Is my name that hard to spell?

Growing up, people have always had trouble pronouncing and spelling my name, my last name. This week we went to get some food and I think it is the first time that someone has misspelled my first name as "Scoot"! It was pretty funny. Click on the image for a larger version.

Airlines keep cutting costs much to my dismay

For vacation, my wife and I went to Hawaii (the Big Island of Hawaii) and, of course, took a plane there. Due to when we travelled and booked the flight, our tickets were not cheap, in fact, they were the most expensive tickets I've ever purchased. While the cost kind of stung, it was the corners that the airlines are cutting that annoy me. We packed a pretty big bag as I travel with a lot of junk and we never thought about its weight until a few hours before we left when I checked American Airline's website and found that the weight limit decreased from 70 pounds to 50 pounds per piece of checked luggage. For $25, you could have a 51-75 pound bag or for $50, a 67-100 pound bag. We moved some stuff to another bag and when we got to the airport, it weighed in at 49.5 pounds! On the way back, we got by at exactly 50 pounds. This change in weight limits can't have anything to do with fuel costs and must be associated with greed, in my opinion. We are each allowed 2 checked bags at 50 pounds each and 1 carry-on at 30 pounds. So, we could have packed 260 pounds of stuff (now that's a lot of stuff). Instead, we went with 1 checked bag at 50 pounds and 1 carry on at < 30 pounds. If we had stuffed our checked bag, we would have paid extra, but if we took another bag, we could have had an extra 50 pounds of stuff to bring. Does the extra $25 cover worker's compensation insurance for those lifting the bags? I did see a suitcase with a built in scale on a website recently; must be to avoid the extra fees.

My complaints don't stop there. On a 5 hour trip from Los Angeles to Kona, Hawaii, they offer to serve us a snack for $5 each. Didn't I already pay enough for the ticket that they could throw in the snack? I already knew about this before we left, so we picked up sandwiches custom made to what we wanted; granted we paid about $4.50 each for them, but we had fresh sandwiches with whatever we wanted on them.

On the way back, I used frequent flyer miles to upgrade us to first class as it was an overnight flight and I wanted to be comfortable. There we were offered (at no charge) soup and some other things. However, who eats soup at 11 pm? Maybe I should have had it just to get my money's worth.

I understand that airlines have to make money, but can't they cut expenses in other ways instead of nickel and diming its customers? I really like flying Southwest because it is an airline that I expect nothing (peanuts and a drink) and am delivered exactly that. Their staff seems always to be friendly (the American staff was also friendly on this trip). In addition, the other passengers seem to have the same feeling on Southwest which makes for a pleasant flight when everyone is happy. Southwest has also managed to make money; granted they do fly different, more profitable routes, than other carriers and bought gas futures awhile ago, but maybe the bigger players can take a few hints.

Too hot or too cool

I'm a fair weather kind of person; I'm happier when it is sunny and warm. Lately this has started to change a little bit (not the sunny part, the warm part). Since getting back from vacation, I've gone on 3 training runs where it has been over 70 degrees out. I'm not sure if it is that I haven't trained in a week (I went on 1 out of 4 runs while on vacation), but my performance was pretty poor. Yesterday's run, I had over a 9 minute mile which isn't the norm for me. I think I need to get up at the crack of dawn (when my wife leaves for work) and run then otherwise training is going to be a nightmare as the temperature increases.

Can there be an ideal car?

There are lots of features I like about what I drive, a Toyota Highlander. However, we rented a Chevy Malibu on our vacation and it has a few features that I think are lacking from my car, but at the same time, lacks many features that I have. I'd like to see a combination of features from both cars as well as some others in my next car. I'm sure that if I bought a real expensive car, I'd get them. For instance, I want:

• Auto dimming rearview mirror
• Bluetooth handsfree
• Volume and radio controls on steering wheel
• Built-in navigation system
• Automatic climate control system, i.e. set it to 70 degrees
• Car computer that gives estimated miles on tank
• Automatic headlights
• Variable speed, rain detecting windshield wipers
• Homelink for opening garage door
• Sunglasses holder
• Outside temperature displayed on main screen
• Larger displayed of info such as time, direction, etc. instead of having to hit a button to flip through a bunch of screens
• iPod integration (like what BMW just announced)

I know that there are other things that I haven't listed, but this is just the beginning of my list. In another 7 years when I'm ready for a new car, maybe I'll be able to get all this in one car that I can afford.