Sitting Idle Costs Money or in this Case Drivers Too!

It makes sense. If you sit parked with the engine running, you burn gas. If you drive around aimlessly content, you burn gas. In this case, the San Francisco Cab Drivers Association was caught with their tanks on empty. Some people call this disruption but I call it laziness, content, sitting fat, dumb and happy or reactive and definitely not proactive.

The San Francisco Cab Drivers Association (SFCDA), an association for registered taxi drivers that promotes fair working conditions and business practice, reports that one-third of the 8,500 or so taxi drivers in San Francisco – over 2,800 – have ditched driving a registered cab in the last 12 months to drive for a private transportation startup like Uber, Lyft or Sidecar instead.

New Flight Time Duty and You, The Flying Public

Come this January 4th, your commercial airline pilot operating under Part 121, me, will be flying under newly implemented rest rules. Created two years ago and finally being put into play, these rest rules allow for a STRICT, non reducible, 10 hrs of rest with a mandatory 8 hrs for sleep opportunity. With today's rules, I sometimes can find myself down to 6 from a given overnight time of 8 hrs and that's a good night. Unfortunately, there have been less in rare instances but I never deemed myself unfit to fly. Have I called out fatigued before, yes. I wrote a small PDF document that I included in a post over four years ago and if you never checked it out, here the link again. I also did a "Part 2" which you should check out as well.

But anyways, here's a great post of how it'll affect you, the flying public. Who knows how it'll really play out, but airlines have been gearing up for this in the last few months. Some have even said that it could cost them more than $25 million annually!

So what does this mean to you? Well, don't go and travel on bad weather days especially in the afternoon. Fly in the mornings. In the afternoon or night on bad weather days at large airports, there will be flight crews all timed out being sent to hotels at airports they weren't supposed to be at in the first place and planes and passengers stuck there until morning or until they get another crew in place.

Here's a link to the actual new FAA Final Rule and ALPA comparative literature on the difference between the current and pending rest rules.

The One Card in your Wallet Should be Coin

Trying to slim your wallet down? Check out the latest and greatest that gives you access to ALL your cards with one truly amazing piece of plastic! Introducing Coin. Watch this video and be amazed! Use this link and order now! http://youtu.be/w9Sx34swEG0

Greg Laswell for Under 10,000 feet

Since all the hoopla with the ability to now listen, play, and read your iPad, iPhone, Kindle or any other portable electronic device, I've been turning my ear to musician and artist Greg Laswell. Just last night, a friend of mine upped his stock and recommended that I buy ALL his albums. I figured that I'd do the same and pass it along, with this post. We'll call this the beginning of Thursday Tunes. Download Three Flights from Alto Nido to start. You might have heard of him already as his most popular track, Comes and Goes (In Waves), and a few others have been featured in various television shows. A rather popular track "Off I Go" from Take a Bow, will hit all you Grey's Anatomy fans as the theme for when George O'Malley leaves at the end of season 5. tear

The music is perfect and so soo good but while we're at it, it's also about supporting a native San Diegan!

Forcing Technology on Pilots

A company looking for a "good" deal implements a technology that's unproven and has been lacking in support. I wonder how much money is really involved in this deal. I know that the pilots aren't too thrilled that the company wants to reinvent the wheel.

"In less than two years, Delta cockpits will be paperless as we roll-out the Microsoft Surface 2 tablet running Windows 8.1 RT as our company-issued device," the airline alerted its employees recently. "The 757/767 fleet will be the first to make the transition with the 777, 747 and MD88 as fast followers. Look for an announcement from Delta and Microsoft in the coming days about our partnership on the initiative."

via Windows IT Pro

One Big Chair

My wife and I headed out to Balboa Park for Free Tuesdays and went to the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center. Norah had a lot of fun playing around and meeting other kids. It's definitely a great family trip. Next Tuesday, the Museum of Photographic Arts (MOPA) is going to be free so you can expect us to take advantage of that! Oh yea, football is back in a big way especially after Peyton's performance last night. Our Chargers' secondary better be ready! Norah's sure ready for for Rivers' to throw some TDs!

San Diego and Attractive People

San Diego in another top ten. This time its for "Most Attractive" and I'll take the number two ranking. Miami is number one but I won't start an argument here. If you know me, you already know how I feel about the city. Of course, there's always the beach which just adds to the awesomeness!

http://instagram.com/p/cphVGeu4bg/

Tastemade-ing on Anniversary at Underbelly

Adelle and I decided to keep it fancy but simple. She knew that I loved ramen so we headed down to Little Italy to enjoy Underbelly. While there, I decided that we could make a quick Tastemade video. It's the first of many and we're just learning the trade. Check it out!

Coffee in San Diego

It's exciting when San Diego makes it into the top ten of anything and this time my beautiful home town squeaked into the top ten best coffee cities in America.  This of course comes without surprise that the Travel and Leisure article mentions Bird Rock Coffee Roasters.

While you're here, I also wanted to add Dark Horse Coffee Roasters to the mix.  Just a few days ago, I was able to take a trip down to Daniel's lovely shop where he was roasting on site.  Let me tell you, the smell was intoxicating!  I ordered a satisfying cold brew which was steeped 24 hours in a Toddy.  If I didn't come off a mile walk, I would have easily gone for a hot cup where they use a Bee House Coffee Drip for their pour overs.  Come check it out and grab a cup!

via Travel And Leisure

Cheap Tickets, Airline Tickets

Yes you read the title right. airline tickets are cheaper than ever before.  We might feel like we are paying more these days and complain about the cheap, no-frills experience but what do you want and how much are you willing to pay for it?  Bottom line is this: tickets are on the rise, pilot pay is at an all time low with some companies asking for more concessions and the airplanes have never been this full.  Can the ticket prices get any higher?

Unfortunately, maybe.  Even my buddy passes have either disappeared or are impossible to use because of the high load factors.

In 1974, it was illegal for an airline to charge less than $1,442 in inflation-adjusted dollars for a flight between New York City and Los Angeles. On Kayak, just now, I found one for $278.

via The Atlantic: How Airline Ticket Prices Fell 50% in 30 Years (and Why Nobody Noticed)

A Tumbler to Rule Them All

If you travel as much as I do, or find yourself commuting for long periods of time, hang on to your Contigo Travel Mug!  As long as you don't forget yours in the plane, you'll be happy with the Contigo 20oz Travel Mug a.k.a. Best Coffee Tumbler EVER.  It's a pure winner.  It's 100% leak proof and the kicker stats are that the vacuum insulated double wall stainless steel keeps beverages hot for 6 hours and cold for 18 hours! It kept my coffee scalding hot for so long that I had to keep the lid open for over 30 minutes just so I could sip the darn thing!  I highly recommend the 20oz version as it can hold a full can of soda with ice or a vent coffee.  If you're wondering how it tests for cold beverages, I've tested it through and through and was able to reuse the ice for multiple can refills of Mug Root Beer for a couple of hours as it seemed to never melt.

contigo20oz.jpg

Ideally, it's a tremendous coffee cup or coffee tumbler.  Just hit up your local drip and filler up!  In case you're wondering, I'm referring to Bird Rock Coffee Roasters!

Update: In 2013, I went through two Contigo Coffee Tumblers and one Zojirushi.  I left them all in airplanes and have only gotten one back to yet leave it in another aircraft.  I just bought another one today, February 1, 2014 and chose to go with Contigo as I wanted to actually be able to drink out of the tumbler within the first hour. The Zojirushi on the other hand, keeps your beverage scalding hot for over 2 hours so it's best for transporting and only enjoying a poured cup of coffee only in my opinion.

Bringing Norah to Disneyland

Bringing an infant to Disneyland proved to be quite a feat. Fortunately a Ms. Erin Foster from touringplans.com, put together a complete guide linked here.Basically, ANY ride that has a "Child must meet this height requirement" limitation is off limits. Other than that, it's a free for all. Smallworld all day long baby!

My 2012 iPad Story (updated)

Last Wednesday I was working during the event but throughout the day, I followed the news through gdgt's awesome feed. Eager as always, I wanted to know when (Mar 16th), what the specifications were and if I should do Wifi only or add 4G cellular capability. After a 20 hour day, I arrived home and my wife and I made our pre-order. It would my wife's delayed Christmas gift to me.  I told her that I chose a Black 32GB Wifi-4G version.  Surprisingly, she asked why I didn't get 64GB and I told her that I didn't want to spend her money but I also didn't want to change it just in case I lost my spot. The last detail in the order was that I wanted to do a store pickup in Miami (I live in San Diego) because that's where I'd be the morning of iPad Day. You see, there's a bunch of us in Miami celebrating one of my best friend's Match Day. It's a time to celebrate right? I swear it was the longest week and half of waiting. I skipped the iPad 2 after selling my iPad 1 prematurely and this was it. I woke up, dropped of my friend at his breakfast ceremony and proceed to Lincoln Road Apple Store. I found some easy parking, arrived at the store and got right in. The sales representative was more than helpful and the whole process was one of the best purchasing experiences I ever had. Interaction and everything, A++. My order was easily modified exchanging my previous pre-order to the Black 64GB Wifi+4G Verizon LTE (with the wife's permission) and I even added a Black 16GB Wifi-4G Verizon LTE for my loving wife as a surprise AND an Apple TV for the Match Day celebrant. It was to be his gift for finishing an awesome 4 years at the University of Miami Medical School.

I checked out while making a new friend, grabbed a Cuban coffee + 8 guava pastilitos and even gave my 2 hour parking ticket to a guy who parked in front of me who was looking for his wallet. Paying it forward right? I'm in a GREAT mood!

I received a request from my wife to buy some Tylenol and on the way to the pharmacy, I passed multiple gas stations but ultimately made the decision to go to a CVS. It took almost 15 minutes to find parking, and the machine also didn't want to spit out my ticket after inserting $1.00 cash. I used my credit card and ran into CVS. I bought two bottles of Tylenol (buy one get one free) and picked up some Visine too.

I got back to the car, started the engine, and curiously turned around because I was hearing the car's exhaust louder than normal. Low and behold, both iPads and the Apple TV were stolen! Not even my friend's brand new Macy's Long Sleeve Shirt was grabbed or anything else but the Apple bag full of the latest goodness.

I called 911, they directed me to a local police station, they came, wrote up the report, which I have to pay $1 for a copy in 10 days, and took off. Someone was going to come and take fingerprints but it started raining so they canceled that. All this was happening around 10:30am off of 3rd and Biscayne in Miami. I needed to be at the Match Ceremony by 11:45am. Now my friends' Toyota Tacoma has a broken rear passenger window ($150 part + $100 labor) and I have no iPads or Apple TV to give him.

The emotions that I'm feeling: Hate, forgiveness, frustration, stupidity...I really don't know what to do. I can't afford to buy all that again and the saddest part is that my wife doesn't feel like having one now. That's what makes me cry. In the end, it was about her joy, my friend's joy and now I'm nowhere but in $1900 in debt w/ nothing to play with.

64GB // DLXH96K5DNQV 16GB // LXH60L7DNQR aTV // DY5HC843DRHN

Answering some questions:

1. Yes the bag was covered
2. There was a Macy's bag that was exposed with a long sleeve dress shirt that was left behind
3. I live in San Diego and it's my own ignorance perhaps that I feel safe
4. Visa Signature will NOT cover stolen items in an automobile
5. GEICO will NOT covert stolen personal items in a vehicle
6. The perpetrators only stole the Apple Bag
7. The police are saying that I might have been followed or targeted
8. My wife's NEEDS comes first so the Tylenol was necessary before coming home but maybe I could have dropped the items off first?