.......... but it's better than I remember! And Delta is a pretty good replacement for Continental. Since Ellington Field (one of Houston's 3 airports) closed, flying Continental requires a 1-hour drive to the north side of town, and Bush Intercontinental. Flying Delta, American, or SouthWest involves only a 30 minute trip to Hobby airport.
PajamaGal still flies Continental because she has a shot at retaining Elite status (upgrades and bonus miles), but I think I'm going to switch her to Delta if the HOU-BOS trip is close on $'s.
The Bloody-Marys in the Crown Room aren't to bad. The inter-concourse trains are fast, and the place is impressively clean. I haven't asked for help yet (signs are plentiful and easy to read), but I've gotten several smiling nods from employees as I walked along.
Did I mention the Bloody-Marys?
Boarding my 1st 777 in 10 minutes!
PajamaGuy (b²)
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Atlanta Airport Still Sucks
Monday, April 25, 2005
Mean Media - From MIT's Technology Review
I'm just putting this here so I can reference it. They're from Kerry Country!
--------------------------------------------------
Mean Media By TR Staff and Freelance Writers April 2005
Bloggers like to deride MSM (the mainstream media, in their lingo) for not “getting it.” To avoid some of the sarcasm endemic to the new medium, we declare up front: Technology Review gets it. In fact, we love blogs so much that technologyreview.com is in part a blog site: we publish some of our most popular writers on blogs.
Thirty-two million Americans read blogs in 2004, according to the Pew Research Center. That is because blogs have great powers: they can spread the ideas of individuals faster, farther, and more cheaply than anything seen before. At their best, blogs are subversive, provocative, and fearless. Most fascinatingly, the ideas proposed on blogs have some of the characteristics of commodities in a free market. New postings are quickly valued by the blogosphere’s economy: reliably stupid bloggers are not linked to by their peers, and no one visits their websites.
Blogging is good for commerce. Corporations like Sun Microsystems are discovering that blogging’s transparency can help them reach customers in new ways. More than 1,000 of Sun’s 32,000 employees—including the company president—write public blogs, many of which freely divulge the latest news about Sun projects. As our case study “Sun Microsystems: Blog Heaven” (p. 38) reports, Sun’s executives have learned that bloggers connect with customers on a more authentic and human level than any marketing or public-relations expert.
Blogging is good for the media, too. Political bloggers sometimes describe their movement as a kind of insurgency against MSM, and the emergence of a new cloud of media critics is, in fact, a welcome development. Various business and social pressures have made it harder for many journalists to report the news objectively. Bloggers can quickly call traditional journalists to task for their errors and biases.So much for the good. But blogs also have the power to focus writers’ ire in ways that can destroy their targets.
Recently, we’ve seen the blogosphere’s vindictive side. Conservative bloggers, offended by what they see as the arrogance and liberal bias of MSM, have hounded two prominent newsmen from their jobs. First, bloggers hastened the retirement of CBS news anchor Dan Rather for his preëlection coverage of what turned out to be dubious memos relating to President Bush’s national-guard service. Then, in February, CNN’s chief news executive, Eason Jordan, resigned “to prevent CNN from being unfairly tarnished” by bloggers’ outrage at an incautious remark Eason made at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland (see “Letter from Davos,” p. 78).
This relentlessness is in no way limited to conservative bloggers. In February, reporter Jeff Gannon was barred from attending White House press conferences after liberal bloggers picked up on a question Gannon asked President Bush in which he took a swing at Senate Democrats. The bloggers revealed Gannon’s real name (James Dale Guckert) and that he had obtained press credentials as a representative of Talon News, a website sharing an owner with the conservative activist organization GOPUSA—not the kind of independent news organizations usually extended White House press privileges. While Gannon hardly had the stature of Rather or Jordan, the episode was a reminder that bloodthirsty bloggers can be found on both sides of the nation’s political divide.
Perhaps all three men deserved their fates; maybe the blogosphere is to be applauded. But in each case, bloggers expressed an unseemly triumph after they got their man. It’s hard to feel happy when bloggers turn into a digital mob. Blogs are powerful, but bloggers are rewarded for expressing extravagant opinions. And at least for now, their postings are not subject to the processes common for most stories produced by MSM: sober debate among colleagues, followed by reporting, line editing, copyediting, legal vetting, and fact checking.
Blogging and the Internet must be credited for transforming the lofty castle of publishing into something like a public utility. But blogs can also be destructive and unaccountable. Readers would do best to enjoy blogs for what they are—reactive, unmediated, immediate opinion—and not mistake them for journalism.
Mean Media By TR Staff and Freelance Writers April 2005
Bloggers like to deride MSM (the mainstream media, in their lingo) for not “getting it.” To avoid some of the sarcasm endemic to the new medium, we declare up front: Technology Review gets it. In fact, we love blogs so much that technologyreview.com is in part a blog site: we publish some of our most popular writers on blogs.
Thirty-two million Americans read blogs in 2004, according to the Pew Research Center. That is because blogs have great powers: they can spread the ideas of individuals faster, farther, and more cheaply than anything seen before. At their best, blogs are subversive, provocative, and fearless. Most fascinatingly, the ideas proposed on blogs have some of the characteristics of commodities in a free market. New postings are quickly valued by the blogosphere’s economy: reliably stupid bloggers are not linked to by their peers, and no one visits their websites.
Blogging is good for commerce. Corporations like Sun Microsystems are discovering that blogging’s transparency can help them reach customers in new ways. More than 1,000 of Sun’s 32,000 employees—including the company president—write public blogs, many of which freely divulge the latest news about Sun projects. As our case study “Sun Microsystems: Blog Heaven” (p. 38) reports, Sun’s executives have learned that bloggers connect with customers on a more authentic and human level than any marketing or public-relations expert.
Blogging is good for the media, too. Political bloggers sometimes describe their movement as a kind of insurgency against MSM, and the emergence of a new cloud of media critics is, in fact, a welcome development. Various business and social pressures have made it harder for many journalists to report the news objectively. Bloggers can quickly call traditional journalists to task for their errors and biases.So much for the good. But blogs also have the power to focus writers’ ire in ways that can destroy their targets.
Recently, we’ve seen the blogosphere’s vindictive side. Conservative bloggers, offended by what they see as the arrogance and liberal bias of MSM, have hounded two prominent newsmen from their jobs. First, bloggers hastened the retirement of CBS news anchor Dan Rather for his preëlection coverage of what turned out to be dubious memos relating to President Bush’s national-guard service. Then, in February, CNN’s chief news executive, Eason Jordan, resigned “to prevent CNN from being unfairly tarnished” by bloggers’ outrage at an incautious remark Eason made at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland (see “Letter from Davos,” p. 78).
This relentlessness is in no way limited to conservative bloggers. In February, reporter Jeff Gannon was barred from attending White House press conferences after liberal bloggers picked up on a question Gannon asked President Bush in which he took a swing at Senate Democrats. The bloggers revealed Gannon’s real name (James Dale Guckert) and that he had obtained press credentials as a representative of Talon News, a website sharing an owner with the conservative activist organization GOPUSA—not the kind of independent news organizations usually extended White House press privileges. While Gannon hardly had the stature of Rather or Jordan, the episode was a reminder that bloodthirsty bloggers can be found on both sides of the nation’s political divide.
Perhaps all three men deserved their fates; maybe the blogosphere is to be applauded. But in each case, bloggers expressed an unseemly triumph after they got their man. It’s hard to feel happy when bloggers turn into a digital mob. Blogs are powerful, but bloggers are rewarded for expressing extravagant opinions. And at least for now, their postings are not subject to the processes common for most stories produced by MSM: sober debate among colleagues, followed by reporting, line editing, copyediting, legal vetting, and fact checking.
Blogging and the Internet must be credited for transforming the lofty castle of publishing into something like a public utility. But blogs can also be destructive and unaccountable. Readers would do best to enjoy blogs for what they are—reactive, unmediated, immediate opinion—and not mistake them for journalism.
Saturday, April 23, 2005
David's Bridal - Again
So her dress came in an she had it pinned yesterday. All last evening and even at 1:00 this morning, she's now "just sure" that they pinned the bodice too tight and should have shortened the hem "just a tad".
I let her sleep-in this morning, timing our grocery excursion to end just as David's opens. We're waiting for "the right person" to re-pin her dress. I hope the Carb-Smart ice cream sandwiches (Bryers, 5 carbs ea.) don't melt!
PajamaGuy (b²)
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
32,000,000 Blog Readers!
Pew Research Center states that thirty-two million AMERICANS read blogs in 2004.
Check out MIT's Technology Review for April 2005 - page 17 - "Blogs - Mean Media"
PajamaGuy (b²)
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Sandy Berger's Crime
Martha Stewart went to jail for lying to federal investigators. But for lying after stealing highly classified documents from the National Archives -- in an apparent attempt to alter the historical record on terrorism, no less -- former Clinton national security adviser and Kerry campaign adviser Sandy Berger will get a small fine and slap on the wrist.
He will pay $10,000 and get no jail time.
His security clearance will be suspended until around the end of the Bush administration -- meaningless for a career Democrat like Mr. Berger. It makes us wonder who at the Department of Justice is responsible for letting such a serious offense go virtually unpunished.