Friday, August 26, 2011

Pro cycling comes to Steamboat

Professional cycling came to Steamboat today with the finish of Stage 4 of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge (and the start of stage 5 tomorrow morning).

All the top teams were there, including this year's Aussie winner of the Tour de France, Cadel Evans; so we had to be there at the finish waving the flag in support!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Krugman and space aliens

In an attempt to justify more Keynesian stimulus spending, Paul Krugman has suggested a strategy which has now most cleverly been dubbed Wag the Dalek - yes, a fake invasion by space aliens to justify massive government spending.

Actually, given the consistent Keynesian failure to understand that every dollar the government spends is a dollar not being spent by taxpayers themselves, I'm a little disappointed that Krugman didn't advocate a real alien invasion. Imagine the jobs created rebuilding our civilization once those helpful aliens blast us back to the stone age with their death rays.

It's all too bizarre for words. I do see the work of aliens here, but what I really think has happened is that the Nobel prize winning economist we called Paul Krugman has been replaced by an alien pretending (not very well) to be Paul Krugman. Seriously. How else can you explain this guy seeming to have unlearnt everything he ever knew as an economist?

Update: You can buy a (slightly geeky) t-shirt that makes the point:

Monday, August 08, 2011

Just one thing to get right

All a check in agent needs to do these days is get one thing right. When you print your own boarding pass and check in at a kiosk, all the agent needs to do is put the correct tag on your bag. Our check in agent today couldn't even manage that. It wasn't until our bags didn't arrive in DC and we looked at our baggage receipts that we realised that she'd put someone else's tags on our bag. Someone else who was going to Tampa Bay.

I've hated United so much for so long that I would have thought it impossible for me to hate them more. I was wrong. Very wrong.

Update 2.55pm, August 9
They give you a website to check the status of your bags (http://www.united.com/bagcheck) but all it tells you is that your bag has been found and is in transit to you. But you still have to call and talk to an agent to find out the specific flight it was put on and when you can realistically expect it. It's one thing not to have information on the website that they don't have, but what's the sense in having the website if it doesn't tell you the information they have and you want?