I recently flew out to Las Vegas for some video equipment training.    I flew out on Delta Airlines and had a very good experience.  Although the folks between KELM and KDTW slashed my luggage bag, they quickly gave me a new one without so much as a question.  I was even able to file a claim for the bag while I was in the air thanks to their Go-Go In-Flight Internet services.   So, when I landed at the next airport, the claim was filed and I was ready to pickup the new bag!  Now that's service.   

 

Although I can't confirm this, I've been told that Delta's entire fleet of mid to long range aircraft have all been equiped with the Go-Go In-Flight Internet services.   So for that 4.5 hour flight I was able to check e-mail, catch up on some office work, and talk to friends and family.   

 

The Go-Go In-Flight Internet works by connecting to one of something like 96 towers around the U.S. which have antennas directed skyward.   Go-Go is run by a company called Aircell (who formerly brought us those extremely high priced airplane cellphones - you know, $9.95 per minute).  

 

I took off from KATL and flew to KLAS.  Internet service didn't become available until we were somewhere over the east side of Texas, but from there on out it was very stable.    I got disconnected once or twice from my remote desktop session, but otherwise it was a stable 1.5 megabits/second down and very useable.

 

Hopefully more airlines, like the one I flew back on, will go this route and install Go-Go on their airplanes.  Infact, the airline I flew back on had no TV, no audio to listen to, and no Internet!  I felt like I was in the dark ages of aviation.

 

Delta Airlines, I give you a tip of my hat for your great baggage services and your inflight Internet services. The only thing that would have made this trip better was if I could have listened to Air Traffic Control on my armrest audio plug.... but alas the channel didnt seem to be activated.  Yeah, I'm an aspiring air geek.

I thought I'd start a little section called "Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger" to highllight extremely good or extremely poor businesses. Unfortunately, we start off on a bad foot. In order to not boost this establishment's Google rankings I will not be linking to them.

 

Recently I traveled to Nevada on a business trip. My company gave a credit card to the hotel (Mandalay Bay) to pay for my two night stay. Now, I might add the hotel is extremely nice, and the rates for the nights showed this! Keep in mind this was not your $35.96 per night hotel. When I arrived I was asked for a credit card to cover things such as the in-room mini-bar, pay-per-view TV, damage to the room, etc. No problem... I'm not planning to use any of those things so I gave them my credit card. At no point was I told that anything else would be charged to my card except for items I was physically in control of during my stay. Upon checking out I was told everything was all paid up, and I was good to go. I left.

 

Today I checked my credit card statement and noticed a charge for $129 on my credit card! I called to find out what this was all about and discovered they charged me for the second night! I protested saying that I never gave authorization for my card to be charged for the second night, nor was I told the card would be charged. I was told, "we're sorry sir but the charge is already done and your account is closed, you'll have to talk to accounting on Monday". I explained very nicely to the lady (whom I found out was a manager) that if she could not reverse the charge I would be issuing a charge-back, and coming from the business world myself I knew Mandalay Bay probably would not appreciate that. So the choice were she could refund my account, or I could do a charge-back. She refused to budge and said she could not refund the charge.

 

So now, I have to see if I can talk to the accounting department on Monday to get the charge removed from my personal card used for deposit, and placed onto the company card used when the reservation was made. As if to add insult to injury, this comes after I gave them a little 'nasty gram' in my check-out, and filled out an on-line survey they sent to me in my e-mail asking me how my stay was.

 

Actually, it was awful! After paying $129 a night to stay, they wanted me to pay an additional $14.95 per 24 hour period for Internet access (oh well, there was my excuse for not checking e-mail), and they closed the pool early without telling anyone who was staying there! (There was massive grumbling among the guests, as could be heard if you just walked around the general pool area after it closed... no one seemed to have any idea the pool was going to be closed, as guests came outside in bathing garb only to hit the closed gates and speak to each other about the closed pool). Mandalay Bay - You get a wag of my finger . Not only do you gouge your customers for services that other hotels of lesser stature provide for free, but you then go and charge the credit card given for in-room services for the remaining stay time!

I was digging around on my webserver today to try to make some space and ran across this: Hoppes Gerbil Farms! Wow, just wow.. that's all I have to say.

It's been a while since I posted, sorry about that.  I was off at a conference, and then very busy at work.  Here is a little glimpse into what I've been playing around with in some of my free time:

 

For as long as I've been driving I've always run Mud and Snow tires on my car. I've really never had a problem.   Even just last winter, I thought my car was doing great in the snow with the Regatta 2 tires that I had on it.  Sure it was slipping here and there in snow, and the Traction Control and ABS would activate, but the car worked pretty well.

 

I guess you don't really know what you are missing until you try it.   I just got four new Michelin X-Ice Xi2 tires this morning (which just so happened to be the morning of a major snow storm).  These things are amazing!   I drove around a fair amount today, some out of necessity and some out of interest in testing these new tires.

 

I have to say that I am very impressed.   I've never been an advocate of snow tires, but you bet that every winter I will have a pair on my car.  There is a huge difference in handeling.  The only time TC or ABS kicked in was if I did something stupid (e.g. applied what I knew was too much gas or break).  Otherwise, if I drove normally, the car just chugged along.

 

Around corners Newton had a little bit of the upper hand, but the car still handled well.   Starting and stopping in snow is amazing.   

 

The Market St. bridge in Williamsport has, what I consider, a bad design for the on-ramps.  They all have a pretty strong slant up from the Interstate to the bridge.   Well today they were snow and ice covered.   I stopped before the bridge hump, so that I was on the upward slope, and a car came up right behind me.   When the red-light changed to green, I was able to start going with no sliding or slipping, meanwhile the car behind me struggled for about 30-45 seconds before he was able to get going again.

 

Although I didn't do anything super crazy, I did drive through some unplowed alley ways, stopping and then starting again, just to test traction.  Again, TC never kicked in once, and the car acted like it was on dry pavement.

 

I'm excited to try these tires out on some ice to see how they perform.

 

The reviews that I have read say that only the Blizzak WS-60s are better than these tires.  If that's the case, the Blizzak tires have got to be amazing!

 

I highly recommend these tires to anyone looking for a reliable snow tire for your vehicle.  Remember, if you are purchasing a snow tire to look for the mountain with the snow flake on it.  This certifies that the tire you are purchased stands up to some industry standards for snow tires.

 

You can read more about the Michelin X-Ice Xi2 Tires on TireRack.