Cartoon Barry Blog - Barry Schwartz's Personal Blog

Falling Short Of Airline Elite Status As A Frequent Flyer

As someone who travels a nice amount (not weekly but monthly) on airlines not having a level of "Elite Access" on your airline can seriously stink.

I've actually written about how Continental treats elite customers versus non elite customers differently. It was upsetting but it taught me to play the game and stick with an airline so you get some perks. So in mid-2008 I earned Elite Access with Continental and ever since then stuck with them to keep that status (yes, I am a pawn).

In August, when I saw I was running short on miles this year, I decided to book a trip that was not urgent but was useful, just to keep my status. For some reason, my math didn't add up and I didn't end up earning elite status. I saw the dreadful scale not pass the Silver line, showing me I was short. How short? 300 miles short!

The reason this happened was because I booked my longest flight completely on miles and thus did not earn miles for flying on miles. But I thought I would be able to take enough domestic flights to fly over the necessary 25,000 miles to earn Elite Status. Like I said, my math was off by 300 miles.

So what did I do? I called and begged. I emailed and begged. I even used my scary flight experience as a method of trying to get them to give me those miles.

Guess what? It worked!

Today a nice lady from Continental called with "good news." They told me they gave me the 300 miles so I can retain Silver Elite Status for 2011. I was very appreciative, so much so that I didn't bother to ask for more details on that scary flight.

Why is Silver so important? Well, I rarely get the upgrades but it does give you priority seating, boarding and baggage. Yes, the Continental Credit Card gives you priority boarding and baggage and access to the lounge, but it does not give you priority seating and getting bulk head seats with extra leg room is likely the most important aspect of the Elite Status.

Posted at 2:18 PM | Permalink | Category: Travels | Comments (1) (0)

City Tow Truck Uses City Plow To Destroy City Ford Explorer

I have to admit, I laughed.

A city tow truck pulled a city plow into a city owned Ford Explorer repeatedly.

Here is the video (warning, language used in video is not too great):

Posted at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Category: Just Weird | Comments (1) (0)

Crazy Birds In The Snow

Look at all these birds. Some on the snow on the ground, some in the trees... Aren't they suppose to fly south?

They all, at once, flew to this area, then two minutes later left.

Yea, we have a ton of snow here now. So far, I am the only one who made it to work.

I actually got stuck in the driveway at 6:30 this morning trying to get out. And I have an all wheel drive car! So I ended up having to wait for the plow guy to clear my drive way before leaving.

Here is a picture of the roads on the way to work...

Posted at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Category: Just Weird | Comments (3) (0)

Blackberry Frozen, Apple Crashes & More, Funny Video

Classic

Posted at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Category: Just Funny | Comments (0) (0)

Great Video Of Where I Grew Up, "Small Town" Mellencamp

I grew up in a town named Monsey, in New York, in Rockland County. Monsey is 45 minutes from New York City. When I grew up there in the 80s and 90s it was a lot different from what it is now. Monsey is kind of now like a place in Brooklyn called Borough Park.

Both Monsey and Borough Park now have the largest group of Orthodox Jews out there. But there are other people also and I spotted a video done in the early 90's for the Cable Access program "Get out of my Yard." It highlights mostly the heart of Monsey, Route 306 and Route 59 but shows both ethnic groups together.

The cool part for me is the choice of music. "Small Town" by John Cougar Mellencamp. Why is it cool? Well, my best friend growing up in Monsey was a huge Mellencamp fan, his father was also. So when I saw this, it was funny.

Here is the video:

Memories...

Posted at 4:38 PM | Permalink | Category: Homey | Comments (0) (0)

Can't Buy a Nexus S Unlocked Online (Updated)

So this morning, the Nexus S started sales at 8am at Best Buy stores and online.

I tried to buy it unlocked online but you can't. It is not available under the no contracts phones to choose from. You can only buy it with a contract currently.

So I bought it with a contract and then called to switch it to a no contract. It was a bit more complex, but my order was placed. I should likely get the phone early next week and will spend a nice amount of time with it in Israel. Who knows, maybe I'll end up converting from iPhone to Android? Dare I say it?

You can now buy it unlocked at Best Buy at this URL.

Posted at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Category: Computers | Comments (3) (0)

My Israel Cell Phone & Wireless Data Plans For 2011

SphinnCon Israel is 25 days away now and I'll be in Israel in less than 25 days. This will be the largest SphinnCon ever and I believe the largest search conference in Israel ever - so it is exciting.

But whenever I travel internationally, I get nervous about being connected - mostly data connected. Israel is a small country and reception is almost always solid. But whenever I go, it costs me hundreds of dollars to be connected for the ~10 days I am there.

In the past I end up:

(1) Renting a cell phone and paying minutes at a higher rate
(2) Buying a USB data card for my laptop
(3) Adding the AT&T international data plan to my iPhone

All these three things add up.

This year, I am going to try to change things up.

In January 2011 I plan on:

(1) Buying a SIM card from Orange Israel, which I did in the US from israelsims.com.

That is it. I will pop it in the Nexus S that I will get soon and use that for my phone calls and data connectivity via its mobile hotspot.

I can then use the Android hotspot on the Nexus S to give my MacBook Pro, iPhone, iPad and other devices internet when I am Israel for the same fee. Plus, I can check my emails, feeds and stuff on the go on the Nexus S and also make calls.

This should save me a lot of money in the long run and I won't "rent" any of it.

Every year, when I go back, I can use the same device. So I can keep the same number and not worry about renting stuff.

Hope it all works out well.

Posted at 2:59 PM | Permalink | Category: Travels | Comments (5) (0)

Finally Got Professional Head Shots

Get them while they are hot. Make them your desktop's background image. Use them for your website's favicons! Okay, maybe not.

For the seven years I have covered search, I never was able to provide press, media, conferences, and so on - a professional headshot of myself. I often gave them a picture of myself from Gary Price's wedding. I just didn't care much, it all has to do with me being a bad sales man.

But we ended up doing family pictures with a family friend and I asked if he can do some head shots, because what I have now, doesn't work. And even though I am not the most attractive guy in the world, they came out pretty nice.

Even better, it looks great on my bio page at rustybrick.com/barry.

So there are high resolution versions for all to download at that bio page, towards the bottom.

Huge thanks to J. Pollack Photography, which is based in St. Louis. He did an outstanding job!

Posted at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Category: Business | Comments (2) (0)

Scary Flight Experience

I fly a nice amount per year. I am accustomed to the normal and sometimes very significant drops caused by turbulence. But I never experienced what I am about to tell you in my hundreds of thousands of miles flown on a plane.

I was flying on a clear day, the skys were clear, the flight was smooth. Then all of a sudden the plane starts to speed up and head down, fast. It was like we were starting our descent, but like the pilot forgot to start earlier and was doing a much quicker descent. It didn't make much sense, but the flight attendant didn't seem to notice and nothing was announced, so I let it slide.

Soon after, the flight attendant received a call from the pilot. His face gave off the impression like he was all of a sudden nervous and anxious. He immediately went to his seat and buckled himself in. He then sat there for a bit and looked around.

He noticed two babies were on board and decided to go talk to them. He pretty quickly walked over to both mother's with their babies, individually and said something to them. I overheard what he said to the first.

He said, if the oxygen masks come down, you first and then the baby. He repeated, "you first and then the baby."

He then quickly went back to his seat, sat down, buckled in. 10 seconds later, he opened up a special compartment. It had his oxygen mask ready to go, so he prepped it.

We continued or descent for what felt like forever.

Thankfully, when we reach the clouds, the pilot began to level off. Soon after the flight attendant got another call from the pilot. I saw an immediate sign of relief on the flight attendant's face. He got back up and went to his business.

No one made any announcements, no one told us anything after we got off the flight.

We just flew at that altitude for the remainder of the flight. Heck, we even landed 15 minutes early.

When we landed, I saw fire trucks near the run way. Turned out, they were for us. They came on to the plane to question the pilot and then left after 2 minutes of questions.

Again, no idea what happened, no one told us. Not sure if I really want to know.

But from speaking to others, it seems like the best possible answer was the plane's air compressor went bad. So we had to quickly go down to an altitude with good oxygen levels so the people on the plane can breath. If not, the air masks would have come down to provide us with air we can breath.

Posted at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Category: Travels | Comments (2) (0)

Search Engine Roundtable Version 4

Yesterday late afternoon, I launched the version 4 of the Search Engine Roundtable. I made sure to do it the night before the 7th birthday of the site, because I felt a new design on it's birthday would make it me feel younger. Yea, covering a single topic, every day, around 5-10 times per day, can feel old.

New Look:

Version 3 launched Feb 20, 2007:

Version 2 (almost original look):

Version 1 was an out of the box template.

I should note, all previous versions were on MovableType, like this blog is on. But now it is on it's own content management system, built and designed by my team at RustyBrick.

Posted at 7:32 PM | Permalink | Category: Blogging | Comments (0) (0)