of the boot that makes an appearance—but the food was great. There were raves about the duck, the filet, and the rabbit (I had the latter and it had quite a lot to recommend it).

But for my money the best and most imaginative options were the starters. Foie gras brulée? Fabulous. The spare ribs were tasty too. But the absolute treat was the Eight-Piece Quail Bucket, which took the classic southern fried chicken and biscuits trope and miniaturized it. Little tiny pieces of quail piping hot and breaded with a crackling spicy not too greasy coating, with two biscuits the size of a silver dollar alongside. Um, fabulous. What a fun little restaurant; if more of Charlotte is like that, I’ll have to check it out again.

Travel daze

Tim Jarrett — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 04:27:30 GMT

I jolted out of bed at 4:20 am today, not because of something I heard but because of something I realized I hadn’t: my alarm. I had a 6 am flight to get to. So I quietly stumbled downstairs, shaved and showered about as sloppily as I know how, stepped into my suit, and hightailed it to Logan. Thank goodness for the empty roads at 4:45 am. I had enough time to purchase and eat a bagel sandwich at the airport before my seating group was called.

On to Pittsburgh, for a two hour meeting with a customer followed by lunch. I was booked on a connecting flight to Charlotte at 8 pm tonight, but after lunch I called our travel agent to see if I could do something sooner. She said, “Well, there’s a flight that leaves at 3:35. Can you make that?”

I looked at the time on my phone. It was 2:05 pm and we were 40 minutes from the airport. “Sure,” I said.

Fifty minutes later, I was standing in line behind two young women who were pulling flat-panel LCD screens out of their laptop bags to run them through security. I inquired, and found out they were auditors, taking their office with them. I could tell they didn’t travel much: one of them left her boarding pass in her briefcase, then after it was fetched back for her grabbed the wrong boarding pass and we had to wait for it to go through the belt again.

After all that, I got to the gate just as my section was finishing its boarding. I squeezed into my middle seat and collapsed for a bit...

Until I got to Charlotte, where I rented a car and drove through heavy hurricane-remnant rain up to Asheville. Now I’m here, spending a day and two nights with my family before going back to Charlotte Sunday morning for the itSMF conference. But at least I don’t have to go anywhere tomorrow. Maybe I’ll nap.

Briefs

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 05:09:04 GMT

I managed to make it through a family reunion this weekend. The family part was fine; the traffic and weather almost did us in. It managed to pour the whole day of the August Brackbill picnic for the first time in a number of years, stranding us on the porch of the house. This after Lisa and I drove almost three hours from her parents’ (where we left the dogs for the day), then drove back through the same muck and mess. At least it was good to catch up with some family, particularly my grandfather.

Today was another day back at the office. I think things will start to get a little more interesting in September and October, when I will do a user conference, a product launch, a trade show, a partner conference, and at least one trip to Europe in about a five week period. Oh—plus, if I can make the travel work out, I will be making my Carnegie Hall debut with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. More to come…

Further proof that no training in life goes wasted

Tim Jarrett — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 14:54:31 GMT

For this weekend’s Tanglewood residency, I am staying at the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge. It’s a ramshackle monster of a place, in continuous operation since the late 18th century (with sloping floors et al to prove it); has a prominent place in an iconic Norman Rockwell painting (“Stockbridge Main Street at Christmas”); and bills itself as a luxury destination. Which is why I always wondered how the BSO and the TFC could afford to billet volunteer singers there, as they do for nearly every residency.

The answer, it seems, is simple. There is this class of room at the Red Lion called B&B rooms. Neither of the Bs stands for en suite bathroom.

So—just like on the Lawn—I am throwing on a robe in the morning to go get a shower, etc. Unlike on the lawn, there is only a single shared shower and toilet per floor, for about 12 B&B rooms per floor.

I shouldn’t really gripe. The other amenities are nice; the service is great; the live jazz quartet I heard in the Lion’s Den on Thursday and Friday nights was exceptional. But I thought I left wearing a bathrobe in public behind me 13 years ago. Ah well. Apparently, plus ça change...

Wet

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 20:22:54 GMT

The only thing worse than having to work through a day off, is doing it on a rainy day.

Of course, there are those who will tell you that this is the best way to work on your day off, since you wouldn’t be having any fun anyway. To those misguided souls, I say: nah. The rain adds insult to injury. You get wet walking from place to place and you know that at the end of your journey you still have to pull out the laptop.

Context: I’m in Tanglewood this weekend. I had rehearsals yesterday and it was gorgeous, but I was also a little under the weather and couldn’t appreciate the great outdoors. Today I’m better but stuck working.

At least there won’t be a problem getting into the shed for tonight’s concert—if Ives and Carter haven’t already scared away all the attendees, the rain will do the rest.

Alive, still

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 17:25:03 GMT

All indications to the contrary, I’m still alive. It has been a lovely, if thundery, few days here in the mountains to the north and west of Asheville. Food has been commensurate with past experiences—steak at my uncle’s on Tuesday night, big southern breakfast Wednesday (eggs, sausage, sawmill gravy, biscuits, grits, tomatoes, cantaloupe, fig preserves, and black black coffee), a repeat of the fish tacos experiment last night. Tonight we’re going to make our way to the Jarrett House—if there is a connection to our family other than the name, it’s a distant one—for some fried chicken and trout.

Then, if we survive the meals, we’ll go to a rare movie on Friday, then get back on the road Saturday to go back to New Jersey, where we can collect the dogs and head for home.

Vacation

Tim Jarrett — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 03:52:57 GMT

Anyone wondering where I am is forewarned: it’s going to be a nice quiet vacation for me for about a week. Leaving out the car trips, which render it a nice, nerve-wracking headache of a vacation.

Today, for instance, we’re at Lisa’s parents in coastal New Jersey, after a six hour trip holding Joy (our Bichon dog who hates to travel, even when tranquilized). Our reward for the trip: a beach excursion cut short by 54° water. (It was 70° F three days ago before the storm.)

That’s OK. I made some killer fish tacos (fried tilapia and sour cream/lime/chipotle sauce) that more than made up for it, as far as I’m concerned.

Black Friday?

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 12:59:11 GMT

Remind me never to fly again out of Logan on the Friday after school lets out.

I was at Logan at 5:15 this morning. The garage was open and uncrowded and I expected a sail through security. I practically walked into a wall of people, though, when I got into the terminal—security lines snaking through the ticket area; ticket lines snarled. And (my heart sank) not a business suit in sight.

No, I was trapped with a bunch of Leisure Travelers. People who decided that getting to the airport three hours early for their flight was too late—and they were right, because they and their fellow Leisure Travelers had no idea how to negotiate security quickly, no idea how to check in the night before at home, no idea how to use the check-in kiosks. No idea that the security line was actually two lines. No idea that knives are not allowable carry-on baggage. No idea that we have been fighting a War On Moisture&tm; for almost a year now.

Not that anyone was making it easier for them. Ahead of me in line, I watched as every passenger on a 22-person flight was selected for “special screening.”

I think this is the ugly secret of business travelers: we hate leisure travelers passionately. Oh, we are tolerant and indulgent—until you slow up the line, bring a bottle of water in your bag, set off the metal detector with your pocket-knife, cause my business flight to get overbooked.

But the worst, the very worst thing about this morning: they have moved the Starbucks out of the United side of Terminal C. And put a Dunkin Donuts in its place. Now, I’m as Bostonian as the next transplant from Virginia, but if I wanted to drink dishwater flavored with corn syrup and soy powder, I’d order that. Instead, when I order coffee, I want it black and strong. I guess I’ll have to wait until I land in Chicago.

College town

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 02:23:14 GMT

It’s strange being in someone else’s college town. You get all the facets of college life—cheap, unhealthy food; cheaper beer; the unhurried pace of college life. We checked into our hotel in a local college town today and asked about food. The clerk behind the desk said, “If you just want a quick bite, the place across the street has a gyro special today—gyro, fries, and large drink for $3.99.”

As my colleague said later, “He was definitely a college student. Now that I’m out of college—I’m on an expense account—I don’t care so much about cheap any more. I’m more interested in good.”

Touché. Still, there’s something to be said for the bargain, the “cheap and good” option. That’s where I always felt college students were really good at establishing a market.

Unfortunately, in places like Charlottesville, the positive effects of the students are counterbalanced by parents and alums, who inexplicably kept places like The Virginian alive long past its freshness date. I should note I haven’t eaten there since 1995 or so, but then it felt like it should not have existed because no students were ever there and the food wasn’t really good enough to draw the townie crowd.

The quietest flying day of the year?

Tim Jarrett — Sat, 26 May 2007 02:11:32 GMT

It is Friday evening on Memorial Day Weekend. I have the honor of flying to Richmond tonight so that I can attend my sister’s graduation tomorrow as ambassador from the Boston Jarretts. I am excited and happy for her, but at the same time I’m puzzled. Why? Because I’m sitting in an empty airport, that’s why.

The road was virtually empty as Lisa drove me into Logan tonight; the airport is almost empty. Granted, I have a flight that leaves at 8:45 PM on Friday night, which might as well be midnight by airline standards, but still. Might the best time to travel on Memorial Day weekend be ... Friday night?

Southwest: institutionalizing apologies

Tim Jarrett — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 16:57:55 GMT

Interesting article in the New York Times today about how airlines handle communications with customers when something goes wrong. Perhaps because JetBlue is too busy figuring out what the hell happened over the last six weeks to talk to the press, the paper talks to the “chief apology officer” of Southwest Airlines. And the article shows why Southwest, which has been the low-cost airline of choice for over 35 years, is still a customer favorite.

If, as Doc Searls writes, companies have souls, then Southwest’s soul is funny, irreverent, but deeply concerned that you get there on time and enjoy yourself while doing so—in other words, the perfect cruise director. And really, that’s not such a bad way to think about the job of the overworked, underpaid flight attendants and gate staff who have to deal with arrogant type A business travelers like myself and clueless vacation travelers like the folks who are generally in the security line before me. The surprise is not that Southwest is so good at what it does, it’s that the other airlines haven’t figured out how important it is.

That’s why a nightmare like Southwest’s experience in Las Vegas last month (while I was there, the rumors were coming back to the Venetian about two hour waits to get into the terminal and eight hour waits at the ticket counters) is only a blip for the airline, while the completely understandable weather delays that hit JetBlue have totally paralyzed it. JetBlue doesn’t have a soul yet. Its early spirit—a smart, modern, can-do pioneer—lasted only as long as its long-term future strategy on jet fuel prices did. I still remember having conversations with a quiet, rueful attendant the week that they took their first bad quarter. They haven’t regained that spirit yet. Perhaps by taking a lesson from Southwest, they might start to regain some of that spirit.

Chicago, Chicago: that stop on the way home

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 16:24:21 GMT

I awake in the Windy City this morning, having arrived here late last night and checked into the Palmer House Hilton. It’s funny how a place like Vegas changes your perspective. Normally, I like the historical flavor of a place like the Palmer House, which is 135 years old and heavy on the scenery, particularly in the lobby. But after a few days at the Venetian, all I could think of when I stepped into my room was, This is tiny. In my defense, I think I was influenced primarily by my long ride in the middle seat and secondarily by the extensive plywood hiding the restoration work in the aforementioned lobby, which kind of cooled the impact.

So: down to breakfast, and then home. And then tomorrow: jury duty. Yay.

Waiting for American

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 03:32:18 GMT

Leaving Las Vegas today (and yes, that would probably have made a better blog post title). Just wrapped up two days at the Pink Elephant conference at the Venetian. It was an interesting time—a lighter crowd than in past years for this conference, and coming in on Sunday night while the crowd for the NBA All Star game was still in town was a little... chaotic.

Getting out of town has been a little worrisome, too. The rumor coming back to the Venetian was that Southwest had overbooked their outgoing flights by about 40%, resulting in 9-hour-long lines at the ticket counters and a general swamping of the airport on Monday. It was pretty straightforward today, though.

Alas, I’m not going straight home; one more business meeting in Chicago calls. But after that I am back to Boston. Thank goodness.

Oh, and the big disappointment of the conference? No Beatles karaoke.

Icy irony

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 04:18:58 GMT

This morning my coworker and I chipped a half-inch of ice off the rental car and trundled over to our prospective customer’s offices. By mid-afternoon most of the roads were clear, the ice and snow had stopped, the sun was shining, and flights were proceeding out of Columbus.

Except, of course, those flights in the direction of Boston.

Yes, my flight was canceled. Though the weather is OK in Columbus, it’s crappy in Boston so those flights were delayed and canceled. At least I got an early morning flight back, so I can get the driveway shoveled out before business gets started.

I did get lucky in one respect. One of our customers suggested that Easton Town Center was a pretty good place near the airport to stay if I needed to get a hotel room. That tip put me in walking distance of a half dozen places to eat and a bookstore—much better than the airport food options. I even found Leffe Blonde on tap (though admittedly that’s easier than it once was—kudos to their distribution people).

The icing on the cake

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 00:27:30 GMT

I’m back in sunny Columbus, Ohio for a few days—just in time for a nice winter storm. It snowed all night, fortunately only about a foot accumulation, but it turned into ice about noon today.

This trip has been a lot of work, but so far the actual travel experience has been easier. I got to the hotel about 11 pm, got a good night’s sleep, will get to nap for a bit before dinner... all sorts of good stuff.

My only weather related worry, in fact, is that I have my very nicest wingtips and no other shoes. It’s a good thing Ohio doesn’t salt roads the way Massachusetts does, or the leather would already be totally destroyed.

The other Cleveland

Tim Jarrett — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 16:38:49 GMT

What can be said about Cleveland, Tennessee? Perhaps its ambassador, the Diplomat Motel, a sagging fleabag of odd smells and rusty plumbing, sitting as it does at the fringe of a used car lot, tells part of the story. But then, any $35 hotel room is probably an unfair representation of the city in which it sits. How about this: less than a mile up the road from the Diplomat is a shopping center with a brand new Starbucks, with wifi and high school kids who joke that slinging coffee for the rest of their lives would be a desirable career—a joke because they know they can and will do much more.

Actually, the above probably says as much about Starbucks as anything else.

Night flight

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 01:58:21 GMT

There is something melancholic about waiting around the ass end of Logan—the AirTran gate known as 1C—for the last flight to Atlanta. There is something even more melancholic in knowing that when I land, I’ll have to make my way across the airport to the rental cars and drive another two hours into the heart of Tennessee. Ah well. It beats waiting for a flight to Chattanooga.

Travelers blues

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 21:41:39 GMT

So it was, as we arced out of the airport at LA after crawling painfully to it through the traffic along the 405, as we settled into the airplane seats for the unjustly long coast-to-coast flight, which leaves one gazing desperately at the Skymiles catalog as a sort of antidote to fatal ennui rather than the suck of despair it really is ("the Victorian Glowing Painting! The turbo yuppie nose hair trimmer! The officially licensed Porsche self-motorized wheelchair!"), that I decided that travel has, after all, compensatory value.

Sure, there are downsides to spending one to three nights a week on the road, particularly when one's wife is unwell and the dogs need to be put under general anesthesia for a dental procedure. (Which, by the way, is something that far too few human dentists seem willing to do.) But the opportunity to catch up on weeks of neglected email, to rearrange one's Documents folder, to sit next to one's vice president and look productive... priceless.

As I think back, though, the route between LA and the east coast has been a good one for me. Back in 1995, the LAX-Dulles route was the first I flew regularly, traveling between a DOD site and my former employer's offices in the DC suburbs. It was this route on which I had my first really bad travel experience (chronicled elsewhere on this site), in which a brief delay extended to four hours' delay on the ground at Dulles and a four hour free stay in an airport hotel in LA before proceeding to the poetically named Inyokern Airport (international call letters: IYK, "Icky" phonetically). Yes, gentle reader, back then airlines put you up gratis if their colossal blunders and failures to abide by generally accepted maintenance practices left you stranded; compare to my experiences trying to get from Boston to Salt Lake in September, which left me stranded in Chicago for 18 hours completely on my own nickel. But the route had its charms. Back then food on the flight, while dubious, was free, and while beer and wine were $3 (somehow, priced at a value point less than hard alcohol, as though the point was to make one visit the restroom to void the extra water included in the $1 discounted bargain) it was nice to sit with a 187ml bottle of something vaguely Californian and read.

Some of those cross-country flights were notable cultural experiences for me. I still remember settling back with a hardback 1940s edition of For Whom the Bell Tolls (purchased in some Georgetown used bookstore, now long vanished) and a small bottle of cabernet, and finding wedged into the pages a photo of a Korean woman, perhaps a serviceman's sweetheart. I still have the book, and the photo, and will have to scan the latter and post it. Perhaps someone can reclaim that piece of a family history. I just know that it gave me a shudder of synchronicity as reminders of one war nestled among the fictional recollections of another.

Or on another occasion, one of several red-eyes, armed with a newly affordable portable CD player and falling asleep to a newly purchased copy of the Hilliard Ensemble’s Codex Specialnik, as pure a celebration of Renaissance polyphony in all its anonymous glory that the great men’s ensemble has ever produced.

And tonight, on one of the few LA-to-east-coast direct flights that I've taken since those days, I sit with a laptop and a "RightBites" box dinner, which costs $5 and combines various organic processed foods (pita chips, hummus, Late July brand "rich crackers," canned tuna, raisins, Toblerone bar) into what still feels like a school lunch. But I have a 187ml bottle of cabernet, now also $5 (the same price as the Devil's liquor), and a laptop with a podcast from KEXP on it, and noise cancelling headphones, which alone are worth much of the inconvenience that has occurred in the intervening 11 years.

And what if the turbulence makes it difficult to read the high-resolution LCD screen of the laptop? And what if I will arrive home after midnight and have to attend to another sales prospect, another customer issue, another product decision, bright and early tomorrow morning? I have wine and music. Who can say I am not the happy genius of my household?

Back to Las Vegas

Tim Jarrett — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 16:52:50 GMT

If anyone is going to be at the HDI ITIM show at the Venetian this week, I’ll be at the iET Solutions booth. Hope to see some of you there.

Also hope that there isn’t a repeat of what happened the last time I was in Vegas for a conference. Please.

Sushi in and around Calgary

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 05:17:30 GMT

I’m back home. Amazingly enough, there were no further travel incidents—unless you count the flight out of Calgary taking off 90 minutes late for no apparent reason, causing me to take a later connection out of Chicago.

While we were in Calgary, I had two sushi experiences. One was a meal at Zen 8, just down the block from Belgo in Penny Lane, where we asked for omikase and got a really nice assortment of stuff—nothing spectacularly weird from the fish perspective but good quality and very reasonable.

The other was a place we saw on Highway 1 on the way in. I looked to my right at a stoplight and noted a sushi restaurant—right next to an aquarium store. “At least it’s fresh,” my co-worker noted. I got a picture of this place and will try to post it tomorrow.

Update (13 Oct 2006): Finally got around to posting the picture on Flickr (and above).

Calgary dining: Buchanan's

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 16:40:11 GMT

During a conference call yesterday morning in Edmonton, we had a prospect from Calgary join us via videophone. At the end we mentioned we would be in Calgary in the evening and asked him for a restaurant recommendation. He said, without hesitation, “Buchanan’s.”

We got into town, settled into the hotel, and eventually made our way out to find Buchanan’s. After some initial confusion (downtown Calgary has a grid of numbered streets and avenues, leading us down to the corner of 7th Ave and 3 St when we really should have been at 7 St and 3rd Ave; sorry, Dan), we found Buchanan’s, and were thrilled.

It wasn’t so much the food, although it’s really hard to go wrong with thick cuts of Alberta beef; or the wine, although the 2001 superTuscan that we tasted was pretty spectacular; nor even the wall of over 200 different types of single malt Scotch behind the bar. What made it a great evening was the ambience and the staff. We ate in the lounge, which had the Yankees/Detroit game on (alas for all of us who were rooting to see the Yankees fall last night), and which had a wonderfully relaxed vibe, aided by the friendly presence of the owners. It felt a little like sitting in a quiet neighborhood bar.

Eating in Edmonton

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 21:49:24 GMT

We’ve had two pretty good meals here in the capital of Alberta. Today’s lunch was at the Café Select. I had their tomato soup and a spicy salad with fried squid, which was a lot tastier than it sounds.

Last night, though, was exceptional. We visited the Hardware Grill (on a recommendation from eGullet) and I had some spectacular lamb: lamb rib-eye wrapped with a combination of beef short ribs and foie gras in a Zinfandel reduction sauce. The wine list was all that you would expect in a Wine Spectator award winner.

As one of the commentators at the eGullet forum wrote, “Dining in Edmonton is a bit like stumbling around a catholic schoolgirl dorm — lots of boring, hardworking, plaid clad folk, but the odd mindblowing experience to be had if you knock on the right door.” I really can’t top that capsule review, so perhaps we’ll just leave it at that.

Logan in the morning

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 12:57:56 GMT

Since I’m going to be here a few more minutes, some notes about the experience flying out of Logan, which I’ve complained about bitterly at times: it’s not that bad, provided you are flying out at the beginning of the week and that you leave enough time before your flight is scheduled to depart.

Heresy, I know. But unlike an airport like O’Hare, which is never quiet and about as far from relaxed as you can get, it’s a small enough airport that you can catch your breath, even find a power outlet, without much trouble. It’s also big enough to have the basics: Starbucks, Dunkin, a really good shoe shine stand, and wifi—and while Massport’s monopoly in this area is somewhat controversial, I feel a lot better about it now that my money is going directly to Boingo (I finally gave in and bought a monthly subscription, and boy am I using it). It’s also better wifi than in O’Hare, where I almost always have trouble connecting for one reason or another.

The most quietly pleasant thing about the airport, I think, is sitting at a seat near a lot of windows, say near gate C-18, from around 6 am to 6:30 and watching the skies start to brighten as the airplanes glide by on the tarmac past the gates.

Another day, another flight

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 12:45:53 GMT

Today’s destination: Edmonton, then Calgary.

I’m not going to be in Edmonton very long, probably just long enough to recharge my laptop before a business meeting tomorrow. So I’m saving my energy for Calgary. Though we will just have missed the Calgary Film Festival, there should be enough going on in town that I should be able to find some entertainment somewhere. At least judging from the hotel bookings—I had a hard time finding a room anywhere in town. Note: it appears that most of the entertainment in Calgary involves cowboy regalia.

I’m also looking forward to getting some good steaks. I’m not sure anyone will be able to persuade me to try Rocky Mountain oysters, though.

Liquids on a plane redux

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 20:10:34 GMT

I got home at 5:30 this morning from my trip to the LA region. The trip reiterated how superior the JetBlue experience can be if you are going to the right place. My colleague and I flew directly from Boston to Long Beach, had at the most an hour drive between Long Beach and our prospect in Pasadena (which mostly means we got lucky), and had two great cross country flights.

I also got to test the new revised rules about liquids on a plane (note: be careful on the TSA site! The home page crashes Safari!). My test apparatus was a quart sized ziplock bag containing a travel size tube of toothpaste and a travel size bottle of contact solution. The catch? My contact solution came in a 4 ounce bottle, and the rules state that anything 3 and under is safe.

First, from Logan on Tuesday (the first day of the new rules): before the ID check I was met by a screener, who asked if I was carrying liquids; I was and showed him the bag. He looked, made a note of the 4-ounce bottle on a paper form, and asked me to keep the plastic bag out of my baggage so that the security screeners could see it. I ran the bag through, and one of the screeners grabbed my bag and my form. He asked a supervisor about the four ounce bottle, got the OK, and handed it back.

On the way back, it was much the same process, except they made me put the bag in a tray instead of on the top of my duffle. Both times a supervisor had to step out and verify that my contact solution was OK.

Question: What is the difference between three ounces and 4? What is the impact of enforcing a one-ounce overage on our security teams? Why doesn’t contact lens solution come in a 3-ounce travel bottle? (It will now, I guess.)

Pour House in Long Beach: beer by the water

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 20:03:29 GMT

Somehow in spite of the hectic travel schedule, my coworker and I found our way on the waterfront in Long Beach last night prior to heading back to the airport for our red eye, and somehow we landed at the Yard House. (Hey, things like that just seem to happen to me.)

Now, I should preface these remarks by noting that I don’t usually get maximum enjoyment out of visiting chain brewpubs or beer bars. Rock Bottom, Gordon Biersch, and other places of their ilk always seem a little unfocused, with too many people there for reasons other than the beer, and with too few beer lines cleaned regularly. The Yard House seems on first visit to be an exception to the rule: the list of beers on tap was, true to their word, long, with a good mix of imports (including some pretty rare Belgians, like the Maredsous 8) and local beers. I had a Spaten Optimator, since they didn’t have a Märzen, in honor of Oktoberfest, and then tried the Anderson Valley Brother David’s Tripel. Both were acceptable, though the Brother David seemed a little flabby for the style. Food was good (I had the Caesar with grilled ahi). All in all some small compensation for having to take a red eye back.

Shot day

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 06:07:22 GMT

Well, that was quick. It’s amazing what putting together a five and a half hour meeting and a six hour plane flight in the same day can do to really chew up the time. I just flew into Long Beach and drove up to Pasadena where we have a meeting in the morning. This is my first time in the LA area outside the airport, and it feels odd. I feel like I should call Tony Pierce and ask him for advice, but I’m afraid that if I followed any suggestions he gave that I wouldn’t wake up in time for my meeting tomorrow. Plus, you know, he’s doing his own travel right now.

Survived

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 16:05:00 GMT

Just a quick note that I did, in fact, make it in last night. It’s taken me a while to get things going today thanks to the over 300 email messages in my personal account, many of them spam comments that needed managing.

Salt Lake is just as beautiful as I remember it. I haven’t strayed far enough from the hotel to determine if it’s just as weird too...

Latest update: still at O’Hare

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 20:38:15 GMT

My flight from Boston arrived at 9:30 last night, something like two and a half hours past our planned departure. Of course, I had feared something like this, but when they were announcing the delay I had seen my bag loaded onto the plane and figured I was stuck with it for the long run. And of course the gate agent pointed out that there was a general delay at O’Hare, so most of us would make our connections. Right?

Heh. The flight to Salt Lake had left a half hour previously.

So I spent an hour in line to rebook my flight, twenty minutes walking to the airport Hilton, a quick four hours sleep, then back into the terminal to see what I could do. I missed my first opportunity on a morning flight—I was #3 on the standby list, but the flight was oversold and they actually had to forcibly rebook a paying passenger. So now I’m waiting for the flight I did get booked on, which will get me in after the first day of the show is over, in clothes I have been wearing for 36 hours, unshaven and bleary.

I don’t know why I still get upset about this stuff. The airlines have repeatedly proven, particularly at O’Hare, that keeping a schedule going is an art that exceeds their grasp. But it’s not funny any more.

Spoke too soon...

Tim Jarrett — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 23:46:00 GMT

When will I learn to stop saying things like “it looks like clear sailing”? My flight has been delayed two hours to Chicago, which makes me nervous about my connection to Salt Lake City. The good news is that everything in and out of Chicago is delayed, so I might actually make it. The bad news is that I probably won’t get there until well past midnight, and I have an early morning phone call the next day. And let’s not even think about luggage...

This just in...

Tim Jarrett — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 22:59:46 GMT

Traveling on the day before my wife’s birthday sucks.

Fortunately that’s the suckiest thing about this flight so far. I got here in plenty of time, have a seat (albeit a middle) to Chicago, and it looks like it’ll be clear sailing to the ITSMf meeting in Salt Lake City.

The last time I was in Salt Lake City, aside from connecting through the airport, was some eight years ago when I stayed there while doing some consulting in Ogden. I recall that they had some pretty good local microbrews, in spite of the Byzantine local liquor laws. But I can’t find any of them using BeerAdvocate, so I’ll have to hang loose and hope for the best.

No update. Bad blog.

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 17:47:36 GMT

I ended up on the road all day yesterday, so no update happened. It was a really surreal week in Mexico City, and I didn’t see that much of the city other than my hotel, our customer’s offices, and the roads in between. That’s pretty much a normal business trip, but because the hotel was in an office park, we didn’t really get any time at night to explore the local culture.

I have two lingering impressions of Mexico City. The first was walking down the street and mentioning to our host that the enormous double-deck elevated highway we were walking beneath surprised me, given Mexico City’s history of earthquakes. His wry response was, “Yes, that surprises us here too.” Mexico City has so many cars that there aren’t too many alternatives, apparently.

The other was watching the city recede beneath us as we took off—miles and miles of dense city and residential blocks of gray and brown concrete, livened with splashes of earth-tone colors, receding into the distance as far as the eye could see, lapping at the sides of the giant mountain peaks and hills that shrugged their way up from the plateau into the clouds. The contrast with Chicago, where our flight connected, could not have been more vivid—yes, miles and miles of residential blocks, but blocks that were tree-lined, with space between the buildings, green-lawned... all luxuries that were reserved for very few properties in Mexico City (at least from my vista near the airport).

The trip wasn’t a total loss, though. I ended up talking with my seatmates for the entire 90 minutes between Chicago and Boston. My companions were a Mexican girl who will be studying international relations for a year at the University of Maine, and John McBride, a managing partner McBride & Lucius who likes Father Ted and Janacek. It was definitely the most entertaining random conversation I’ve had in a while.

Mexico City

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 14:42:36 GMT

The blessing and curse of business travel is that while one gets to visit exotic locations that one would never have visited otherwise, they all tend to look the same.

I’m sitting in a very nice hotel in Mexico City—the suburbs, technically, looking out the window and waiting for the sun to come up over the mountain to the east. This is the technology center; we passed signs for EDS, HP, IBM, and FedEx among others on our way in. So far, aside from brushing my teeth in bottled water as a precaution (though the hotel has its own water treatment plant), I could be anywhere in Europe or the big cities.

Except that, on the way from the airport last night, we passed a colonial Spanish building sandwiched in between the access road and the main highway. And we saw intimations of the enormous cathedral and the Zocalo—the second largest public square in the world, after Red Square in Moscow—from the air coming in.

It will be an interesting three days to say the least.

Word of the day: streber

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 20:24:00 GMT

One of my German colleagues is in town this week. As we sat through a design session this morning, he asked, “How do you say streber in English?”

I shrugged, and he said, “Go to Leo.org.” We looked in the English-German dictionary on the site, and we found the following translations: careerist, eager beaver, geek, grind, nerd, sap, striver.

So: streber. Sounds better than pencil-neck.

And no, I don’t remember why he asked me for the translation. It couldn’t have been something I did.

Terror Level Elmo: good day not to be traveling

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 17:19:08 GMT

New York Times: Aircraft Bomb Plot Thwarted in Britain. Apparently the British police stopped a plot to blow up multiple airplanes flying from Heathrow to the US. The number of targeted flights ranges from 3 to 10 according to various reports. Wonderfully enough, the terrorists are believed to be still at large...

...which is no doubt why Doc Searls got stuck at Logan today. Sorry, Doc. At least there’s WiFi. Doc, I hope you’re near Legal Seafoods so you can at least get a good meal out of it. The Technorati tag being used to group these posts together is red810 (nice concept, btw).

More coverage: Boston Globe, which says this was a “minor inconvenience,” and the DHS page, which gives the details (threat level red, aka Elmo, for travelers flying from the UK to the US; orange, aka Ernie, for commercial aviation inside the US; yellow everywhere else. Good old Bert).

Pictures from the Mozart residency

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 19:02:15 GMT

Better late than never. A set of pictures from the Mozart Tanglewood residency is up at Flickr. This is different from the previous set primarily in that there is sunshine, so the pictures look like something other than mud.

Still to come: pictures from this residency, provided it stops raining; pictures from our recent kitchen cabinet demolition; and maybe even pictures of me in a white tux jacket looking spiffy. But don’t hold your breath about the last one...

Travel is hell

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 14:43:33 GMT

I wrote a nice long screed yesterday about the joys of traveling in and out of Logan now that the tunnels are closed. I didn’t get to post it thanks to a very long day out of Internet contact, but here are the highlights:

No parking at Alewife—I wanted to avoid the nightmares at the Callahan and Sumner tunnels and take the T, but the parking garage was totally jammed at 10 am (which I should have foreseen). I drove to Harvard Square, which was the closest T location with pay parking garages that I could think of (never mind that they cost $24 a day).
The Silver Line—It’s been said before, but honestly: the Silver Line is a bus and shouldn’t get equal billing with the Red, Green, Orange, etc lines. And that lack of air conditioning thing? Not nice.
JetBlue—I liked this carrier, and some days I still do. Yesterday—not one of them. I don’t know if it was their fault or Logan’s that they put so much fuel in the plane yesterday that they would have exceeded their landing weight at JFK and had to idle on the tarmac for 45 minutes (after already arriving 45 minutes late) to burn it.
Finally, Amtrak. I took the train back because I figured there was no way I could get back to JFK in time for my flight. But the Acela was capped at 80 MPH because of the effect of the heat on the rails. I certainly don’t want any trains to derail, but good god! Had the designers never experienced an Atlantic coast summer? Didn’t they know that things get really hot?

Bottom line: left the house at 9, back at 12:15 am when I should have been back by 9 pm. I’ll take the 3 hour shlep to the Berkshires any day.

Lost post: Blogging from 41A

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 20:52:14 GMT

Just found a post I wrote on my transatlantic flight last Friday, June 2, that was never posted, and thought it still was worth reading:

Interesting that on a Lufthansa flight, on an Airbus plane, I am using an in-flight Internet service from Boeing. Somewhat less interesting but more frustrating is that it is as slow as molasses. I am currently experiencing the joy of synchronizing my corporate Outlook account over this slow connection and it's excruciating. It's like giving yourself a paper cut and waiting until you bleed to death.

I had an uneventful last night in Munich. My business for the last two days had me at the Munich airport hotel, the Kapinsky, a nice if expensive facility (in room Internet: 20 euros/day; free WiFi provided by what must have been a single router with approximately the same range in coverage distance as your average American Idol pop singer shows in emotion. It was slow in the morning and impossible by the afternoon. Why is it that an $89/night hotel in rural Ohio provides free wireless Internet that works, while a luxury hotel anywhere in the world provides sub-par service and makes you pay for the privilege? Is there a theme emerging here? Am I turning into a Johnny One-Note? Maybe so, but over the last ten years the Internet has inched closer to being an indispensable utility for me, like electricity or conventional telephones, while at the same time hotels and the companies that provide their services remain in the dark ages. At least Lufthansa and the Boeing Connexion service have a technical excuse--they are providing their Internet service over a satellite connection where the base receiver is moving at 600 mph. (Though I should note that conventional satellite-based high speed Internet services provide speeds as much as 100 times greater.)

At any rate, I did something shameful last night. For the first time in eight years of international travel, I had an American fast food meal in a foreign country. (The horror.) My excuse is that our conference wrapped up at 4:30 and I spent the following two hours resolving last minute discussions with our business partners, then had to climb onto back to back one hour calls with the US at 7 pm. With the half hour before the first call, I had to find food quickly, so I took the path of least resistance and grabbed a chicken sandwich from the Burger King outside.

At least I made up for it the previous two nights. My first day in Munich I spent the afternoon at our corporate offices downtown, then headed back to the Marienplatz and a meal of wursts, kraut, and Dunkelweiss at the small Augusteinerbräu beerkellar in the shadow of the Frauenkirche. And the food on Wednesday night was quite good, if absurdly filling.

I'm always torn when I come to Munich. I would love to be able to stay another few days to explore the countryside and the city and practice the language, but at the same time I cannot wait to return home.

Erdinger and Bavarian Olympics

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 08:46:27 GMT

The dinner event last night at the conference I’m attending was a tour of the Erdinger Weissbräu facilities, followed by traditional Bavarian food and “Bavarian olympics.” Misgivings that conflated Bavarian olympics with Beer Olympics gave way when I learned that (here, anyway) Bavarian olympics meant finger-wrestling, sawing wood, hammering nails, holding a 10kg beer stein, and, um, milking a cow (not a real one, thank goodness, but a dummy like the one shown here). Our team won, for reasons having very little to do with me. (Lots of houseblog practice to the contrary, I still can’t hammer a nail quickly to save my life.)

Hee hee hee hee... wipeout

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 30 May 2006 10:59:59 GMT

So here I am in the airport hotel in Munich, my home for the next three days and nights, and I can hardly think.

It was kind of a whirlwind Memorial Day weekend. We spent the time dragging the last few waterlogged and moldering things out of the basement; demolishing some of our existing cabinetry and completing the installation of the first round of our new Ikea cabinets; and otherwise just kind of having fun. The Project is on the Us, with U2 completed shortly before I left for the airport yesterday. And now, after a quick direct flight (shout out to Lufthansa—yo, my homies), my brain is buzzing but my body is dragging dragging dragging. This is the weirdest jetlag ever.

I think a nap is in order before I head downtown. And before I destroy any more neurons trying to figure out the public transportation system.

Zuni Cafe: oh yeah

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 19 May 2006 06:45:50 GMT

How was it that I missed the Zuni Cafe the last two times I was in San Francisco? Oh my goodness. Oysters. Pappardelle with duck sauce. Goat cheese with fennel. Oh yeah.

I consciously split the oysters across species lines this time— Pacific oysters, kumamotos, and Virginicas. You know, the Virginicas? Really really good. In fact, they tasted a little like home. I seriously had one of those Proustian moments; tears came to my eyes. There was something about the taste that brought back the Atlantic to me (if not the Chesapeake). Had really nice discussions with the waitress about fennel, about appropriate wines to go with pappardelle with duck sauce...

San Francisco is for foodies

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 19 May 2006 01:47:12 GMT

In addition to a good conference week, it has been a great food week here. Monday night I went to the Thirsty Bear, which had moderately interesting beer (the ESB and Maibock were quite good, but the Märzen was weak) and good tapas (marinated anchovies and small portions of hangar steak).

I took a quiet night on Tuesday, but last night George took me to a neighborhood sushi restaurant that was to die for. The proprietor served us three rounds of sushi, each more special than the last—flying fish, butterfish, yellowtail, and “pencil fish” sashimi, followed by a round of unusual nigiri (the Japanese suzuki particularly was excellent), wrapped up with a round of phenomenal inventions. The two outstanding options here were the Alaskan King Crab Remix, a bundle of crab in a thin wrapper topped with salmon (I think), and nigiri-style Kobe beef that was seared under a blowtorch and that simply melted in the mouth. George, if you can remind me of the name of the place I’ll be eternally indebted.

Afterwards we tried a few glasses of wine at the California Wine Merchant, including a surprising Rhone blend from one of the Sonoma wineries and a Zin/cab sauv/merlot/cab franc blend called Paraduxx that was just outstanding. We ran into an old friend, Chris McCall, there and had a relaxed, civilized time. (In fact, it’s been Old Home Week here, what with my Microsoft friends and Wahoo Kurt Daniel, who now works for SWSoft on their virtualization product, on the expo floor.)

Tonight: I’ll try the Zuni Cafe, a food institution I’ve meant to visit for a long time, then head to the airport for my red-eye, which should be a rude awakening. Maybe I can con United into upgrading me for free again.