Galley Gossip: The top five Skymall gifts for the frequent flier

by Heather Poole on

Wearing your stealth secret sound amplifier, you board the flight (finally!), stow the bag in the overhead bin directly above your seat (YES!), stash the reading material and the bottle of water in the seat-back pocket in front of you (you did remember the bottle of water, didn’t you?) and breathe a sigh of relief because miracle upon miracles, there is no one seated in the seat beside you. Smiling, you think to yourself that this flight might not be so bad afterall. But then, you begin to feel anxious, as a long line of passengers slowly begin filing past your seat. While you hold your breath, chanting to yourself, please don’t sit by me, please don’t sit by me, you are unable to concentrate on the bug vacuum pictured in the Skymall magazine that your fingers are now flipping through, as you continue chanting, please don’t sit by me, please don’t sit by me, please don’t sit by me.

Ross Wolinsky wrote on Cracked.com about the 5 most ridiculous things to buy in the Skymall catalog (and Jamie later wrote about here on Gadling), which forced me to ask the question: are the items offered for sale inside the catalog really all that ridiculous…or are they just plain genius? One of the “ridiculous” things Wolinsky wrote about didn’t seem all that ridiculous to me. I mean what’s so ridiculous about the stealth secret sound amplifier? Personally, I find it to be intriguing. And I wonder, does it really work? Because if it does, I wouldn’t mind owning one. And if you owned one, too, you could sit in your uncomfortable seat in coach and focus on all the racy things being said behind the closed curtain in the back galley, instead of on the seatmate who, right before the aircraft door was shut, plopped down in the seat beside you. Thirsty? You can ask me for a Coke without ever having to ring your call light, or leave your seat, and I’d be able to ask you if you’d like ice with that Coke, and we’d all be happy. Like the good ole days.

When I told The Husband I had planned on writing something about Skymall, he laughed, shook his head, and said, “That catalog is ridiculous.”

What The Husband doesn’t know is that his red Jumpin Jammerz, a pair of giant footy pajamas, came from the Skymall catalog. So when I think of the word ridiculous, it’s not Skymall that I think of, it’s the sight of The Husband on Christmas morning running around the house chasing after a two-year old who just so happened to be wearing the exact same thing. Ridiculous…or adorable? You decide.

Personally, I have found a lot of great things in the Skymall catalog. Take for instance the bark free dog barking control machine. Man, I’d like one of those when the neighbor goes out of town and leaves the howling Beagle behind. (How much was that thing again?) Or how about the upside down tomato garden? When you live in LA (or NY) and you don’t have a whole lot of grass in the backyard, because you don’t even have a backyard, this is the item for you. Or was it me? And did you happen to see the litter robot, which keeps the kitty litter clean while you’re out of town? Let me tell you, my cat Gatsby would absolutely love that! And the kid, he’s got his eye on the fold out basketball game. That picture actually kept the two year old aspiring hoop star quiet in his seat on a flight from Los Angeles to New York for a good twenty minutes, as he pointed and smiled and said “Basketball,” over and over and over, allowing me to close my eyes, lean my head back against the seat for a stress free twenty minutes. I mean if the catalog can keep The Kid quiet for any length of time, Skymall, in my book, rates genius, not ridiculous.

Looking to buy a gift for that frequent flier in your life? Here are my top five Skymall gifts for the frequent flier:

1. LED lighted reading glasses: Why? Because you’re on a red eye flight sitting in a middle seat in coach and GREAT, JUST GREAT! The flight is full and the reading light above your seat doesn’t work. FIGURES! You’ve got twenty pages left to go in a really great book and you’re dying to find out what happens at the end. Man oh man, you are never going to fly this airline again. Now don’t you wish you had those LED lighted reading glasses?

2. Gripmaster – Because you’re still in that middle seat, and the flight attendant wasn’t able to fix the dang light, and now the two idiots on either side of you are hogging the armrests. Not to mention you’ve already seen the in-flight movie and the flight attendant, the one who didn’t have a spare light bulb in her apron pocket, ran out of food AND Club soda before she even reached your row. Not only are you never going to fly this airline again, you’re going to write a letter! Well never fear, the gripmaster is here! So now you can stop grinding your teeth and transfer all that anger away from the paper, the one the flight attendant didn’t have to give you!

3. Stress relief wrist band – Nothing has changed, in fact, the flight has just gotten worse, because now the two idiot seatmates hogging the armrests are snoring, and one of them is actually resting his big ole head on your shoulder. You ring the call light – again – and summon the flight attendant – again – who, after dealing with you several times already, is now wearing some sort of strange device on her wrist. Be nice and she may just let you borrow her stress relief wrist band.

4. Skyrest travel pillow – That’s it! Now the kid in front of you won’t stop crying! And you need to get some sleep because tomorrow you have a big presentation. You rip the stress relief band off your wrist, chuck it over the seat in front of you, climb over your snoring seatmate, knocking his elbow off the armrest, and stomp back to the galley where the flight attendants are hiding behind a closed curtain. Snapping back the curtain, you glare at the flight attendants, who don’t even see you glaring because…what the! They’re fast asleep on the jumpseat! With a skymall magazine in one hand, gripmaster in the other open hand, LED eyeglasses resting on the bridge of their nose, stress relief wristbands wrapped around both wrists AND ankles, snoring away like your two seatmates with their heads resting oh so gently on a cushy Skyrest Travel pillow. What kind of freakin airline is this! You rip the dang pillow away from one of the lazy flight attendants and stomp back to your awful seat.

5. Travel toothbrush sanitizer – You awake from a horrid dream about a miserable flight and stumble into the bathroom. After you splash cold water on your face, you reach for your toothbrush that has just been sanitized by your travel toothbrush sanitizer. Because there should be at least one sanitary thing in your disgusting hotel room. I mean your entire trip doesn’t have to be a bust, does it?

Ridiculous…you tell me.

Talking Travel with Richard Florida, author of Who’s Your City?

by Aaron Hotfelder on

How did you decide where you’d call home for your adult life? If you’re like most people, the decision wasn’t much of a decision at all. Chances are, you found yourself in a particular place through a combination of career inertia and personal attachments.

It seems that not many people give a whole lot of thought to the question of where exactly they’re going to spend most of their lives. But economist, author, and Colbert Report guest Richard Florida argues in his new book, Who’s Your City, that this is one of the most important and underrated decisions people will ever make.

Recently, I interviewed Prof. Florida about this thought-provoking idea, and he explained why the choice of where to live is more important than ever, why it’s a decision so often overlooked, and how to find the perfect city for you.

AH: People take great pains in considering what careers to pursue and whom to marry, but little thought is given to where they will spend the bulk of their lives. Why is that?

RF: When making life decisions, we have always thought of two questions: the “what” and the “who.” What will I do (i.e. job, career path, educational training), and “who” will I do it with (i.e. life partner, friends, etc.) Without question, both of those decisions – the “what” and the “who”– mean a great deal to our lives. But there is another decision that has an equal, if not greater, effect on our economic future, happiness, and overall life outcome. The question of “where.”

Finding the right place is as important as- if not more important than- finding the right job or partner because it not only influences those choices but also determines how easy or hard it will be to correct mistakes made along the way. Still, few of us actually look at a place that way. Perhaps it’s because this seems so obvious that people overlook it or, most likely, so few of us have the understanding or mental framework necessary to make informed choices about our location. In Who’s Your City, I provide my readers with a guide for making their place decisions the most successful they can be.

AH: In your new book, you write that, rather than technology “flattening” the earth, the world is actually becoming “spiky.” If technology essentially allows people to work from anywhere, why do you claim that the choice of where to live is now more important than ever?

RF: The place we choose to live is the most important decision we ever make, largely because it influences and shapes all the others: from job opportunities and career options to our investments, the friends we make, the people we date, the mates we ultimately choose and the way we raise our families. Place remains the central axis of our time-more important to the world economy and our individual lives than ever before.

AH: What are the best ways to discover whether I’ll enjoy living somewhere before I actually move there? Just visit and walk around?

RF: The thing to remember is that when it comes to place, like most other important things in life, we can’t have it all. There are real tradeoffs to be made. Many, if not most, people who move for their careers will give up the joy of being near family and lifelong friends. Those of us who choose to stay close to family and friends may give up economic opportunity. It’s important to determine what’s important to you and your lifestyle.

When making a place decision, here are a few steps to think about –

1. Get your priorities straight – determine what’s important to you and your lifestyle.

2. Generate a short list – which places fit your needs and wants? Think about using a place calculator.

3. We have one at www.whosyourcity.com

4. Do your homework – how’s the job market? What’s the public sentiment in newspapers? Talk with people from city.

5. Evaluate – what do your places offer you? Good access to jobs (if that’s important to you) or top-notch quality of life (i.e. access to arts, outdoors, public transportation)

6. Check the basics – does your place offer the basic health and safety, education, and housing needs?

7. Check values. Do the values of place match yours?

8. Tally up – How did your short list stack up against each other?

9. Go visit the places. Talk to people on the streets.

AH: By and large, people make their lives in the towns in which they were raised. Most people don’t move, even when they’d rather be living somewhere else. Is this because people have a sense they’ll be abandoning their friends and family, a bias towards the status quo, both?

RF: You have to think of this question through an additional dimension of socioeconomic class that I outline in Who’s Your City – the “mobile” and the “rooted.” The “mobile” possess the means, resources, and inclination to seek out and move to locations where they can leverage their talents. They are not necessarily born mobile, nor are they inevitably rich. What the mobile understand is that the pursuit of economic opportunity often requires them to move.

A far greater number constitute the rooted-people who are tied to place. Some, of course, have the good fortune to be rooted in places with thriving economies and optimistic futures.

But many others are essentially trapped in areas with limited resources, moribund economies, and declining financial opportunities. Of course, many are born poor and do not possess the resources to move. But not all of those who are rooted are stuck because of economic circumstance. Many people with the means to move choose to stay rooted. Sometimes they are satisfied with the lives they lead, even if they know they could potentially do better elsewhere. This isn’t always a bad thing; research indicates that being near to family and friends and seeing them regularly can increase our well-being and happiness.

AH: You write that the world is not flat, but that it is flat and spiky at the same time. Can you explain what you mean by that?

RF: Economic activity is concentrating in a select group of mega-regions, which are new and incredibly powerful economic units. A mega-region is an area that hosts business and economic activity on a large scale, generating a lion’s share of the world’s economic activity and an even larger share of the world’s innovation and technological discoveries. Worldwide there are just 40 significant mega regions, which are home to 1/5 of the world’s population, 2/3’s of the global economic output and 85% of all worldwide innovation.

Comparatively to each other, these regions are relatively flat – competing with each other for technology and a higher state in the global economy. However, the gap between the mega regions and the rest of the world is extremely spiky.

AH: Why are people migrating to these spiky regions?

RF: Because megas are the driving forces of the global economy, talented people are flocking to these areas. As the creative economy continues to drive forward, we are going to see an even greater concentration of creative talented. Regions and communities that want to compete for talented workers will have to provide a community that has all the features of a complete, authentic community – a good job market/ economy, thick amenities (restaurants, arts, parks, etc.), safe neighborhoods, viable public transportation or connectivity, etc. More than ever before, creative types the ability to choose a community where they want to live and region’s must understand that if they want to be competitive in the global battle for talent.

To see Richard chatting with fellow Gadling interviewee Will Wilkinson, go here. Buy Richard’s book here, or read an excerpt here.

Oktoberfest in Munich: Read about it…in March?

by Jeffrey White on

Anyone who has experienced Munich’s famed Oktoberfest knows one truth about the world’s biggest beer binge above all else: It’s damn hard to get into one of those tents on the Theresienwiese.

My brother and I tried a few years ago, standing in the rain in several endless lines for nearly two hours, thirsty, with my brother turning to me and finally asking a question probably not often uttered in late September in Munich: “What do you have to do to get a beer at Oktoberfest?”

Ah, memories. They came rushing back as I clicked into a Der Spiegel story on Oktoberfest Inc. that was pimped on the World page of the New York Times online. The Times for a while now has had a content sharing agreement with Spiegel, Germany’s most respected news magazine (which is trying to make inroads in the U.S. by publishing a very solid online edition in English).

The story recounts what a big, billion dollar business Oktoberfest has become, with more than 6.5 million visitors a year getting sloshed and doing stupid things (my brother stole a bike). It’s a really interesting, behind the scene look at what it takes to put the event on (one tent owner pays €2 million a year just to set up and take down his 9,400 seat venue, to say nothing of the €400,000 or so in other costs he absorbs for insurance, musicians, etc.).

But I still have a question, which I’ll direct to the Times: Why are you telling us all this now? The article is dated from last October, despite being hyped as “News from Der Spiegel” on the World page right now…in March. So it’s really late to be reading about last year’s Oktoberfest, and a little early to be reading set-up pieces for Fest ’08.

Timing is everything with newspapers. I wonder what editor made the call to re-print this piece now.

JFK drops off list of most-delayed U.S. airports

by Jeffrey White on

John F. Kennedy International Airport has long been a joke in terms of on time departures and arrivals. But there are signs that JFK might be getting better.

The Associated Press is reporting that JFK is finally off the list of the country’s 50 most-delayed airports, while previously it was a perennial Top 3 contender. The secret? It finished 2007 strong, with 73 percent of all flights arriving and departing on time between Nov. 1 and Jan. 31, 2008, the AP says. That’s up from 67 percent.

O.K., so that’s not going to have travelers rushing to reroute their trips through Kennedy. But that should still give us all hope of greater improvements to come.

The U.S. Dept. of Transportation reportedly targeted New York City airspace for a massive improvement initiative starting around Thanksgiving last year, which, among other things, included allowing commercial flights to use military airspace, the AP says.

The Federal Aviation Administration also jumped on the bandwagon in December with its own plans to overhaul NY airspace.

There’s still more in the offing. By the end of this week, DOT is expected to begin cutting the number of hourly flights at JFK from 100 to 83, which means less flights at the most congested times, the AP reports.

Still, it seems that there is little in the way of good news to report over at Newark Liberty International Airport, which topped the 2007 most-delayed list. It hasn’t seemed to improve a lick.

What’s the worst airport in the U.S.? Let us know.

Traveler forced to pop the question in airport security line

by Jeffrey White on

If you need further evidence that airport security is getting out of control, it now seems that you cannot even get ring boxes past screeners these days.

The Associated Press reports that a Canadian man who planned on proposing to his girlfriend on a Caribbean cruise had to make a quick change when an airport security worker in Prince George, British Columbia found his engagement ring in his carry-on.

Aaron Tkachuk was carrying a white gold, diamond and ruby ring in a small box hidden in the toe of a sock. That looked a little fishy on X-ray, so security wanted a closer look. Not satisfied that the velvet box was harmless, the agent opened it, outing Tkachuk’s intentions right there in front of his 24-year-old high school sweatheart.

What did Tkachuk do? He popped the question right there on the spot, and his girlfriend, Jennifer Rubadeau, said yes. Security clapped.

Seems like we’ve had a few incidences lately about airport security officers making stupid judgment calls. But hey, at least Tkachuk and his fiancé now have a unique engagement story to tell. Let’s face it, proposing on a Caribbean cruise is so cliché.