I'm heading to New York tomorrow morning for a long weekend in the Hamptons- my first time. I mean, not the first time in New York. The first time in the Hamptons. Anyhow, I spotted a couple of very different travel-related items that elicited a confounding panoply of strong emotions in me, starting with:


emotion #1-
FEAR, LOTS AND LOTS OF FEAR : Microsoft server crash nearly causes 800-plane pile-up

Oh, Microsoft, you've let me down again. So, turns out the Microsoft servers used by air traffic controllers in Southern California automatically reset themselves every 49.7 days (why 49.7? why not?) so folks are trained to manually reset them every 30 days. Some new guy didn't know that and the whole system went up in smoke when his server rebooted. The ATC guys had to call the pilots on their cellys to tell them where to land. While there were fortunately no actual crashes, it was reported that there were a lot of "very close calls" on the runways. Kudos, airline industry. You won't even give me a crappy meal for free, and now you're actually trying to kill me. (Read more at TechWorld.)


emotion #2-
OVERWHELMING LOVE OF TECHNOLOGY AND ADMIRATION FOR INVENTIVE PEOPLE : Ticketime
 
Ticketime is an awesome and useful airline ticket concept that is hard for me to describe in my own words, so I'm just going to quote Yanko Design, who says "Ticketime is a boarding card and a wristwatch all in one. The fringe of the ticket is made of electronic paper that could be torn off and worn as a wristwatch during the period of your travel. Before your departure, the airline company would preset the watch to the time zone of your destination. It is returned to the airline counter during your check-in upon your return flight, whilst still serving the purpose of a flight ticket." Super hot! (Read more and see more links and photos at Yanko Design.)




emotion #3-
OLD ANGER AND ANNOYANCE THAT I THOUGHT I HAD GOTTEN OVER BUT THAT IN REALITY I'M APPARENTLY STILL WORKING THROUGH : TraceMe

Boy, I sure could have used these TraceMe barcoded luggage tags last year when I went to Puerto Vallarta and my luggage never arrived for 5 days and I had to wear the same clothes all the time and every day I had to pray for sunshine so I could wash my underwear and dry them in the sun which was tricky because it was the rainy season and no one wants to wear wet underwear and then I got home and they said the luggage was now in Mexico and they still didn't return it for like 3 more days and when they did a bunch of stuff had been stolen but not the salami I had packed which was pretty smelly by then... f***ing United Airlines. (Learn more about TraceMe and where to purchase it at ShinyShiny.)