Photo of the Day (12.11.08)

by Kent Wien on

I just love today’s photo of the day, taken in Pauwela, Hawaii by rkzerok.

Being in the right place at the right time is half the battle for good photographers, and this shot demonstrates that reasoning.

Maybe a little Boogie Boarding is just what I’m craving as we’re getting hit in the Northeast with a winter storm. Well, maybe not. I don’t have enough hair to stand up like that anyway.

Nice shot, rkzerok!

Are you a Flickr user who’d like to share a travel related picture or two for our consideration? Submit it to Gadling’s Flickr group right now! We just might use it for our Photo of the Day!

JAL’s CEO takes bus to work and eats at the cafeteria (even when the press aren’t following him)

by Josh Lew on

Every couple of days here in Minneapolis, Northwest CEO Doug Steenland is on the television telling the thousands on Northwest employees living in the Twin Cities not to worry about losing their jobs after the merger with Delta is completed. Judging by the number of strikes and employee complaints NW has experienced over the past few years, I’d say no one takes him too seriously. If you you headed a company that performed so poorly and you still made Steenland’s salary (before perks), you wouldn’t be worried about anything or anyone.

Perhaps top execs at US airlines could learn something from JAL CEO Haruka Nishimatsu. After major lay-offs three years ago, Nishimatsu cut all his perks and then slashed his salary. In 2007, he made $90,000. A tidy sum, but much less than many of JAL’s pilots make. He takes public transit to work and eats lunch next to the plebes in the cafeteria.

Perhaps you could chalk up Nishimatsu’s approach to cultural differences between the US and Japan. But his explanation of the rational behind cutting his own perks and salary makes perfect sense to me.

“We in Japan learned during the bubble economy that businesses who pursue money first fail. The business world has lost sight of this basic tenet of business ethics.”

Is this ethical approach working? JAL is faring reasonably well. Compared to US airlines, it is quite successful. So you can be ethical and successful? Amazing.

Be broke now and in the future by trading stocks for vacations

by Mike Barish on

Suppose you want to go on vacation but you also want to be able to pay your bills. What do you do? Well, you could mortgage your financial future by paying for your trip with stocks that you own. I’m not suggesting cashing out your stocks, making yourself liquid and then purchasing the trip. I mean actually paying for your vacation with stocks. Nonsense? Well, according to a New York Times article, one tropical resort chain will allow you to do just that.

Elite Island Resorts, a chain of luxury hotels with locations throughout the Caribbean, will accept payments in stock for vacations booked by January 31, 2008. And the really interesting part? They’ll value the stock at its July 1, 2008 closing price. Since that’s before the market went further south than Elite Island Resorts’ locations, you do stand to gain in the short-term if you elect to take them up on their offer.

Now, before you go ahead and call your broker, keep in mind that these are luxury resorts, so you’ll need to trade in more than one share of your worthless Citigroup stock. And they cap the amount of stock value that you can use at $5,000. They selected close to 100 applicable stocks for the promotion and feature some major names whose stock prices should, hopefully, bounce back in the future. That said, when they do increase again, would you rather have those in your portfolio or some vacation photos on your mantle?

So how much is a sanity break worth to you? Your kid’s college fund? Your ability to afford renewing your magazine subscriptions? Because you may want to consider hanging onto those stocks and being the one that reaps the benefits of an economic upswing rather than letting some luxury hotel chain increase their net worth.

As for me, I prefer to stay liquid. All of my money is tied up in whiskey.

Your ticket was expensive and your plane crowded, but at least you took off on time

by Josh Lew on

Is there an upside to the fact that the airline industry is struggling? Perhaps you can feel smug knowing that the CEOs of legacy carriers will probably be taking home six-figure bonuses this year, instead of the usual seven or eight digit haul (“Ha, greedy bastards finally got what they deserve,” you might say to yourself).

But all you smiling, glass-half-full folks out there can take comfort in this: airlines have the highest on-time percentages they’ve had in a long, long time. According to USAToday, 86% of all flights were on time during the month of October. That is compared to 78% during the same month of 2007.

A plane is considered on time if it reaches its destination within 15 minutes of its scheduled arrival time. I assume they mean less than 15 minutes later than scheduled; although I’m sure there is the odd person out there who might be put off by arriving 15 minutes early.

So look on the bright side of air travel. You may have to spend more for your ticket and your plane is bound to be crowded and, perhaps, noisy. But at least you have a good chance of getting where you are going on time.

Daily deal – Panasonic iPod Bluetooth wireless headphones for $25

by Scott Carmichael on

My daily deal for today is great if you hate wires.

The Panasonic RP-BT10 iPod Bluetooth headphones allow you to listen to music on your iPod using the included wireless transmitter and Bluetooth headphones/remote.

Cutting the wires from your iPod is actually smarter than you think; it allows you to store your iPod out of sight, and without showing off your player, you might reduce the risk of someone attempting to steal it.

The RP-BT10 package includes the iPod Bluetooth transmitter, a Bluetooth receiver/remote, Panasonic in-ear headphones and a USB/AC charger.

The Bluetooth transmitter works on all dock-connector iPod models, but not on the iPod Touch or the iPhone. The music is transmitted using Stereo Bluetooth, so it will sound as close to the original audio as possible.

The Bluetooth receiver has a regular headphone jack, so if you already have better headphones, you can simply plug those into it.

This package usually retails for about $120, but you can pick up a set through buy.com for just $24.99, with free shipping included.