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January 25, 2007

Boot-off a few more bad bambinos

A Massachusetts couple recently went public after ValuJet (now called AirTran) kicked them off a plane because their 3-year-old wouldn't sit in her seat, as Federal law requires for take-off. The parents move backfired.

ValuJet apologized, but why should they? Shouldn't the parents be apologising to everyone else who was aboard that plane? In fact, ValuJet, previously best-known for its miserable safety record, would do well to bask in the publicity. A survey on MSNBC.com shows over 90% of 160,000 people agreed with the airline.

I sent the Wall St. Journal's travel columnist this message last night:

How can I best express my gratitude to AirTran for removing that raucous rugrat and her feckless parents? When they get rid of reclining seats, I might just be willing to fly ValuJet. If they want to build their business-travel clientele, I suggest AirTran toss a few more troublesome tots and appreciate the good publicity.

I never got to experience the good-old-days of air travel when the stewardesses were young and hot, when they served real meals with crystal and silverware, and when parents would have been mortified if their children misbehaved in public. I don't know if such days ever existed, but I'd like to think they did.

Nowadays air travel involves a bratty bambino being booted from a Boeing and the clueless parents blaming the airline for their own inability to control their offspring. Meanwhile we see what happens when this sort of devil-child reaches age 25:

"There are a lot of young people hitting 25 who are making, say, $35,000 a year, who expected they'd be millionaires or at least making six figures," says psychologist Jean Twenge. She's a professor at San Diego State University and author of "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled -- and More Miserable Than Ever Before."

No wonder, Twenge says, we hear so many 20-somethings talking about the "quarter-life crisis."

"We're telling them they're special and they can do anything they want -- and then they're growing up and finding out that's not true," Twenge says.

Posted by adrianjo at 10:18 PM

January 24, 2007

In the quiet attic

A friend from Canada now in New York writes:

Canada is like the quiet attic above the really great party, an American once told me. Upon further contemplation, I think he may be right. We're the neighbour in the attic, just trying to hear ourselves think over the insufferably loud music booming from below.

We commiserate over our living location and we smugly commend ourselves for our well-swept floors and our low cost of living. But – if we could – would we get rid of our neighbours? Not a chance. When the blizzards set in, who shovels the walk? When there is a threat from outside, who watches from the window and protects the house? The raucous neighbours on the ground floor do.

We sit up in the attic and look down upon them for the melodramatic arguments that we hear through the floorboards, but the house insurance is in their name and, whether or not we admit it, we lucked out to get these guys on our side.

Living in the American capital – where the barista at Starbucks is more likely to ask your preferred political party than your preferred beverage – I was disappointed to discover that Canada's self-proclaimed reputation as an influential peacekeeper rarely, if ever, comes up in discussions of international politics.

Canada is an international peacekeeper? That's news to me.

(The sad thing is that most "international peacekeepers" try to keep the peace even when the peace is immoral or corrupt--witness the role of the UN in Oil for Food or the OAS's refusal to disturb the peace in Darfur--but that's a topic for another day.)

Posted by adrianjo at 10:21 PM

January 09, 2007

Go somewhere, go anywhere, young man

It’s been three months since I was in Europe, and unfortunately there’s no future trip in sight. This is why business school is so great. Class is interesting and you learn stuff and all, but really the point is to take two years and meet a lot of people and see the world. And one gets a nice raise upon finishing school. My vacation balance is now negative and shows no sign of going positive anytime soon.

A year ago, as I was about to start the final semester at Columbia, Tiffany and I went for a week in Europe. The flight cost $320 round trip, about half of what it costs to fly to Texas each week. A year ago tonight we were in Brugge, the medieval city in Belgium that time forgot, which was essentially mothballed from sometime in the late 1400s until the early 1900s. This city normally so overrun by tourists was eerily quiet, much as it has been throughout its history, save for a chilly breeze off the North Sea. Soon after that we found ourselves getting lost in northern Ireland and having the run of some old castles.

A year later I’m in central Texas screening the resumes of a few hundred Columbia MBAs who have applied to the Firm. I hope they’re off in the four corners of the world, places that they probably consider a wee bit more exciting than rural Texas.

Posted by adrianjo at 10:35 PM

January 01, 2007

Happy New Year!

There are dozens of lists like “You Know You’re From New York If…”. I’ve written previously about how New York is the only place where a local would rent a hotel room for the weekend. Then there are these:

And my favorite:

I guess I’m not a New Yorker yet, at least not after last night in Times Square, the second in a row. Here are some pics. Click to enlarge.

The crowd was gathered from 43rd Street all the way to 59th St, at least as far as we could tell. To get to the office, we even got a police escort through the crowd. Next year Tiffany will wear dark glasses and a hat to see if she can get some autograph requests.


The countdown is at 7 seconds and the ball is nearly down. The fireworks hit our windows!


Isn’t she hot?

Posted by adrianjo at 10:50 PM