Southwest to rig entire fleet for wi-fi

Photo by deanoly

I've written a bit about Southwest Airlines, and written some more about in-flight wi-fi. This morning we offer a two-fer: Southwest is on its way to having wi-fi on every flight.

Gratification will not be instantaneous, however. Even at a pace of between 15 and 25 installations per month, it will be 2012 before each of Southwest's more than 540 jets are outfitted. Nevertheless, it is another reason to put Southwest near the top of a business traveler's preferred airline list.

As The Cranky Flier points out, wifi fits Southwest's business model and passenger culture. Seat yourself, and be in charge of your own entertainment or productivity.

For Southwest, this is the perfect technology. They’ve long avoided inflight entertainment because it adds cost. Airlines haven’t been able to charge for overhead movies for a long time, and in-seat video is costly. It’s not just the content but also the weight and the extra pieces that can break in each seat. It’s just not a Southwest way of doing things. But wifi is different. It does add a little weight, but it only gets installed in one place so you don’t run the risk of having a problem at every seat.

More importantly from a business standpoint, Southwest's testing on a limited number of flights has shown customers are willing to pay for a wi-fi perk. There's been no announcement yet for what the pricing will be, though. Southwest promises an answer to that question in Q2 2010.

Mileage tax for highway funds? What's the real motivation?

Introduce a mileage tax to make up for lost revenue caused by fuel-efficient drivers paying less in gas taxes? Your tax dollars are hard at work as state and federal officials ponder that very issue, according to today's Washington Post.

The article outlines a few of the debates that will rage at our -- quite literal -- expense:

• Invasion of privacy (not that any of us with E-Z Pay or similar transponders have paid much attention to that until now)
• More taxes in general (do we really think the gas tax will be supplanted?)
• Should more efficient vehicles get a tax break (or the reverse, i.e. The Hummer Tax)?

My personal objection, though, is rooted in the double-speak regarding the motivation. What is guiding our transportation policy these days? Are we striving to reduce greenhouse gases, or are we motivated merely by the shortfall in federal highway system's maintenance budget?

One of the points made in the article is fewer people are driving these days, and the drivers that remain drive more fuel efficient cars. Car makers, albeit influenced by government regulation, are in turn striving to build and sell more fuel efficient cars -- some that could reach 100- and 200-miles per gallon efficiency.

So we will have the ability to drive farther and more efficiently, but will get penalized for that distance with a mileage tax?

Here's an idea. Want to keep us off the road? Let the highway system go to seed.

Don't use proceeds from a mileage tax for highway upkeep. Use the money to fund more mass transit projects, like the Urban Ring or connecting North and South stations. Extend commuter rail to more destinations. Build more bikeways. Motivate people to stay off the roads.

Granted, I'm the last one to heed in this debate. I commute 600 miles round trip twice a month, and there's very little that could be done in the near future to provide an alternative or prevent the trip altogether. But if there's going to be a mileage tax, I'd feel a lot better supporting it if I knew it was improving long-term transportation options.

Pandemonium is in the eye of the beholder

Benjamin descended the stairs and asked his brother, "Where's Mom and Dad?"

"I don't know," Mason answered, his head buried in a video game.

I called out from an adjacent room, letting both boys know where I was, and also replied that Mom was outside, walking Ruby.

"Oooooohhhhhhh," Benjamin said, in a resonant fashion."So that's why it is so quiet down here."

(This was from the boy who minutes earlier was providing our Sunday-morning, newspaper-reading soundtrack by singing a medley of "We Will Rock You" and "Pants on the Ground.")

Power outage haiku

Snuck out for bike ride
Returned. N-Star across street.
Power out. Longer break.

Commuter Daddy? Make that Commuter Dud.

My oldest son, Sam, recently placed second in his school's geography bee, among several other accomplishments in the month of January. One of the stepping stones to his geographic success was knowing which state's residents have an average commute longer than 28 minutes:



I'd never have guessed that one corrrectly. Commuter Son #1 knows more than Commuter Daddy! To be fair to my commuter knowledge, this question came during a map-aided, visual-clue portion of the program. Still, you have to like that the apple is not falling that far from the commuter tree.

I know all this thanks to Brandy capturing some of the key moments on video. I completely missed out on attending the geography bee in person. I was smack dab in the middle of a training session that I could not reschedule, given some pressing deadlines at the time. The irony was I was 20 minutes down the road, and not the usual 300 miles away on one of my regular excursions. My proximity made the miss all the more excruciating.

One of the benefits of my half-home-office, half-on-the-road work situation is a predominant ability to arrange my schedule so I can attend these sorts of events in person. Sometimes, when work is at its most stressful, being able to attend the kids' special moments in school and elsewhere keeps me motivated -- and frankly working harder. An hour missed during the normal business hours usually translates to two hours or more worked after the kids go to bed.

Missing the geography bee made me 0-for-3 over the course of a few weeks, though. Just before Christmas, I had also arrived late to both Mason's and Benjamin's holiday performances on separate days.


Thankfully, with a major launch out of the way at work, I've rejoined the family. Over the last few weeks, I've attended two band concerts, taken Mason to a previously unscheduled basketball game, and even found time to walk with Mason and our dog, Ruby, to school on a couple of mornings.

Hopefully, I'll continue to keep my inner Dud at bay for a while.

Breakfast variety does not spice our children's lives

During the work week, breakfasts are simple affairs and fairly routine.

• Sam, our oldest, is usually the first one up and fends for himself. The decision tree is very rigid. He looks first for sugary treats, especially on Monday. Leftover cinnamon buns or donuts don't stand a chance. If there's nothing in that category, he checks out the cereal selection. If nothing meets with approval there, he toasts a bagel. He will usually skip an accompanying drink.
  
• Mason, the middle child, looks first for sugary treats. If none, he grabs a Pop Tart. If there are none left, he moans until he is convinced to have cereal, an English muffin or a granola bar. He will be three bites into whatever he is eating before he asks for someone to get him an apple juice.
• The first words out of youngest Benjamin's mouth almost every morning are, "Juice please!" Armed with orange juice in his drink bottle, he toddles off to sit with his brothers. Some mornings he's hungrier than others, but upon being asked what he wants for breakfast, he always replies, "What do we have?" His tastes run less sweet than the other two boys. While he will eat a Pop Tart or a sugary cereal, he usually prefers two slices of bacon, an occasional egg or a half of a bagel. Because of the juice, though, he's usually not hungry until after the two older boys go to school.

Weekends, though, are another matter. Without a bus to catch or work to check on, we all have a little more time to be deliberate in our breakfast preparations. Yet, there is a ritual to the weekend breakfast routine too.

Mason: "Dad, can you buy us some donuts?"

Or...

Benjamin: "Dad, can you make us some pancakes?"

I'm a softy for making pancakes. I love to make them, love to serve them and love to eat them. It always brings back memories of my grandfather firing up the griddle for my sister and I when we would be visiting the Cape. So hardly a weekend passes without me making pancakes on one of the mornings.

The other weekend morning is up for grabs, however. Sometimes, Brandy will make a coffee cake. Other times, Pillsbury rescues us with cinnamon rolls or Flaky Twists (a variety of Pillsbury's breakfast roll products). And every few weeks or so I will make a Dunkin' Donuts run.

Fruit salad? Not so yummy, yummy for our boys.

Yesterday, when Mason asked for donuts, I initially said no, but only because I had an alternate plan. Why give Dunkin' Donuts our money when I am perfectly capable of making donut holes at home. While it had likely been 20 years or more since I last made them during a high school home economics class, I am a seasoned and wiser cook now. Mix the though, stick them in hot oil, and a new entry in our breakfast menu would be born.

When I announced my plan, there was excitement in the air. "Daddy is making donuts!" Mason exclaimed to everyone in the house. There was dancing on the stairs. There were angels voices in the air. Chickadees joined in song from the trees beyond.

A few minutes later, though, the euphoria was tempered.

"I can smell the donuts," Mason said, this time with less vim in his voice. "They don't smell very good."

"Trust me," I replied. "They'll be great. And I'll sprinkle your cinnamon sugar on them."

Mason asks for cinnamon sugar almost every chance he thinks it will match what he is eating. I had him back in the fold. Soon the donut holes were all draining on a paper towel on the counter. The sugar was applied. Four were added to each child's plate. They ran for the kitchen.

Then they took a bite.

"Dad, these don't taste like donuts," Mason said.

Benjamin tried to cushion the blow to my cooking ego. "Dad, is it OK if I just eat this much?" he asked, motioning to two that he had taken a single bite from. "I'm full."

So am I, now that I ate theirs yesterday and and consumed a large portion of leftovers today. The silver lining is Brandy and I liked them. They were a perfect coffee accompaniment.

For the kids, though, it will be back to the breakfast rut for a while. They won't be easily convinced to try a tweaked recipe. Once you have emblazoned in their taste buds that they don't like something you've made, it will take some time -- and probably a lot more sugar -- for them to give the dish second chance.