Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Every week, thousands of area Washingtonians decide to escape the beltway and take a trip up to New York.  As with most topics around here, the conveyance used for the trip has become a matter of great debate.

Car:

It's so tempting to take your car.  You have the freedom to come and go as you please, you don't have to deal with crowds, you can blast your tunes and stop to pee whenever you feel like it.  It also means you don't have to shell out more than a hundred bucks for a ticket, but not so fast.  Tolls to NYC are currently $37.05, and just slightly cheaper on the way home.  Plus gas to get you 460 miles round trip, and parking at NYC hotels averages in the $50 range.

And then there's the traffic.  Sure, leaving at 6am on a Saturday morning will usually yield you a pleasant trip taking about 4 hours.  But add in a holiday, rush hour, weather, or construction, and this travel time can double.  It's too much of a crap shoot for my tastes, and really the car is more of a hinderance than a help once in the city.

Car total cost for 2 people for 2 days: around $115 per person ($70 tolls, $100 parking, $50 gas divided by 2).  Not my favorite way to go.

Train:

I don't like the train.  I don't.  A lot of people have a hard time handling that. 

I understand the virtues.  There is no security, you should up ten minutes before the train leaves, don't have to go through security, you move about freely, and it drops you right in the middle of Manhattan.  It really is 3.5 hours door to door (including cab time).  But that also includes 195 minutes sitting in an Amtrak regional train jerking back and forth and stopping more often than it seems like it should.  And these days, its rare to find a daytime NE Regional that isn't completely full.  Plus with no assigned seats, it is an absolute mad dash to find spots together if you are traveling with companions, which is stressful in the Penn Station "pit".

The costs of the train vary wildly - if you book far in advance, off peak, you can get a regional for 98$ round trip, a real bargain.  But most of the time, I find I end up paying closer to $200 about 2 weeks in advance.

Cost for 2 people for 2 nights: 230$ per person (assuming 200$ ticket, Union Station parking and 10$ for NYC taxi)

Plane to JFK:

Have you been to JFK lately?  Probably not unless you've traveled internationally - be thankful that the "local" NYC airport is La Guardia.  JFK is 17 miles from the lower east side of Manhattan - a flat taxi rate of 45$ applies to or from, you can get a car service for $40 from JFK to Manhattan but they charge $63 to get you back.  You also have to heavily factor in traffic to get to and from the airport.  As one friend this weekend described it, the Delta terminals in JFK were designed by children - clearly Terminal 2 was.  DCA to JFK also does not count as a shuttle, meaning you have to put up with all of the crap of regular flying that is somewhat alleviated with the shuttle.

And last but not least, it takes forever to fly to JFK.  The FAA has the standard flight pattern swinging out over the ocean to avoid traffic into Philly, EWR, and LGA.  When you leave, you have to fly out even further over the ocean to get around the inbound traffic, so you end up going east over the Atlantic for 40 miles, when DC is considerably west of New York.  In other words, you drive around the skies of the east coast for an hour in a flight pattern that nearly doubles the distance.  It's just not worth it.

DCA-JFK cost for 2 day flight: $265  ($170 ticket, 55$ taxi and tip each way, 20$ per day parking at DCA)

Place to LGA:

This is the bomb diggity in my book.  You fly from the easy local airport (DCA) to the easy local airport (LGA), its a nearly straight flight pattern that takes 35 minutes, its a short cab ride into Manhattan for about $30 bucks, and you're on the shuttle which means open seating, newspapers, cocktails, and that little Delta shuttle terminal at LGA that is soooooo easy to get in and out of.  Its worth a slightly higher fare if that applies.

Cost per person for 2 day trip: $260 ($200 ticket, $40 taxi and tip each way, $20 per day parking at DCA)

Brand Integrity is a Tricky Thing...

Wal-Mart has an image problem.  Their products are known as being cheap, and their executives are known to milk the little guy producer out of every last penny of profit in order to lower their purchase price, so Wal-Mart in turn can charge lower prices to customers and increase their market share.  They are known to short-change their underpaid workers out of decent health insurance, and are frequently accused of gender bias.  Wal-Mart has an image problem.

At the same point, Target is known as having higher brand standards - they are more picky with who they hire, they pay a bit better, they offer higher quality merchandise.  You don't hear Target's name in the headlines a lot associated with anything more than their weekly ads and what new high end designer they've managed to bring to their discount merchandising model.

This fall, Target led the pack of Black Friday retailers by announcing they were opening at midnight instead of the more traditional early morning (4 or 5am) opening - meaning their employees had to start their shifts - many of which are 8 hours long - at 11pm on Thanksgiving.  This resulted in a should-have-been-expected backlash from both employees and customers, who felt like the retail giant was crossing a line and not truly giving their employees the unpaid holiday as was tradition.

I'm sure Target made an assload of money on Thursday night/Friday morning.  And I'm sure they made more money opening at midnight than they would have at 4am, because as a result of their opening, everyone else did, too.  But there is a part of me that wonders what the dollar value of the damage to their brand integrity has been.  Target is now associated with something than has been rare in their brand history - accusations of employee mistreatment (yes, I'm sure thousands of individual examples can be found, as with any national company).  Do I still shop at Target?  Yes, I do, the MTB and I dropped 200$ there yesterday.  But I'd be a little less likely to drive by the Wal-Mart were it closer than I would have been before this incident happened. That's the problem with having excellent brand integrity - the company actually has to have the excellent integrity to back it up if they want to keep it.  In this case, Target did not.

Shop House

There is a certain study in modern marketing and restaurants with Chipotle.  Customers not only get a burrito that weighs four pounds, they get the feeling of enfrachisement on their meal - the sense that they created this meal, that is is OF them, they feel a personal investment in something as simple as a burrito.

Or, they just want a damn burrito and are too lazy to find one that tastes better. (I don't like Chipotle that much but still find myself an occasional customer)

Regardless, the concept works.  Chipotle offers a safe list of ingredients with similar flavor profiles and merely allows the customer to layer them, with the perception that they've created something delicious.  This concept has made Chipotle one of the fastest growing chains in the world and is making the company mega bucks.  So they've decided to branch out.

Enter Shop House, an asian spin on the Chipotle concept from the same creative team, with the pilot store on Connecticut Avenue just a few feet north of Dupont Circle in DC.

Shop House feels very familiar.  You choose either a bowl or a Banh Mi (sandwich), then select your base (rice or noodle options), meat, veggie, sauce, and "texture" toppings.  Instead of the big troughs at Chipotle, ingredients are in bowls, but you get the idea.  The steak was spicy, with a more mild chicken, while the tofu option look exactly like the Tofu Scramble at the Whole Foods breakfast bar.  I didn't try the meatballs, something about meatballs from a bowl at Shop House just seemed odd.  These meats were piled on your choice of jasmine rice, brown rice, or cold noodles (in addition to the aforementioned Banh Mi).  Next came the veggies with options like Chinese broccoli, long beans, eggplant, and charred corn.  They seem to have realized people frequently triple dip the toppings at Chipotle and have clamped down on the veggies, more than one costs you a buck more.

Next comes the sauces - Red curry (hot, and I'm not kidding, it was hot), green curry, or a fruit "vinaigrette" that had tropical flavors.  There was no "Safe" sauce choice in a traditional brown sauce.  You then have an option of topping with papaya slaw or pickled vegetables.  Finally you have a choice in textures, from toasted rice to fried garlic.  Each bowl was topped with a sprig of Thai Basil.

On paper, I should have freaking loved this place.  I love ethnic foods, spicy foods, foods with big flavors.  But herein lies the problem - as I said, Chipotle's ingredients all use the same flavor profile, so it's almost impossible to make a "bad" combination.  Shop House strays from that safety.  Spicy Steak with charred corn, vinaigrette, papaya slaw, and fried garlic?  No thanks.  I got the MtB the chicken with chinese broccoli, vinaigrette, papaya slaw and toasted rice... what should have been a safe combination tasted... off.  These ingredients are exclusively Thai, Mandarin, Vietnamese, etc.  They are all of the above, with different flavor profiles and an odd juxtaposition of spices.  All in the same bowl, it tastes... unpleasant. 

Maybe they should have "recommended" bowls of good combinations.  Or have one ethnicity with common spicing.

Or maybe they should just stick to burritos.

(Note: to be fair, this is a concept restaurant, not a perfected formula.  Given the success of Chipotle, I would imagine they will fix these issues over time, especially since at 6:45 last night there was literally no line - I must not be the only one to notice.)

The Great American Campout

Ok I'm not going to lie, this post has absolutely nothing to do with life concierge'ing.  You've been warned.

If you have followed my various blogging projects for awhile, you know that I'm not a big fan of protests as they are commonly executed.  A bunch of people get together, waste a bunch of time, inconvenience the people they're trying to convince, and generally leave behind a giant mess.  Their messages are muddled, their tactics inefficient.  Maybe that's why they spend so much time chilling in parks.  I was unemployed for four months within the last year, I didn't go to the park.  I looked for jobs.  I looked online, I looked offline, I went to interviews, I networked.  I don't remember going to a single park to find a job or make a political point.  And now I'm employed.  Just saying.

So I don't understand the Occupy (insert city name) movement.  A bunch of unemployed or underemployed people get together in the middle of a city and "occupy" (stand around and hold badly designed signs while obstructing pedestrian and vehicular traffic) a space in order to protest "the rich" and "big corporations."

Feel free to mentally insert any one of many snarky comments here about finding a job with one of those corporations rather than protesting them if you wish.

I say this as a person who does not now, nor have I ever, been employed by a corporation in my post-college career.  In fact, 90% of my career has been spent in not-for-profit industries.  But those corporations being protested FUND the non profits that I work for.  Without corporate donors, this guy would be unemployed, and would then be unable to write this blog that is read by all of 4 people.  Oh, and whenever a disaster struck, Americans (and people around the world) would have to rely on the American government for assistance.  Yes, the same people it took four days to get water to the Superdome.  Just saying, we tend to put those corporate dollars to good work.

And I'm a bit confused over all this fuss about "profits."  This is hard to say without sounding condescending, but I feel like maybe the Occupiers just don't understand.  Corporations don't make profits to pile the money in a big room to look at it and go HEY LOOK WHAT WE DID.  It is true that businesses are saving more now than before due to economic uncertainty, but their goal isn't to hoard money and go running through the streets saying I HAVE IT AND YOU DON'T.  Nope, they take that money, and they distribute it.  They distribute it to executives, to workers through salaries, stock options, bonuses and 401k retirement plans.  They distribute it to stock holders who have invested in their companies as a legitimate means to grow their dollars (legitimate investing being a paramount requirement for any modern economy).  And then those people take that money, and they invest in OTHER companies, so that they may be successful.  So that they may HIRE people, and then pay those people, and that those people may go out and buy goods and services, which means even more companies can HIRE people.  They take that money and they donate it to my employer so that we may help people.  You can't have an economy without companies.  Sorry folks, just doesn't work that way.

And I'm also unsure about why they are targeting "the rich."  Most business owners, stock holders, investors, pay huge sums of taxes that could otherwise be used to hire people, while working their asses off - all while risking their own worth if their businesses should fail.  They pay their government first, their employees second, and themselves last.  If you make more than $68,000 a year, you are in the top quartile of American wage earners.  Rich just isn't what it used to be.

What is obvious is that these protesters are angry, frustrated, upset.  So are the rest of us.  What is less obvious is just who they are mad at and what they want done about it.  It seems they are frustrated about the same things I am - economic turmoil and uncertainty, and an unwillingness of our "leaders" to do anything to fix it.  But their anger seems misdirected.  "Wall Street" (corporate businesses) and "the Rich" (small business owners) aren't responsible for this quagmire, they are merely facing the same constraints as the rest of us, and have reacted accordingly.  If we had real economic leadership who was willing to face hard choices (I'm looking at both sides of the aisle here), the money would flow, the economy would right, and these protesters could get a job (though they may have to leave their park to look).  I guess protesting a faceless "corporation" is easier, or at least easier to justify against their misguided understanding of a free economy and left-wing political ideology, than demanding more of their elected leadership and being disappointed at those results.

Hopefully they will recognize this soon and leave the park.  Leave it clean.  And leave it before tonight's rush hour.

Breakfast Wars

When I was in college, I worked at a mid-market motel in Iowa.  This one, an AmericInn, was similar to its counterparts - Marriott Courtyard, Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton Inn, etc that cater to business travelers and families on a budget.  These hotels are all the same.  Same fake-homey lobby, same in-room coffee pots in too-small bathrooms, and they all offer some sort of complimentary breakfast.

When I worked at the AmericInn, we had donuts (cut in half), cereal, juice, bagels.  It was a big day when they got a waffle iron that the guests could run themselves.  But at some point, breakfast became the differentiating factor between these brands which has caused a sort of breakfast arms race.  After all, since everything else about these properties is identical, if one offered a hot breakfast over the others, the game was over.

So soon we saw not only waffles, but pancakes, eggs, pre-bagged breakfasts for those on the run, cooked breakfast burritos.  Then someone thought, well hey, since we've gone as far as we can go without hiring a chef, lets make the room nicer, so it's now as if you're sitting in a full service restaurant while eating your complimentary huevos rancheros that the front desk clerked microwaved in the backroom.  BUT NOT SO FAST, why NOT hire a chef?

So I'm at a Marriott Courtyard in Baltimore this week (don't stay there.  or in Baltimore for that matter).  I waltz over to the breakfast counter, where I do see, yes, a COOK making eggs and omelets to order behind the counter.  Then there is a tap tap on my shoulder, and I turn around to an angry looking young woman.  "Excuse me sir, you have to wait to be seated."  Yes, you had to check in to the MAITRE 'D to be SEATED in order to get your MADE TO ORDER breakfast.

Dude, all I wanted is my muffin.  Next step in the hotel wars?  Rip out the breakfast nook and put in a bar.  That is a change I can get behind.

Flying to Orlando

So the MTB and I attended a wedding in Florida last weekend, and chose to fly into Orlando because its significantly cheaper than options closer to our destination.  Through this, we discovered the joy of flying into Orlando.

Kids suck on airplanes.  There, I said it.  Sure, you have the well-behaved ones who don't cry the entire time or kick the back of your seat.  But even the best kids down the security lines, don't know and abide by those common courtesy rules we all know on the plane (when to talk to your neighbor, what is appropriate personal space, volume, etc), and they tend to have to get up to pee a lot.  And then you have the kid "stuff."  The strollers, the diaper bags, the car seats.  It's a lot.

I thought for a 7am flight we may avoid the kid rush.  WRONG.  All those bleary eyed adults who shuffle silently on the plane are replaced by little people who are excited to be awake at that hour, PLUS the excitement of going to Disney World.  Its easy to recall the scene in Kindergarten Cop when Ahnuld walks in and screams SHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT UUUUUUUUUUUUUPPP! (and i don't even hate children)

So tip 1: fly first class.  Easier said than done, I know.  But if you have an upgrade coupon, use it here.  If they offer an upgrade for a fee, its worth the money.

Tip 2: be patient with the boarding process.  Because even the first class boarding doesn't go in front of pre-boarding, or "Those with small children and/or strollers."  In other words, "pre-boarding" will mean 70% of the flight is on board before premiere boarding steps onto the jet bridge

Tip 3: Orlando's airport bar-to-passenger ratio is pathetic.  For SIXTY gates (gates 60-120), there is ONE bar after security.  And its a bar at the outback steakhouse.  After standing behind 50 parents with strollers in the self-policed "Expert Travelers" lane when going through security, you're going to want to visit.

Inexpensive Happy Hours Downtown

I've come across a plethora of inexpensive happy hours at places I wouldn't have expected recently.  I like booze and don't like to pay for it, and I don't feel like I'm alone, so I thought I'd share:

Oceanaire: Most of Oceanaire's entrees run into the $30s, so it's not a place that many of us have on our regular rotation, however they do have an excellent happy hour.  3$ draft beer, 4$ house wines, and 5$ cocktails make the booze affordable.  Throw in bar snacks for between $5-$8, including a number of seafood tastes, and this is a pretty good deal.

Bourbon Steak Lounge: In the 4 Seasons in Georgetown, most cocktails at BSL go for $15 - hardly a daily happy hour.  But until THIS WEDNESDAY, August 31st, you can get a hot dog and a pint of DC Brau for just $7.  It's off menu, so just ask your server/bartender

J&G Wine Bar: I wrote about this last week, but the bites and tastes at J&G wine bar gets you three tastes of wine and there snacks (paired) for just $20 - incidentally the same price it will cost you to valet your car for this happy hour at the W, so take the metro or walk.

Kellari Taverna: Discounted drinks at the bar ($3-5$) is nice, but even better is the giant block of parmesan cheese with toast that you can slice of chunks from to snack on for no charge, in addition to the giant bowl of olives-  also free.  Have a few cocktails, munch on some snacks, and you have yourself a meal.