Category Archives: Travel

Something’s Gotta Give

Leave a reply

Last night we rolled back into town after spending a week at the beach in Corolla, North Carolina.  Corolla is part of the northernmost developed stretch of the Outer Banks (OBX) and is very popular with folks from Washington, DC and points north.  Most of this area has been developed only in the last 20 years and judging from the traffic on Rt. 12 it doesn’t look like the area can handle much more, but that may not be an issue at least for the short term.

Now that the real estate market in the US is cooling down it will be interesting to see what happens to places like Corolla because I can’t imagine that the current situation can be sustained for much longer.  We saw one 1/2 acre empty beachfront lot next to the beach access we were using that was selling for over $2 million.  That’s just for land.  Across the street from that lot was another that was selling for $800,000.  The houses in that area are built so that multiple families can share the space which means they usually have enough sleeping capacity for 30 people and you aren’t going to build a house that size for much less than $500,000. If you’re spending $1 million for land and another $500,000 or more to build a house then you’re looking at $1.5 million minimum to get into that market.  We (our friends and ourselves) were speculating that over the last 10 years people in the northeast have been leveraging the skyrocketing value of their primary residences in places like the DC metro area to finance their beachside McMansions in OBX.  With those markets now hitting the skids there will probably be a corresponding slow down in places like OBX.

As I’ve written before I’m no economist, thus it’s dangerous for me to write about things like this, but I just can’t see how the current situation in OBX can be sustained.  I guess I’ll just have to sit back and wait for folks like my brother and David Boyd to come embarass me with obvious arguments for how it can.

That’d Buy a Lot of Space Rocks or Pinhole Cameras

Leave a reply

When I was a kid my mom signed me up for a couple of Saturday classes at the Smithsonian Institution.  One was a photography class where we made our own pinhole cameras and then traipsed around the Hirshhorn Gallery taking our pictures and then developing them ourselves in a darkroom.  The other was a nature drawing class that taught me how to draw a beaver that looked suspiciously like an elephant (I’ve always preferred the abstract).  The Smithsonian was also the destination for countless school field trips and excursions when friends or family visited from out of town, all for free.  Well the classes weren’t free, but the excursions were.

Now it looks like the guy running the show for the last several years, Lawrence Small, tried his best to ruin the free museum party for everyone (Source: Washington Post).  To wit:

Former Smithsonian secretary Lawrence M. Small took nearly 10 weeks
of vacation a year during seven years running the vast museum complex
and was absent from his job 400 workdays while earning $5.7 million on
outside work, according to an independent commission report to be
released today.

The Smithsonian’s second-ranking official, Sheila
P. Burke, was absent from her job as deputy secretary for 550 days
while earning $10 million over six years on non-museum work…

Small, while taking substantial time off, earned his full salary —
$915,568 his last year on the job — because he was permitted unlimited
leave. Burke, who also had no restrictions on leave, earned $400,000 in
her last year on the job. The terms of Burke’s employment were known in
most instances only to Small and Burke. Information about Burke’s
outside employment and activities on more than a dozen nonprofit boards
and commissions was not shared with the Board of Regents, the report
found.

Small resigned in March and Burke announced her resignation on Monday on the eve of the independent review report.

The
investigators found that "Mr. Small placed too much emphasis on his
compensation and expenses." Small’s compensation far exceeded that of
prior Smithsonian secretaries — 42 percent higher than his
predecessor’s when he began in 2000 and 250 percent higher when he left
seven years later.

Small "aggressively guarded each and every
element of what he viewed as his rightful compensation package,"
including his $150,000-a-year housing allowance. Small’s contract
stated that the allowance was meant to compensate Small for his use of
his home for job-related entertainment, but the review board determined
that it was "simply additional salary."

The Post article goes on to point out that Small’s exhorbidant salary was justified by his stellar fundraising, but the report actually shows that yearly fundraising had fallen during his tenure and some of the biggest fish he was credited with landing were actually landed by his predecessor.  In other words the guy was an overrated bum, and I’m willing to bet all those members of the Smithsonian Associates program are a bit peeved right about now.

A Travel Agent for $10.95

2 Replies

When we were in France last week we decided that it might be a good idea to stay nearer the airport on Friday night than where we’d been staying the rest of the week.  We had an 11 a.m. flight on Saturday morning so we would have had to leave Champtoce-sur-Loire at about 4 a.m. to make our flight in time.  I tried to get online and book a room near the hotel, but because the online access was so spotty at the chateau I kept getting knocked offline.  That’s when I looked at my original travel itinerary from Travelocity and noticed their 800 service number.

To make a long story short I called Travelocity’s customer service number using the calling card I’d purchased at the airport the day we landed in Paris, got a live operator, told him I needed a room near Charles de Gaulle on Friday night and how many people we needed to sleep. He couldn’t find a single room that would fit all five of us within an 80 mile radius of the airport, but he found a Holiday Inn Express with two rooms available about 5 km from the airport in Roissy.  He was also able to tell me that they were the cheapest rooms in the area and they cost me only slightly more than a single room in the DC area has cost me on my recent business trips.  He booked the rooms for me, gave me my confirmation number and we were done.  It took about ten minutes and cost me a grand total of $10.95 plus whatever their normal fee is on room reservations.

I’ve used Travelocity for years and have never had a problem, and in fact I’ve always been very pleased with their service.  This experience only solidified my positive feelings for their service and at $10.95 I feel like I just got service from the world’s least expensive travel agent.

Driving in Paris and Why I’m Pissed at Wachovia

5 Replies

A week ago Saturday (that would be May 19) we woke our kids, packed the car and headed for PTI.  Our ultimate destination was a place called Chateau du Pin near the small town of Champtoce-sur-Loire in France. Having a checkered history with flights out of PTI I was not at all sure that we would make it to France in less than three days, but thankfully our flight to O’Hare went without a hitch and we made our flight bound for Charles de Gaulle outside of Paris without a problem.  It was when the wheels hit the ground in gay Paree that we started to have an “interesting” trip.

We made our way through customs smoothly and headed to the Hertz counter to pick up our mid-sized family sedan.  All was going swimmingly until they tried to process our credit cards and all were declined.  This was interesting for two reasons: first, all of our bills are paid and with the credit limits on the cards we should have been able to buy the car (not saying we can afford it, just that Wachovia keeps upping the credit limit in an effort to get us to accumulate enough debt so that we’ll stop paying all of our bills in their entirety and thus depriving Wachovia of interest on our debt), and second we had called the bank before we left to let them know that we were going to be in France so that they wouldn’t put a security hold on our transactions.  Because I could only find an 800 number for Wachovia the folks at Hertz couldn’t call them so we trooped off to figure out what to do.

Originally we thought we might take the TGV train out to the chateau and figure things out when we got there, but when we went up the escalator to get back to the terminal and head to the TGV station we found a log jam at the top.  The police were beginning to cordon off the area for some reason and at the same time a small woman speaking Spanish blocked the top of the escalator while she tried to get someone, anyone, to tell her where her gate was.  I started pushing my way through the crowd and Celeste and the boys were right on my tail, but Erin got caught in the crowd.  Eventually a woman was pushed down the escalator, letting out a blood curdling scream as she fell, and at this point Erin started to cry and get a little panicked.  In my infinite wisdom I shouted the following to her: “Hold it together until you get to us!”  How sensitive of me, huh?  Anyway, that seemed to light a fire in her because she made like Larry Czonka and pushed through the crowd to get to us and then collapsed in her mother’s arms while sobbing and cutting me some not-so-nice looks.

So now we’re stuck in between the crowd of folks trying to get away from the police scene and those trying to push their way in the other direction.  This lasted for about 20 minutes until we heard a loud whistle and then an explosion, which we found out was the police blowing up a suspicious package. Once the crowd thinned out a little I told Celeste that I was going to buy a phone card to call the Wachovia 800 number to see if I could get our card situation worked out. I figured it would be easier to do that than to make a two hour train ride and then a cab ride and still be without our car and then have to get the car from a satellite Hertz office in Angers.  (Note to self: invest in a mobile phone with a SIM card before traveling overseas again).

I bought a phone card at the American Express window (20 Euro got me 120 minutes anywhere in the western world), found a pay phone, muddled my way through the French instructions (I don’t speak or read a word of it) and called the 800 number only to find that it had been changed.  Because I’d left my bag with Celeste I didn’t have anything to write on so I had to remember the new number, which wasnt’ easy considering I hadn’t slept on the flight over so we’re talking serious jet-lag and sleep deprivation.  I went through the whole process again and eventually got through to a live human being at Wachovia.  She was very nice, but what she had to say wasn’t.  Here it is (I’m paraphrasing):

Mr. Lowder it seems that our system is down for routine maintenance and as a result all accounts have a $400 credit limit on them at the time.  I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but there’s nothing I can do until the system comes up.

This was bad enough, but the Hertz lady had already tried to rent the car to me for one day in an effort to get me the car and allow me to get to my destination and then get the card issue resolved from there.  That amount was less than $400 I’m sure, so I asked the lady at Wachovia if her records showed that we had called and were going to be in France.  She said that yes her records did show that, so I asked if she could tell me when my cards would be usable.  She said that she was told the system would be up by 7 a.m. eastern time which was 1 p.m. where I was sitting.  I was on the phone with her at 11 a.m. Paris time so that meant I had a two hour wait.  Since I couldn’t think of anything else to do I thanked her and hung up.

I found Celeste and the kids and decided to see if our cards would work.  We got back to the Hertz desk and a new woman was working and she tried my card and miraculously it worked.  I’m now pretty well convinced that Wachovia either screwed up with the whole security thing, or they simply decline your cards to make you call them so that they know for sure it’s you overseas and then flip the switch to approve your usage.  Honestly whether or not the story about the system being down is true they still put me in a bind at a time when I was exhausted and had an exhausted family on my hands.  To say I was (am) irked would be putting it mildly.
PhotoIt gets better.  Unfortunately for us the car we’d reserved was now gone as was the last of their portable GPS units and the only thing left of the size we needed with a built in GPS was a BMW 5-series diesel, which was gonna push the price higher than we wanted to go.  So the lady mentioned that if we dropped the optional insurance then it would cost the same as the Peugeot we’d originally reserved.  Thinking that our insurance is pretty good and covers us for accidents on rentals, and being in a WTF mood thanks to our escapades with the card I just signed the dotted line.  It wasn’t until about a 1/2 hour later as I navigated the A10 outside of Paris that it occured to me that I wasn’t entirely sure our insurance covered collissions outside the US (note to self: check the insurance before going overseas again).

But before we got to the A10 I had one last obstacle to hurdle: I had to figure out how to start the damn car.  You see, I drive a 2001 Saturn and I drive in the state of North Carolina in the good old US of A, which means I’ve not encountered an ignition system that requires you to stick the key fob into it. You know, the thing that has buttons that you push to unlock your door and pop your trunk?  Well in a BMW in Paris you stick the whole damn thing into the slot that normally takes your ignition key and then you push a button on the dash that says “Start”.  I did both things, but it still wouldn’t start so I grabbed a Hertz technician walking buy and asked him to help.  He spoke no English and I spoke no French and so he literally got in the car and put his hand on the brake pedal to indicate that I needed to have my foot on the break when I pushed the “Start” button before it would start. Thankfully I was too tired to be really embarassed and we were off to the races.

When it hit me that maybe my insurance wouldn’t cover me in an accident I started to think that my childrens’ chances of going to college were entirely dependant on my not totalling the car.  Since we were staying in the French boonies it really wasn’t a problem for most of the week we were there, but of course we had to return to Paris and Charles de Gaulle last Saturday to catch our flight home.  We decided to get a room by the airport on Friday night since our flight out of Paris was scheduled for 11 a.m. on Saturday.  We left Friday morning and went to Versailles at the request of our oldest, Michael, before heading to the Holiday Inn Express in Roissy.
PhotoThe drive into Versailles was uneventful, but we didn’t leave until about 5 p.m. to head to the hotel so that meant we were going to be in Paris rush hour on a Friday.  The GPS had us on the highway in no time but before long it informed us of a wreck ahead and re-routed us, and the damn thing sent us through the heart of Paris.  That means I did the roundabout at the Arch de Triomphe at 6 p.m. on Friday and I’m hear to tell you that it is the craziest thing I’ve ever driven through.  It makes Manhattan seem like a sedate drive through the mountains of NC by comparison, and for my friends and family in DC let me tell you that you could combine all the circles in Washington and you wouldn’t come close to this monstrosity.

By some miracle we survived the traffic circle (my son informs me that I was given the French finger several times) and when we got back on the highway we passed an accident involving a motorcycle and my family had the unfortunate opportunity to see the EMTs picking up the body of a dead man to put him on a gurney.  Once past the accident we were starting to make progress towards the airport and the hotel in Roissy when the skies opened up with a deluge that created nice little lakes of water everywhere.  Again thinking of my childrens’ education I started to drive like an 85 year old retiree on a Sunday drive to church.  I swear I could have been passed by a four year old on a bicycle at that point.

Eventually we made it to the hotel and I informed my family that we either were going to eat in the hotel or starve because I didn’t want to go anywhere until we left for the airport the next morning.  All agreed and we had a great, over-priced meal together before going to bed.  The next morning the GPS pulled its first “brain fart” of the week and almost managed to get us lost in the 5 km between Roissy and the airport so we decided to ignore the thing and follow the signs to the airport.  When we pulled into the Hertz rental lot the nice man who greeted us asked if the car had performed adequately and I informed him that it had and gladly handed him the keys.  I loved the car, but I’ve never been happier to get rid of anything in my life.

So here are the lessons I learned:

  1. Never have all of your credit cards through one bank.
  2. Either travel with a mobile phone with a SIM card or make sure you have some form of back-up communications plan in the event of a snafu with your cards.
  3. Live within your means. If you’re not a BMW guy, don’t rent one.  The headaches just aren’t worth it.
  4. BMWs go fast. Really, really fast. It is fun.

BTW, the trip was great and I’m sure I’ll have many posts about it in the near future.  In the meantime you can check out these pics if you want.

We’re all happy to be home and if you see a tall goofy looking guy driving around Winston-Salem in a little blue four-cylinder Saturn and he has a huge grin on his face you’ll probably be able to guess it’s me.

A Tale of Two Cities

Leave a reply

I spent much of last week in New York staying at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square.  Although most of my time was spent in a conference room I can tell you that even when I ventured out to get a late dinner at 11:00 pm on a weeknight I still found myself surrounded by thousands of people.  Cut to last night when Celeste and I went to Charlotte with our friends Bobby and Beth Figuracion to see comedian Brian Regan.  We pretty much had the city to ourselves until right before the show when the few thousand people that could fit in the Belk Theater showed up.  You could roll a bowling ball down Trade Street without fear of hitting an animate object, and this on the final day of a major PGA tournament being held in town. You know a town is sleepy when not even Tiger Woods can wake it up.

New York can make almost any other city in America seem sleepy, but Charlotte is downright somnolent. We got to Charlotte early so we could grab some dinner, but we found most of the restaurants closed and ended up eating at the Champions in the Marriott.  (About the restaurant: on a 1-5 scale I’d rate it a 1.5, but because we were eating with Bobby and Beth it seemed a lot better. Great company forgives a lot doesn’t it?)  I’m sure if we’d kept looking we’d have found some other restaurants open, but I was amazed how many we came across in the immediate vicinity of the theater that weren’t open. We’re talking the heart of downtown, in the midst of all the hotels and they didn’t open their doors at all on Sunday.  ZZZZZZ…..

By the way, Brian Regan puts on a great show, is about as "clean" a comedian as you’re going to find today (i.e. safe for pre-teens and up) and the Belk is a great venue to see a show. 

Running on Empty

Leave a reply

I apologize ahead of time for the whining.  This time of year is usually tough for me because there’s too much work and lots of stuff going on with the kids, like baseball, soccer, tennis and such.  Truth be told this year feels worse than the last few because, truth be told, I’m not getting any younger.  Right now I’m sitting at the computer trying to wind up my day after getting up at 4:45-ish, heading to the airport for a 6:30 flight to DC, heading straight to SCIP‘s (my client’s) office and I’m still here at 8:30 (that’s PM) with another hour of work to do.  I know there are lots of people who have it worse, but I’m telling you my tank’s about dry.

I’m hoping to sleep hard tonight, but I’m one of those people who can’t sleep well in a hotel so I don’t hold out much hope.  The worst part is that this is the first day of an eight day trip.  The last four will be brutal as we put on SCIP’s largest event of the year.  Everyone here will be on the clock from 6:00 a.m. until some time after dark, and everyone in SCIP’s office has had it as bad (actually worse) than I’ve had it for the last few weeks.  I wouldn’t want to be trapped in a closed room with any of us come Wednesday of next week. The upside is that these are a great group of people to work with and I seriously don’t think I’d be doing it if they weren’t. 

BTW, if you’re in New York next week you should drop by the Marriott Marquis and check out the conference, especially if you happen to be in the competitive intelligence business.  It ain’t free, but it’s a great conference.  If you’re not in CI then maybe you can just drop by and check out the elevators in the place; they’re fast and they go way-high (49 floors).

Yep, I’m exhausted because even as I write this I know it’s one of the dumbest, most self serving things I’ve written yet.  I know it’s self serving because I’ve yet to mention what Celeste has to deal with while I’m gone: games that overlap and necessitate scheduling gyrations and begging for carpools, single-handed homework checking, and dealing with two teenagers and one tween for eight days solid.  It’ll be a miracle if I don’t come home to find her in AA.

But, it beats the alternative of unemployment and everything that comes with it.  With that I declare this whine-fest over.  Everyone have a great week.

Travel Tip of the Day for DC

Leave a reply

Here’s a free tip for you.  If you’re traveling to the DC metro area and need to find a place to stay around $100/night but don’t want to stay in a flea-bag motel or 100 miles outside the city then you might consider the Comfort Inn right off the Beltway at the Van Dorn exit.  It is literally right off the exit so you can be on the Beltway in 30 seconds and from there you can be on 395 north to DC in five minutes or to the Wilson Bridge in five minutes (without traffic).  Even better they provide a free shuttle to the Van Dorn Metro Station, which is about a 1/2 mile down the road.  You can also take Eisenhower Avenue into Old Town Alexandria without having to get on the highway. 

As far as amenities go the hotel is nothing fancy, but it’s clean and the rooms don’t smell like an ashtray.  The staff was efficient when I stayed there, and the bed was comfortable.  One problem is that if you’re on the Beltway side you can hear the hum of traffic but it’s easily drowned out by the TV on low volume and really it’s white noise.  All in all it’s an economical place to stay without the inconvenience of being in the hinterlands.

You Can Put Lipstick on a Pig, but…

2 Replies

I had to go up to the DC area for a meeting with a client earlier this week and I stayed at what is now called the Old Town Hotel in Alexandria, VA.  Until the property was recently purchased by Kimpton the Old Town was a Holiday Inn and its location in the heart of Old Town Alexandria made it a hot-spot for tourists.  To say it’s threadbare would be an understatement.

To Kimpton’s credit they’re refurbishing the property, which I noticed as I checked in at the temporary registration desk just outside the elevators on the second floor, but until they’re done this is still one ugly hotel.  They’ve put nice little No Smoking plaques on all the doors, but there’s no mistaking the odor of decades of cigarette smoke permeating the carpet, wallpaper and curtains. There’s also no mistaking that distinctive 80s-era decor in the rooms, but you can tell change is afoot by looking at the sundries.  Lots of Aveda soap, shampoo, creams, etc. are provided.  They’ve also installed cool looking shower heads and funky shower curtains.

The other thing Kimpton has done is drop the room rate back below $200 a night.  I heard from my brother who’s had business associates stay there when they’re in town that right before the sale the Holiday Inn was charging $280-ish a night.  Imagine trying to convince your boss that you really stayed in a Holiday Inn for $280!

All told it’s not a bad deal for Old Town, and if they keep the rates reasonable after the renovations it should be a great place to stay.

Cool NC State Parks Site

Leave a reply

Of the "web 2.0" developments I think that the coolest is the explosion of "mashups" that resulted from companies like Google opening up their API (whatever that is) and letting any Joe Citizen develop a widget or service incorporating its service.  A great example is this mashup of data on North Carolina state parks and Google Maps.  If you click on any of the bubbles it will pop up a window with a weather forecast from Yahoo, a link to pictures tagged with the name of the park on Flickr , and a link to the park’s own website.  Simple, but effective.