Airlines nickel and diming themselves to death
The airlines that added the most fees (for food, to check bags) in the past few months saw their revenues decline the most.
via kottke.org
Service kost natuurlijk geld, maar door geen service te bieden geef je je klanten ook geen reden om voor jouw bedrijf te kiezen.
This will probably already be my last post from San Mateo. Tomorrow I’ll head back to Amsterdam where I’ll arrive on Sunday at 9:35 in the morning, if all goes according to plan.
On Wednesday I wanted to visit SFMOMA but of course they’re closed every wednesday, d’oh. So I wandered around the city aimlessly.
In the evening we went to ‘Happy Palace’, a Chinese restaurant, with Ammentis and their Chinese friend Nelson and his family. From the looks of the Restaurant I would never have guessed that we would get such great seafood: ginger lobster, deep-fried squid, spicy prawn (all fresh from the seawater tanks in the back) and all kinds of bizarre vegetables I had never seen before. And the amazing ting was that Nelson ordered this vast amount of food with a couple of syllables of Cantonese.The Ammentis, Judith, Nelson’s wife and I were the only round-eyes in the whole restaurant, by the way.
Yesterday Dave took me for a little spin in his aeroplane. It’s a cute little single-propeller deal which he assembled himself from a kit. We flew from the little airfield in San Jose up to the Golden Gate bridge, along the coastal range. I even got to steer the plane for a while, very cool. I only took my video camera, so no pix.
Tonight is my last night here, so we’ll go out for dinner to ‘Milagos’, this fancy Mexican place in Redwood City. Looking forward to that cause I love Mexican cuisine! Maybe I’ll get to try that chocolate chicken dish I’ve been hearing so much about.
A good way to round off a great month in California, one of my favorite places on earth!
Well, the great response to my entry yesterday (NOT!) convinced me to switch back to zee Engrish.
I took a tour at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco today. Very nice premises, they have 13 buildings spread around the whole city. The student art I saw (in the Graphics Design, Advertising and New Media departments) was very professional and well realized.
The tour was really informative and the guide made sure we got to see all the cool equipment and facilities they have. First time in my life that I saw a telecine. Kick ass.
The school places 80% of its pupils in the ‘industry’, i.e. the profession of choice. As the tour guide put it: “Here at the Academy of Art we don’t believe in the starving artist.”
Drawbacks, aside from the fact that they don’t really have a graduate study I’m interested in, are the tutoring fee of 38000$ and the arrogant air of the high gloss brochure I picked up.
I shall quote:
A great and wise man once said, “Make work play and you’ll be playing all your life.” Come to the Academy and you’ll play. Hard.
Without solid training in the basics of drawing, color and design, you’ll still be able to get a job. Fast food is always hiring.
Too often, Fine Art schools are thought of as places where rich kids play and dreamers vegetate. Too often, they are. Not here.
Ugh, I feel nauseous.
After that I went to the SF Apple Store to check out the new iPod shuffle that Steve Jobs unveiled today at the Macworld Expo. It’s a flash-memory based music player. It’s sleek and white and has no display. Instead it has is a shuffle button in the back and the slogan “give chance a chance.” Oh, and it weighs, like, nothing. Nice, but not really innovative or anything.
Visiting Robin and her Family in Tigard, OR was nice, as always. I filmed Robin while she made the muffins my mother used to make 30 years ago, back when they were the only two Americans in Münster.
Due to klutzyness on my part (I forgot to turn on the microphone, duh) part two of the making of the memorial muffins was recorded without sound.
Ah well… Robin gave me some great 30 year old photos of my parents. If I could get the scanner to work I’d post some of them… Today we’ll meet my aunt and she’ll take us to Burlingame where she and my mom and my grandparents used to live. Hopefully I’ll remember to turn the mike on.
It’s a beautiful sunny day, you’re headed northbound to Seattle, cruise control is set to 75 mph, the car pool lane is empty and you’ve got Modest Mouse blasting on the FM. Could life be any better?
I saw my first real car chase today! 5 cop cars zoomed past my car in hot pursuit of a battered old pickup truck. Soon more and more police cars were coming from every direction and blocking the exits of I5. Pretty exhilarating!
Main reason for going to seattle was uncle Rem’s new library there. And Rem never fails to dazzle. What a cool building.
Hi, my name is Florian Schroiff, I live and work in the beautiful city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. This website is mostly a collection of the various flotsam and jetsam I encounter on my travels through the web. Read more »