American Airlines and JetBlue, JFK Visit

Checking out a B777.

JetBlue Ramp Tower.

Yesterday, I went on a field trip with the Airlines Management class from the hotel school to JFK in New York. It was definitely weird being so close to home (about 20 minutes away on a good day), but we spent all of our time at the airport, visiting American Airline's hangers and Terminal 8 and JetBlue's Terminal 5.

We left Cornell at 4 am, getting to Terminal 8 at around 9:30 am. We left there around 4:30 am to return around 9:30 pm.

I've seen things and been to places the general public will never get a chance to see and visit. I sat in the captain's seat on an AA Boeing 777 at the AA maintenance hanger. (They were changing out a windshield panel, and looking at the Japanese in the plane, our guess was it was a JFK to Tokyo plane.) I sat in first class on the same plane. I touched and walked under the belly of a few AA Boeing planes. I stood up close to a real-life jet engine. I sat in a "Even More Legroom" seat on a JetBlue A320. I got to visit the flight operations offices, crew lounges, and ramp towers of both AA and JetBlue. We met many interesting people, including pilots, flight attendants, and operations and tower control people. They answered a lot of our questions, which was really cool. Oh, and of course, we got a lot of free stuff.

All in all, it was an epic trip. Jealous much? :-)

Goodie bags.

NYC Bucket List

Taylor, all confused, as usual.

I realized two important things today. First, this winter break might be the last time I will be at home for an extended period of time with "nothing" to do. Second, flossing is incredibly important.

After hanging out with Taylor today (and deliberately avoiding, as best we can, all the touristy things to do and places to see), I realized the commonly known fact that tourists to NYC do more of the necessary things than NYC natives do. We take it for granted. At least I know I do, somewhat. Before I depart from this place "for good," I should probably try my hand at some of the ridiculous and dumb touristy things in this city.

I'm drawing up a NYC bucket list of sorts. But I realize time is already running short, as I will be going to Hawaii mid January, and potentially Boston before then. If you got any suggestions, I'm all ears.

Blizzard 2010, NYC

There's a lot of snow outside. Two days have passed and no government truck came to plow our local street. Usually we can dump snow into the street for cars to melt, but this time we had massive piles in the backyard and in the front garden.

In the back, we dug a tunnel.

Winter Break, In Summary

This winter break was a pretty standard one, consisting of a lot of time at home and some time seeing old friends and the old New York City. The first part of break involved catching up with personal reading, the middle part involved a lot of cooking and eating, and the latter part involved some city exploration and tourism.

While I wasn't able to complete (but really, procrastinated taking care of) my to-do list, I picked up my camera again, and restarted my POTD project. This time, though, we've got more people involved, like Hans and Adrian. My "POTD 2010" set is on Flickr. Here's Han's. And here's Adrian's.

I visited Roosevelt Island, the Paley Center for Media (formerly the Museum of Television and Radio), the Guggenheim Museum, and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, all for the first time. I revisited my high school's neighborhood, Rockefeller Center, and Central Park, among others. I also experienced many instances of paying a little too much for second-rate food.

Here's a photo summary of the major destinations...

Roosevelt Island

Rockefeller Center

Guggenheim and Central Park

Deceptive Statistics (Is There Any Other Kind?)

In the New York metropolitan area, we are blessed with having a plethora of inferior newspapers, from the New York Daily News to the New York Post, to the Metro and AM New York, just to name a few. (I consider The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal quality newspapers.)

Starting this week, I began picking up the free Metro and the free AM New York, which was intended to be nothing more than a newspaper (if you can really call it that) to be read during one's commute. The Metro is has about half the number of pages as AM New York and it is just about the most poorly written newspaper I have ever read, anywhere. (Even the English Taipei Times in Taiwan is better written.)

The following comes from yesterday's AM New York and today's Metro, respectively. While there is probably nothing wrong with they way they portray things, it just goes to show that statistics really can be made to show anything. Click to enlarge:





From the AM New York, though, I was exposed to Ken Ken number puzzle, which I find particularly entertaining.