First Class Battle. Alaska Airlines vs Virgin America vs United Airlines Who’s Better?

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I spent way to much time on the road in June flying back and forth from the west coast 3 times in 4 weeks.  Thanks to a combination of short notice trips, flight credits and great fares I ended up in first class on all 6 flights on 3 different carriers.  I’ll detail each experience, include photos and deliver a verdict. NOTE: For 7 years I was a United 1K flying ~200K miles a year, the majority of it in domestic first class and international business class.

Alaska Airlines
Washington Reagan National Airport (DCA) to LAX to DCA
Hard to ever turn down a flight from DCA to the west coast. Avoiding Dulles at any cost should be all travelers’ goals. It was my first time on Alaska Airlines and I was looking forward to flying them after hearing friends’ reviews who live in Seattle.

Seat
The seat was not super comfortable. It was hard and the recline was limited.

Technology
WiFi was great. It was faster than I had experienced on Virgin America and the cost was less than VA. The inflight entertainment was on a digi handheld player. The content was decent, the device cumbersome but was better than watching an overhead monitor on a United 757. The biggest downfall is that there are no outlets at the seat making it impossible to charge your device. It is strange that you can offer WiFi but no outlets. My laptop barely made it powered on the outbound flight.

Food
Alaska still hands out menus on the flight. The outbound breakfast was a nice change from typical the egg hockey puck on United and was plated very nicely. The coq au vin was a hearty lunch.
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Crew
Crew on both flights were happy to be there, professional and worked the entire time. They addressed each passenger by last name and thanked us all for our business.

United Airlines
Washington Dulles (IAD) to SEA to IAD
Back in a familiar setting with my family as we traveled out to Seattle to see friends. The outbound flight was on a 757 and the return was on a former Continental 737-800. The contrast was quite stark in the experiences on each flight. And that sums up one of my bigger gripes with United is the inconsistencies.

Seat
The 757 seat was leather and still was super comfortable for me. Perhaps my body has adapted to the seat after all the miles I have previous flown on United. The 737-800 seat was nearly identical to the Alaska Airlines seat and by the time I got off the plane by back hurt.

Technology
United has come in last place on technology for years and nothing changed on this trip. The 757 had overhead screens and no power adapters. The 737-800 at least had power at the seat and DirectTV making the flight bearable, but no WiFi on any United flights kills any productivity.

Food
Breakfast on the outbound was the predictable hockey puck, highlighted with horrible coffee. Why did United get rid of Starbucks? I am not a coffee junkie nor a Starbucks addict but what they are serving on United is awful.
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On the return flight we had a pasta dish that I remember having in coach in 2005. It amazes me this is what United is giving to paying customers (I was not one of them on this flight) in first class.
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Though I did get an ice cream sundae for dessert.
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Crew
United’s biggest inconsistencies start with their crews. The outbound flight crew was impatient, did the bare minimum and disappeared as soon as the trays were picked up only to reappear right before landing. The return crew was terrific. They went out of their way to help when my daughter wanted a snack, since she could not eat the airline food due to allergies.

Virgin America
Washington Dulles (IAD) to SFO to IAD
I want to like Virgin America. All the hipsters love them but I can’t help but feel they try so hard to be cool that they forget some basics.

Seat
The seat on both flights was easily the most comfortable. Built in lumbar massage, foot rest, not bad.

Technology
Virgin America was the only airline that hit all three checkboxes on my must haves. WiFi, power outlets, and live tv. The price of WiFi was more expensive on Virgin than Alaska by $3.00.

Food
This is always where Virgin loses me. They tend to try to hard to cater the flight with fancy, hip food which you can’t pull off on an airplane. If they only could keep it simple like Alaska did with their breakfast. This flight I settled for the simple fruit plate with granola which was really good.
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Crew
Both crews were average. Every Virgin America crew I have had does their job, keeps everyone well fed and happy but they are not the most personal. I don’t need small talk, or to be addressed formally, but the crews I had this trip were like automatrons.

And the winner is…
For people who care about miles and status, it is a no brainer, Alaska wins hands down. Virgin America has a weak loyalty program called Elevate, but Alaska allows you to earn miles on Delta, American and has their own program.

If you don’t care about miles, then Virgin wins in a squeaker. Better seats and better technology put it ahead of Alaska. United is not even on my radar at this point. I am done flying them. Personally, I dislike flying from Dulles, so when Virgin adds a flight from National Airport later this summer to SFO it puts them over the top. Power at the seat and live TV with the added convenience of National make going to SFO a breeze for me.

[Photos] San Francisco

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Late in June I was in San Francisco for Google I/O.  I had a few spare minutes to capture some of my favorite iconic images of the city.  My trip started with an early morning visit to Washington Dulles International Airport.

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Google I/O was packed with people. Especially when everyone queued up for all the free giveaways.
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No trip to the SoMa district in San Fran would be complete without a trip to Blue Bottle Coffee.
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Cable cars lining up at the Market St Turntable.
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The Intercontinental Hotel in San Francisco is one of the most green buildings in the world. Their energy consumption is shared with all hotel guests in the lobby.
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Wild Weather, Power Outages, a chance of Godzilla

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It has been a crazy 96 hours of weather and power outages here in DC.  Flying back from Google I/O last week it was clear based on our flight path that we were avoiding a massive storm in Indiana and Ohio.  It was incredible to watch how a storm in Chicago ended up traveling over 900 miles and wiping out power grids along the way.

The derecho knocked out power at the SumOfTheWeb’s office in Maryland along with over a million others in the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia).  Tons of content has been created about my particular power company and their ineptitude.  Thanks PEPCO for all you do.  Data courtesy of AddThis of course.

Of course life could definitely be worse.  We got power back 80 hours after the storm today.  We are lucky, we could afford to refill our refrigerator and stay in a hotel while the power was out.  Some are not as fortunate.  And some folks in Richmond are about to experience an incredible heat wave followed by a chance of Godzilla.  Thanks to the news team in Richmond for injecting some humor into this crappy weather pattern.

Google Glasses Stunt Redux

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Yesterday Google introduced the crowd at Google I/O to Google Glass by having people wearing the glasses jumping from a plane, biking across the roof of Moscone Conference, and rappelling down the side of the building.  Well in the words of S.R. Hadden from the movie Contact:

First rule in spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?

So today we were treated to a second attempt at the stunt. While the crowd in the convention center may have been rolling their eyes at seeing the stunt again, I was in a very different location. By chance I was walking back from a meeting at the StumbleUpon offices when I noticed the same blimp hovering above Moscone. A minute later the sky divers jumped and by the time I made it back to the convention center I watched two people rappel down the side of the building. Here is what the stunt looked like from outside the convention center.

The Blimp over Moscone

Sky Divers on their way down

Sky Divers Approaching the Roof

Getting Ready to Rappel down the Building

Rappelling down the building

It was a lot of fun to watch.  Also worth mentioning today Google opened up the goodie bag again today and gave everyone a Chromebox.

Chromebox from Google

Thoughts on Day 1 at Google I/O 2012

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Google’s developer conference is known as Google I/O and in its 5th year Google uses this event to launch new updates to products such as Android and to introduce new technologies such as Google Glass.  It has been a couple of years since I was at Google I/O so I was glad to be walking through the doors at Moscone West to see what the 2012 version of Google I/O had to offer.

Keynote
I was not very impressed with the first half of the keynote. The crowd was very tepid, not a lot of clapping and the speakers on stage seemed to be impacted by the lack of energy. It doesn’t help that Google’s team lacks to bravado of some of Apple’s exec team either. What started off weakly finished on a very strong note.

Vic Gundotra was in the middle of introducing an update to Google+ when Sergey Brin updated the presentation to introduce Google Glass. This wearable computer and the way it was introduced will go down as one of the best product intros. Google Glass allows the person wearing the glasses to broadcast a 1st person experience, and in this case a blimp high above the city set the stage for a live Google Hangout of a sky diving team to broadcast their dive from the blimp to the roof of Moscone. Incredible.

The keynote wrapped up on a high note with Google giving all the conference attendees a free Nexus 7 tablet, Nexus Q and Nexus phone. I left the keynote with a positive vibe after the initial letdown early on.

Google Products for All Attendees

Google Glass
Why does Google Glass matter so much to me? Everything Google announced today aside from Glass was a retread idea. Tablet? Yawn…we have seen a few tablet announcements this year. Android 4.1, aka Jelly Bean? Yawn…with the number of Android devices stuck on old operating systems how excited could I be knowing that only a sliver of the Android users will actually get this update. Google+? Yawn for the most part…Events was interesting. Google Glass? Awesome…something innovative and different from all the rigamarole from Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook. We need to move the needle and even if Google Glass is not it, projects like it are great to see us as a human race trying to solve.

Bullish on Google
I won’t hide the fact that I am an Apple fanboy. I have an iPhone, iPad and numerous other Apple hardware. After today’s sessions, Google continues to be dedicated to Google+, continues its transformation from a software company to a software AND hardware company, while continuing to innovate on new projects.

[Photos] Los Angeles Trip Report

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I jetted off to Southern California for a few days of work this week, but I had a few moments of free time to watch sunset in Venice Beach, President Obama’s arrival in LA, a quick stop at In-n-Out and some surfers at El Porto.

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Grand Canyon

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Marina Del Rey

Full Slideshow

Arrival into Los Angeles

ESPN’s 30 for 30 is back.

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In October 2009 ESPN ran the first in a series of documentaries celebrating the first 30 years of sports coverage at ESPN.  The documentaries were produced by filmmakers like Ice Cube and Barry Levinson.  Some of the documentaries were good, but others were captivating.  In my opinion ESPN was robbed of either a Primetime Emmy or a Grammy for best documentary.

Today ESPN announced it is kicking off a new 30 for 30 series this fall and winter.  I can’t wait to see what the next set of documentaries is going to cover.

Here are my top 5 favorite documentaries from the first 30 movies produced by ESPN:

5.    “The Band That Would Not Die” – My dad grew up in Baltimore and was a huge Baltimore Colts fan.  Watching the Colts slip out of Baltimore in the middle of the night was heartbreaking to him and other Colt fans.  In this film, we are introduced to the Baltimore Colts Band and how they never lost faith in bringing a team to Baltimore.

4.    “The U” – Lots of people, including myself, forgot how University of Miami went from an afterthought in football to winning multiple national titles.  The Hurricanes won with moxie and let everyone know it.

3.    “Catching Hell” – I am cheating a little since this film was not part of the 30 for 30 series, though originally it was.  Getting into the exact details of what happens when an innocent Chicago Cubs fan gets in the way of a Cubs’ outfielder catching a foul ball costing the Cubs a chance at returning to the their first World Series since 1945.

2.    “Once Brothers” – This story moved me the most.  Vlade Divac, the former LA Laker and Serbian goes back home to try and find closure over his broken friendship with former NBA star and Croatian Drazen Petrovic.  Their relationship was similar to brothers, but was torn apart when civil war broke out between Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s.  Unfortunately, Drazen Petrovic died in a car accident before the friendship could be repaired.  We should never take for granted the relationships we have in life.

1.    “The Two Escobars” – This should have been made into a full length movie.  ”The Two Escobars” shown the spotlight on the lives of two men with the same last name, Escobar who’s lives inexplicably collided.  The first Escobar, Andres was a star soccer player in Columbia who accidentally scored an own goal that caused Columbia to lose to the US in the 1990 World Cup.  The second Escobar, Pablo, was the drug kingpin from Columbia who controlled almost all the cocaine in world.  Where the worlds collide is that both Pablo and Andres were from Medellin and it was there Pablo, who was a huge soccer fan, funded the Columbian soccer team.  Unfortunately it was the same cartel that ended Andres’ life in 1994 for retribution of that own goal in the 1990 World Cup.

 

Increase Engagement on Your WordPress Blog

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Update – Hat tip to Aaron Jorbin for catching that you need to be an Admin to do this and you can’t be using MultiSuite.  If you are using MultiSuite then you need to be a super admin.

The best content on the web is not limited to big publishers, some of the best writers on the web are really passionate bloggers.  One of the challenges we bloggers have is to keep our visitors engaged on the site and introduce these visitors to otherwise undiscoverable content.

At AddThis, we are trying to solve this problem with the Trending content box.  With AddThis installed on 14M+ domains and seeing 1.3B users our data network and data processing capabilities can surface the most social content for your WordPress blog.  You may be asking, “how hard is it for me to do this?”  As with any of our tools, they are super easy to install and you get awesome real-time analytics as well.

Here are the step by step instructions to add the Trending content box to your WordPress Blog.

  1. Go to AddThis.com/get/trending
  2. Sign in with your AddThis account, if you don’t have an account or don’t use our sharing tools, sign up.  It’s free and enables visitors to share your content to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and 300+ other services.
  3. Customize the Trending content box.  Pick the colors of the box, the size and how many links you want to display.
  4. Copy the code and log into your WordPress blog.
  5. Choose Appearance->Widgets and drag the Text widget to your Main Sidebar
  6. Paste the copied code into the Text Widget and hit Save.

Your blog’s top social content will now appear in the sidebar of your blog helping you keep visitors engaged.  If you are looking for more advanced features or want to hit the API for the feed directly, checkout these docs.

 

Layover at LAX? In-n-Out is only a shuttle bus away.

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I have been saddled with 2 hour layovers in Los Angeles too many times to count over the last few years.  It is always nice as we make our final approach into LAX to see the palm trees, Hollywood Park and the beach.  Of course one of the things that is hard to miss on approach is as we cross Sepulveda Boulevard is the red and yellow In-n-Out sign.  It is so close to the airport, I know there is a way to leave the airport on my layover and pick up a burger.

In-n-Out on Final Approach into LAX

I once tried walking it during a 2.5 hour layover and I nearly missed my connecting flight.  The next time I tried a cab and it was easy but expensive as we waiting in the drive thru lane with the meter running.  While in the drive thru line I discovered the missing piece to this puzzle.  Right next to In-n-Out is a parking garage called “The Parking Spot.”  They have a shuttle that runs between LAX and the garage.  Bingo, so now when I land in LAX, I walk outside the terminal, grab “The Parking Spot” shuttle for the Sepulveda garage get my lunch and take the shuttle back.  I have managed to make this run with a 1 hour 45 minute layover with time to spare.

The Parking Spot Sepulveda Shuttle

Pro tip: Make sure you tell the shuttle driver you are self parked so they don’t get suspicious you are using their shuttle for animal style burgers and fries instead of picking up your car.

Map from In-n-Out to LAX

The Best and Worst of SXSW 2012

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“Just when you are out, they pull you back in.”  And so goes my experience at SXSW this year.  After saying I was going to give SXSW one last chance, the conference totally redeemed itself.  I think a big part of my change in tune was knowing how commercialized the conference became in 2010, which was a disappointment back then.

Best Interactive Panel
The best panel this year was about the work NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labs was doing to monitor near Earth orbit objects like asteroids and comets. Amazing data science work goes into predicting when these objects may hit us and which ones need to be classified as truly dangerous. They also spent time debunking that the Earth will not end in 2012 as the Mayan calendar predicts.

Best Movie Panel
I did not get to as many movie panels as I’d like but my favorite was the Seth MacFarlane talk where he analyzed and compared Family Guy clips as well as introduced the world to his new movie “Ted.” Mark Wahlberg also made a surprise appearance.

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Best BBQ
You can’t go to Austin and not have BBQ. This year Stubb’s takes the award.

Best Music
How could it be anything but Jay-Z?

Best Poster at SXSW
The guys at Adult Swim came up with a great looking poster that they gave out at the Turner tent.

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Worst Weather
Never in 9 years have I seen weather worse than I did Friday and Saturday in Austin. The half mile walk I had from my hotel to the convention center was brutal, especially on Friday.

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Worst Registration Process
The registration line for SXSW on Friday was 90 to 120 minutes long. For a technology conference you would think we could have some forward thinking ideas about how to make registration faster, but here we are 6 years later still filling out green index cards to pick up our badges.

Worst Hotel Situation
Unless you were sponsoring, speaking or knew someone at SXSW you were not getting a hotel room within a few block radius of the convention center. Sure you could have picked up a room at the Hampton Inn one week before the conference for $1700 a night, but most people were resigned to long walks or cab rides. One set of friends decided to stay in San Antonio and drive in each day figuring the party scene at Riverwalk was going to be just as good.

Best Redemption of a SXSW Conference
After leaving woefully disappointed in 2010 at the complete sell out of the conference organizers to the sponsors, SXSW totally redeemed itself in 2012. Yes, the sponsors were still there, but knowing this going in made the event that much better. The best part of these sponsored events, not having to pay for food or drinks the entire weekend. Thank you to all the sponsors out there!

And with that, SXSW goes back on my list as a must attend event. I can’t wait to get back to Austin in 2013, though my hotel room is getting reserved as early as possible this year.