Should I add another entertainment option?

Until now my blog posts have been about things I've done, places I've gone, gadgets I've purchased and experiences I've enjoyed. Now I'm hoping to get some feedback on a product/service I'm considering, Netflix. Seemingly every five minutes Netflix emails, pops-under or shows up in print fashion with a free trial offer. I'm intrigued, yet question how I'll find the time to enjoy the movies let alone make the streaming thing work. So when you're finished with the latest dvd (hopefully in HD) from Netflix please give me some feedback.

An American Badass

My iPhone photo of Kid Rock & The Twisted Brown Trucker Band 8/15/10

Billboard Magazine's August 7 cover shows a deflated beach ball and the headline, "Cruel Summer. Ticket Sales Down. Tour Dates Canceled." Last week in struggling Detroit, Kid Rock packed 'em in for three nights running at DTE Energy Theatre. (Or Pine Knob as Kid Rock referred to it throughout the show.) I was fortunate to attend the Sunday evening show with my wife and friends (thanks Greater Media) and we had a great time. A fantastic "escape." Rap, country, blues, a bottle of Badass American Lager, slow ballads and raw energy for over two hours. The crowd never sat down. When Kid Rock and Jamey Johnson came to the end of "Turn the Page" none other than Mr. Bob Seger came on stage to belt out his signature "there I go" which brought down the house. That beach ball might not be pumped up, but "with the echoes of the amplifiers ringin' in your head," we still are over a week later.

Shameless plug for Cyber Clean

If you're like me, you eat and use the computer/phone at the same time. As a result food and dirt get in the keyboard. I've tried using the compressed air cans to clean my telephone and computer keyboard. I can't quite manage like the experts on CSI and simply end up freezing the dirty keyboard.

In the Air Mall magazine I saw a blurb on Cyber Clean and thought, "I've got to try this stuff." I did and it works. It has the consistency of green, gooey Silly Putty. You press Cyber Clean into the crevices and it lifts out the gunk.

Go get a container. Then you can surf the Internet and freely eat trail mix all day long.

Cancelling a Vacation

I love planning a vacation. Even before the actual escape, it's a great escape and it's certainly something I don't get to do often enough. Last September my daughter and I were watching a PBS show on the lodges of the National Parks. The cabins at the Lodge at Bryce Canyon caught our eye. On a whim I said, "see if there's an availability next summer?" (My daughter always has her MacBook in her lap.) She found a cabin available for what would have been  dates last week. I showed her how to reserve it using a credit card and a trip plan was hatched. Based on that one cabin we then snagged a room at the Lodge at Zion National Park, booked a rental car, found frequent flyer flights for four to Las Vegas on Northwest and added hotel and activities in Las Vegas for the days before heading home.

My family was excited about this trip. With the long build-up we could read about hikes in the park, gather up gear, plan to see Vegas shows and tell our friends about the planned vacation.

Unfortunately a week before we were due to leave a major presentation was scheduled smack dab in the middle of this planned trip. As much as I enjoy vacation planning, vacation unraveling is another story. Canceling the rental car, Vegas hotel and even the lodges was no big deal. Two components proved difficult. The first, Jersey Boys at the Venetian has a no-refund, no-cancellation policy. I understand that policy and they very nicely worked to accommodate us by allowing deferred use of the tickets.

That brings me to Delta Airlines. I have nothing nice to say about the acquirer of Northwest. The original flights we reserved for a measly 100,000 miles were changed by Delta on five (yes five) separate occasions. Each time they sent the same form email informing us of schedule changes to our upcoming itinerary. Can I charge them for making change after change? No way. In the world of round-trip air travel the relationship between airline and passenger is decidedly one-way.

Now I found myself having to make a change to our itinerary. (If I remember chemistry class, doesn't Delta mean "change"?)That change couldn't be made online so I called Delta. After navigating the prompts I finally spoke with a live agent. She informed me that I would have to pay $150 per passenger to cancel these "free" mileage tickets. That's $600 for the pleasure of NOT getting to go on vacation and to get the miles re-deposited into my account. Call me crazy but that seemed a bit unfair. The next morning I wrote a level-headed complaint on the Delta website. A day later I received a voice mail at home (my office number was on the complaint form?) from Delta online support. I returned that call to find that Delta was unwilling to do anything for me. I must note that I'm a Silver Medallion frequent flyer and have had some sort of elite status with Delta and predecessor Northwest for 11 straight years! I did my homework and was able to point out that in the disclaimer copy it notes that the change fee is only $100 for tickets booked before June, 2010. Why did I have to bring that to Delta's attention? Still egregious but $200 better. The $400 charge to say bye-bye to our trip went on my American Express card. I'm sure Delta's happy to add it to their heap-o-fees. I also hope they're happy to have me think of the pain EVERY time I consider future travel plans.

Sometime soon I'll begin thinking about a future family vacation. Maybe we'll drive ...

Consumer Escapes - Sunday, August 8 New York Times Nailed It

Image credit: Chubby Brain.com

The business section cover story from the Sunday, August 8, 2010 New York Times was entitled "Consumers Find New Ways to Spend Less and Find Happiness." A key paragraph summed it up:

On the bright side, the practices that consumers have adopted in response to the economic crisis ultimately could — as a raft of new research suggests — make them happier. New studies of consumption and happiness show, for instance, that people are happier when they spend money on experiences instead of material objects, when they relish what they plan to buy long before they buy it, and when they stop trying to outdo the Joneses.

What affirmation for a blogger who has spent the past year commenting on consumer choices around spending as it relates to smz's point of view on Escapes. The article went on to add:

“This actually is a topic that hasn’t been researched very much until recently,” says Elizabeth W. Dunn, an associate professor in the psychology department at the University of British Columbia, who is at the forefront of research on consumption and happiness. “There’s massive literature on income and happiness. It’s amazing how little there is on how to spend your money.”

One major finding is that spending money for an experience — concert tickets, French lessons, sushi-rolling classes, a hotel room in Monaco — produces longer-lasting satisfaction than spending money on plain old stuff.

‘It’s better to go on a vacation than buy a new couch’ is basically the idea,” says Professor Dunn, summing up research by two fellow psychologists, Leaf Van Boven and Thomas Gilovich. Her own take on the subject is in a paper she wrote with colleagues at Harvard and the University of Virginia: “If Money Doesn’t Make You Happy Then You Probably Aren’t Spending It Right.” (The Journal of Consumer Psychology plans to publish it in a coming issue.) 

One last thing. Professor Dunn we've done some research on the topic. In fact, I find happiness spending time on the subject.

Consumer Escapes - Classic Cars and a Cold Beer

At the end of vacation last week in Merrimack, New Hampshire my wife discovered the Anheuser-Busch Brewery Tour. We took the 10:35 am tour which winds its way from the hot of the fermenting process, to the cold of the lagering and filtering (beechwood!) process to the hyper-speed of the packaging process. Of course the highlight of the complimentary tour is the Hospitality Room. Here adult visitors are treated to a cold Budweiser and a choice of another A-B InBev product. Barely noon and enjoying pretzels, a Bud and a Stella Artois, now that's vacation.

After the brewery tour we were able to visit the stables of the world-famous Budweiser Clydesdales. That's the closest I've ever been to the majestic Clydesdales and it's like standing by Shaq. All you can say is, "wow."

Our tour was culminated by the 35th annual "Show and Shine" car event in the parking lot. Hundreds of mint classic cars were on display. I hope a few make the trek out for the Woodward Dream Cruise in a few weeks. Cold beer and hot cars. The perfect capper to a nice week on the road.

Consumer Escapes - College Visits

This blog has been dark for awhile. Why? The key escape, vacation. But as we've all come to learn you have to jam in a bunch of work before vacation. Try to escape when on vacation. And then pay the price in emails/mail/voice mails when you return. Unfortunately my blog got shoved aside in the process.

So what was this vacation? I billed it as an epic college tour. A chance to expose our two high-school daughters to some great schools and great settings. On day one we left our home in Michigan and drove to Ithaca, NY with a brief stop on the way to ride the Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls. The next day we took the student tour of Cornell University. More than just naturally beautiful Cornell comes across as a friendly and approachable place to be tested academically.

Next we were off to Saratoga Springs, NY one of my favorite places for a true "daily double." We had effectively a private tour of Skidmore College followed by a day at the races. Skidmore presents itself under the banner "Creative Thought Matters." I love that theme and how it intersects with today's world of media arts. We put our theories into practice at the track and proudly lost every race.


Back roads took us across the Berkshires to bucolic Williamstown and Williams College. Here the old (1793) is beautifully integrated with the new (see Paresky Student Center.) Williams was a great representative of a classic small, New England liberal arts college.

Just when I'd though I'd never seen so much purple, a short drive on Friday took us to Amherst College. Oh my lucky daughters as they got to take in another premier institution on a picture-perfect day. I will let the words of an Amherst past president paint a picture:

“The college is called liberal… because the instruction is dominated by no special interest, is limited to no single human task, but is intended to take human activity as a whole, to understand human endeavors not in their isolation but in their relations to one another and to the total experience which we call the life of our people.” 

— Alexander Meiklejohn, President, 1912-1924

 My portion of the tour ended on Saturday in Hanover, New Hampshire at yet another world-class institution, Dartmouth College. Dartmouth's noon tour drew so many students that the walking tour was students-only. I'm a proud Penn grad but have to admit that the Dartmouth environment and facilities were very attractive.

What a week. I was able to relive my youth a little bit while watching my daughters take in the possibilities of where they might go to college. I say possibilities as my daughters found delight in every one of these schools while calmly recognizing that only a small fraction (say 10%) of applicants are admitted. For a year now I've been blogging about great escapes. Add a big one to the list and go visit a nearby or far away college campus. For those who graduated decades ago - even the food is great.