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Of course, I except comments like, "Everyone in X is stupid (or ugly or fat, etc.)" But comments about not enjoying a visit somewhere? Who really cares? It's just amazing that the answer is, clearly, that we all do.
I also find it extremely difficult to believe that Toronto has the worst night-time downtown core in the league.
Well, there are only two Hooters in Toronto - and one of them is at the airport.
But the other one is 5 minutes from the stadium!
I think the writer was saying Atlanta has the worst downtown core in the league.
Ah
That makes more sense - Toronto definitely doesn't suffer from a lack of high quality restaurants/clubs/whatever in the downtown core.
Of course, the only thing I know about Atlanta is that I hate the airport, and I'm willing to guess that's mostly the result of a series of delightful experiences with Delta.
I have trouble believing any MLB player would not be able to find a good time in any MLB city. I would guess most of these stories are from less adventurous players who prefer familiar surroundings to new surroundings. I know plenty of people who, basically, hate to travel. I can imagine if you're one of these people there are aspects of a MLB career that are pure hell. I'm not saying that is true of Chipper (he seems to like Vegas), just that I've read similar quotes from other players and it often sounds as if they're idea of a good time is staying home.
Seriously, what on earth is wrong with your domestic carriers, and why can't they get someone from point A to point B without either losing their luggage or having something important fall off of the plane?
Not that our domestic carriers are that great (WestJet is actually pretty good, but a trip on Air Canada can shift into disaster mode at any time), but I've never had a good experience on a US domestic carrier.
I've never had trouble on a domestic airline except for ATA, but that's what I get for being cheap. I usually fly Continental or Jet Blue and I can't complain. Never had my luggage lost and Jet Blue only ticked me off once by being slow at the gate.
It's just the big ones. USAirways is the worst, in my experience. But the smaller airlines- Southwest, Midwest (they serve warm chocolate chip cookies!), AirTran, Frontier, etc., offer pretty good experiences (though Southwest's boarding process is ridiculous).
If I had to visit one, I'd go to Toronto. Las Vegas doesn't interest me at all (except for its proximity to Zion National Park and I would like to spend one day there during football season drinking and betting on all the day's games. Just once, though.)
Rifle ranges, demolition derbies, bass fishing, opportunities to have your picture taken with your face on top of a cardboard body of a famous person, strippers who aren't all snooty because they have C-section scars, that sort of thing.
I liked the comment in an earlier thread..."What a shock, a hick doesn't like Toronto. Sorry the tractor pull wasn't in town, Larry."
But he also likes Hooters, Vegas and lives in this house.
Most baseball players prefer the boringly obvious.
If Griffin wanted to catch more flies with honey than vinegar, he would just direct Jones to this URL.
To be fair, the author is Richard Griffin. If he were to only write about things he knew, he'd be unemployed.
Unsurprisingly, Larry "Chipper" Jones and I have rather different tastes in nightlife. I'm also a Mets fan, so we'd really get along. Anyway, none of this should surprise anyone - I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that ballplayers and sabermetrically-inclined fans (and sportswriters, too) likely prefer to hang out in vastly different places.
Toronto > Las Vegas
also, Larry...
Montreal > Branson, MO
Cute. Stupid, but cute. Yes, Chipper Jones likes to hunt and fish. He enjoys outdoor adventures. He's probably not going to go clubbing or hit the museum circuit on his off days. In short, he's a baseball player.
Have any of you ever actually travelled for work? It's not like Chipper scheduled his summer vacation in metropolitan Canada. He flew in for a couple of business meetings - his are baseball games of course - had a bad time at the office, probably went back to the hotel for some drinks and uneventful dinners. I'm sure Toronto, like Atlanta and Chicago and New York, has an interesting social scene. But like all of those other cities, to really participate in those scenes you have to be local enough to know where the scene is. If you had flown down to Atlanta for the ACC tourney last weekend, say it's your first time in the city in a few years, and you had gone down to Buckhead for night life, you'd have been sorely disappointed. Because the scene is no longer in Buckhead. It's moved to the Westside and East Atlanta. But you have to live here to know that. Business travel is always crap, because you're rarely in a tourist city - say Las Vegas - and you're never local enough to know where to go for a honestly good time. In all honesty, this all sounds to me like someone asked Chipper a stupid question. "How'd you like Toronto in March?" There's no good answer to that, and Chipper is not known for politically evading questions with uncomfortably true answers.
You definitely need to be into 'that sort of thing' (gambling and drinking) to enjoy Vegas... and while I very much enjoy both of those activities, I cannot take Vegas for more than a weekend at a time.
Even beyond the money lost at the tables, it's pretty amazing how expensive Vegas has gotten. It's definitely a different world than even 15 years ago... You can certainly mitigate that if you're not interested in the glitz and glamor of the newer casinos/resorts - but then, might as well go to Reno instead. If you're hitting the main strip casinos, you can forget the cheap meals, cheap drinks, and cheap rooms - unless you're the type of whale that's gambling enough to get yourself some comps (and 'enough' is 5 figures).
You're lucky they didn't send you to Edmonton in January.
In terms of the warmest I've ever felt, it was in LA in March. It wasn't actually the hottest temperature I'd ever been in (or even close), but it was just the result of getting on a plane in Toronto in 0 F weather, and then getting off that same plane 5 hours later in LA in 95 F weather. It was just horrible, as my body had absolutely no chance to properly adjust.
I'd imagine that Chipper probably experienced that in reverse.
On the other hand, I'd love to go to Toronto.
I've been on many flights with U.S domestic carriers, and never had either of these things happen to me.
That said, the most comfortable flight I've ever had on a passenger plane was a Virgin flight to London. Virgin is awesome.
A Hall of Fame baseball player... who should be kept off Griffin's first ballot because he doesn't like Toronto.
Griffin's already in Cooperstown, btw.
And the Grand Canyon. And Death Valley and Red Rocks State Park and Mt. Charleston. Honestly, I was amazed at how great Vegas is as a jump off for outdoor experience. If you stay off the strip, it's relatively cheap and airfare there is always low.
Zion, of course, is the bees knees.
"It's a nice place. A little cold for me, but really nice."
This is not a big deal, and I agree with bunyon to a large extent, intellectually--but emotionally, people do tend to identify with their cities.
Saying "It's not Las Vegas", although it is kind of funny, is asking for a hassle.
This. Unless you're putting in some effort to go cheap, Vegas is astonishingly adept at hoovering your wallet. If you're in a "screw the bill" mood, alarming consequences lurk around every corner. Like the $13,000 bar tab my buddies and I racked up one night during a bachelor party weekend a few years ago.
Dave Attel went to Philly in February as part of his Insomniac tour and he froze his ass off. If you watched his show you would think there was nothing to do in Philly except eat a coffeecake, cheessteak, and dress up as wizards out in farm country.
If every city were like Las Vegas, we'd all be in big trouble. Society would probably collapse.
That too. I'm just constantly taken aback at the people who seem to think that these guys are something that they're not. David Wright isn't writing up the new Bonnard exhibit for the NY Review of Books in his spare time. Kevin Youkilis doesn't compose sonatas in the off-season. Jake Peavy doesn't conduct private vineyard tours of Napa Valley on his off days. But somehow Chipper Jones is supposed to make the latest Do Make Say Think show in his down time in Toronto.
Baseball players are jocks. Uber-jocks. News at 11.
Can't really stand Chipper, but I'll side with Sam on this, he had a crappy trip and grumped out. Now, he could have realized him doing so is not the same as Sam doing so and that IS his fault for which he needs to take the lumps. But to give the story any more legs is a bit overmuch.
That being said, the Metro Toronto Science Center is THE PLACE to take your nerdy kid. We went every year when I was little and it was a lot of fun.
Also, never lost a bag, can't remember a criminally late flight in the US. But New Zealand Air, Air Thai, and Air France were all definitely a cut above anything here. (Also, I think those flying skyscrapers are terribly scary and I feel like I need to prepare for death every time one takes off with me in it, but that's another issue.)
Full Disclosure: Most of my family's income depends on the airline industry.
What's wrong is, in a nutshell, the consumer. People complain all day long about bad service, cramped cabins, lost luggage, delayed flights... They say they want quality, but when it comes down to it, what they really want is cheap, cheap fares. And they will buy a ticket on the crappiest, worst service record airline if it will save a few bucks. Everyone then has to compete at that level. Since most of an airlines operating costs are fixed, all they can do is tinker at the margins. Cramming more people into cabins, cutting turnaround times tighter so as to get more revenue out of an asset (airplane), eliminating meals, cutting back on personnel, charging for every conceivable extra...
They don't intend to lose your luggage, but with fewer baggage handlers, it's bound to happen more often. They don't intend to have frequent delays, but if they are required to schedule with no margin for error, any little thing will snowball thoughout the system. The airlines used to carry an ample supply of crew members on reserve (on call), to fill in in the event of a mis-connection, illness, etc, in order to proptly fill the vacant space and get the flight launched with minimal delay. No longer. To cut costs, the number of reserve crews are way down, and they fly almost as much as scheduled line crew, and thus very often there is no one to cover in the event of a vacancy, so the flight is delayed or cancelled.
This situation is what the public has said (with their actions if not words) they want. And they are getting it. An airline can no longer compete on quality of product.
Good tip on Vegas travel, bunyon. I love the desert.
What is wrong with people? Air travel puts everyone in their worst possible mood. I worked retail for a year and sold luggage. Many of my customers apparently believed that anyone checking luggage was unspeakably stupid because it was almost guaranteed to get lost. WTF?
Air travel is a miracle. You sit down in a slightly uncomfortable chair, and a few hours later you stand up and you have been transported thousands of miles. And yet frequently hear the word "torture" to describe the experience. Something about the experience turns everyone into big cranky babies.
I have no problem with the actual in-air experience as, in general, I've been treated quite well. With respect to the luggage thing, however, some of us believe that our luggage is destined to be lost because it is almost always lost - for whatever reason, I have only once flown on a US domestic carrier and had my luggage reach my destination at the same time I did.
That's just really weird. I'm flying Continental to Seattle tomorrow night out of Newark. PLEASE tell me you're not on that flight.
Try taking that maple leaf off them.
It's that, or Ryan packs his luggage with sweet smelling, freshly baked cookies but uses a lock on his zipper so the handlers can't have any. In which case, he gets what he deserves.
Well, moosehide luggage requires special handling. It's a customs regulation, nothing to do with the airline. Sorry about that. Try going with beaver or caribou next time.
I have a theory that supermarkets, airports, and parking lots are the three locations where people just throw everything they know about how the world works, what common sense is, and how to reason out the window and revert to stupid ####### beasts of burden.
I have only once flown on a US domestic carrier and had my luggage reach my destination at the same time I did.
Never had a bag lost or delayed, but I did have my check luggage hand-searched (where they leave the little card inside) 10 consecutive legs comprising 4 trips over a 3 year period, 3 different airlines and 4-5 airports. It was uncanny.
My last experience with Delta was trying to get back from Tampa. Yes, there had been a storm but all three airports involved in my travel were open, with clear skies and had been for more than 15 hours. Yet, I was told, my flight was cancelled and I'd have to stay in Tampa and additional 52 hours. When I protested, I was told I was lucky to get that flight and if I continued to protest she could bump me further back. All of this was after I'd spent an hour the night before on hold never getting through and stood in various lines of 90+ minutes with no one willing to even confirm the flight was cancelled. This was Delta. They're understaffed. I get it. Threatening more drastic delays because I didn't appreciate the service was not called for. I told the lady to go to hell, told her supervisor to go to hell and rented a car. For $60 I was home 41 hours earlier than Delta could pull off for $400. My new driving range appears to be 800 miles.
Customers are crap (and, yes, I was cranky), but US domestic service sucks. The pilots are professional, the flight attendants are professional and they have an excellent safety record. Anyone outside those areas you deal with is, on average, lousy at their jobs if not an outright #######.
That's what makes it even stranger for me - I travel through Heathrow a lot, and I've never had the slightest problem there, despite all the horror stories I hear from others. For me, the plane always leaves on time, the baggage always arrives on time, and I can grab a nice bottle of Scotch from the duty free. The amazing disappearing luggage only performs its trick when passing through the US.
And gas stations. "Yeah, I went 30 minutes out of my way, but I saved 3 cents a gallon."
Has it occurred to you that your luggage is tired of waiting for its doctor and is defecting? Possibly to Nieporent's house?
My (limited) understanding is that at least part of the reason the big carriers aren't profitable is that they insist on flying multiple routes to every possible destination. Aren't the regional carriers (Midwest, etc.) and smaller national carriers (Southwest) much more efficient?
Not sure how true that is today. Vegas is hurting really bad right now, there's plenty of great deals there. What you spend gambling is one thing, but there are tons of great room deals.
I'm convinced that at least part of it is the result of flight anxiety, which everyone deals with in different ways. (I mostly avoid flying, although I am taking a trip in 10 days or so, with the help of hypnosis tapes.) It IS a miracle, but maybe a bit too much of one. Does it seem like we were designed to be 7 miles up in the sky, going really fast? I don't think I was.
The above reminds me of Louis CK's recent rant on Conan. It's totally true -- we're spoiled.
I just get into this frame of mind that I'm already dead when I get onto a plane. I find it makes me much calmer.
Good perspective. I've been on hundreds of flights in my life and have had my luggage lost exactly twice. Sucked, but I eventually got the stuff back and it wasn't the end of the world. I think the problem with air travel is it hits on several human hot buttons and that adds up until people become the frustrated babies you speak of.
1. Crowding. Most people don't like being in crowded conditions, especially for hours at a time. 20 minutes on a subway is no big deal. 5 hours on a plane is a different story.
2. No control. You're cargo, and being cargo sucks. You're told where to go, when to be there, and what to do once you're there. Airport security is beyond irritating. You're subject to delays, but seldom told why or for how long. When you finally get on the plane, you can't see where you're going most of the time. You can't even pee except during approved time windows. Makes people feel helpless and anxious.
3. Discomfort. In addition to being in cramped conditions and forced to sit in an uncomfortable chair, it's usually too hot or too cold. Not a big deal for a little while, but after 5 hours, it gets to people.
When you add them all up, it's no surprise people are stressed and whiny about the process.
For me, temporarily misplaced, with "temporarily" being defined as "a period of up to two weeks". As a result, I've been moving more and more to the carry-on only method.
Me neither.
EDIT: And the delay for me has never been more than a day or two.
That's a part of it sure. But a much bigger part has to do with no employee pension obligations, and a streamlined fleet. Southwest flies one airplane, B737. That has huge savings on maint, training, parts, etc. You can't be a global carrier and have only one type of airplane. You can't fly from Miami to Jamacia (profitably) in a 777 and you can't fly from Miami to Buenos Aires in a 737.
edit:
Meant to add that most low cost carriers have no employee pension plans. While I agree that defined benefit pensions plans are turning out to be a very bad idea, my wife has 15 years in hers and we don't want it to go away.
True, but that doesn't render the whininess as mature, rational and constructive behavior.
That being said, I really really really really really don't like it. At all. It's a control issue. I may be statistically safer in a plane, but I can't at least make the effort to speed up, slow down, swerve, or leap out of said car if something goes wrong. I can walk up to the front of the greyhound and demand they stop the god damn bus and let me off, and they will. I'm not sure if it is what Shooty meant, but I literally have to accept death when the plane is taking off to lower my blood pressure. Also, the tiny planes like the ones I island-hopped on make me feel a lot safer than the enormous ones, whether they are or not.
(Of course, if I'm told there's a 75% chance the spaceship I'm getting into won't achieve FTL and I'll possibly make it 1 billionth of the way to Betelguise before I'm engulfed in a chemical supernova, I wouldn't even blink.)
3. Discomfort. In addition to being in cramped conditions and forced to sit in an uncomfortable chair, it's usually too hot or too cold. Not a big deal for a little while, but after 5 hours, it gets to people.
I agree with 1 and 2, but I think this is what people talk about when they mean people get spoiled and bratty. I've never found airline seats to be particularly uncomfortable or the atmosphere to be OH LORD THE TRIAL. I'm not 6'5", but I'm average male height and it isn't really an issue.
I guess that's my question, then: Can a company like Delta ever return to profitability, when the smaller domestics can do it cheaper and better, and companies like Virgin can do Transatlantic so much better? Is there really a need/way for one company to do it all?
Eventually.
Yeah, I've often wondered about that, whether the eventual future of the airline business will have separate tiers of smaller, more specialized companies: regional commuters, long-haul domestics/European internationals, and super-long-haul intercontinentals.
I've also thought that airlines could/should reduce expenses by sharing ground crews/gate agents.
I have had two pieces of late luggage-one after flying from Paris to London to Miami to Jamaica, which did not cause too much trouble. The second was just plain weird. I was taking one of the shuttles from NY to Boston and it was a small turboprop plane that you carried your luggage down to the aircraft, which I did. It arrived in Boston three days later.
More like an illusion of control issue. You can make some effort in a car, but can you really stop someone just plowing right the #### into you? No, not really.
I have no anxiety about getting on a plane, I just dislike the experience for the obvious reasons, most of which boil down to being uncomfortable. It also doesn't help that I literally cannot sleep in a plane, so for really long flights, that's an issue.
But not nearly as safe as they say - the way most places calculate safety is a "miles per incident/fatality/whatever" method. Since most aircraft accidents occur on landing (wherever that landing may be), this is artificially biased in favor of aircraft, when compared to other forms of transport. Using a "per trip" method, aircraft look a lot worse (and are a lot closer to other modes of transportation).
It's not that weird. On smaller planes, they're a lot more sensitive about the maximum load. As a result, they'll occasionally just start off-loading luggage to get things down to a safe weight. Were there an unusual number of fat people on your flight?
Ooh boy. Now I really can't wait to hop on that plane tomorrow.
I always sleep on planes. I don't know if it's the white noise of the engines, or whatever, but I always zonk out, sometimes before the plane even takes off.
It's never good sleep (I wake up feeling exhausted and out-of-sorts), but I always sleep through the flight.
The thing I find most peculiar is the rush to get on the plane when boarding begins.
Is there anyone that has lost their luggage one or three times?
I drift off, but I can't sleep because I do that neck snap thing. I absolutely cannot get comfortable on a plane. I wish they'd get rid of the last row of seats so you could get up and stretch out a bit, but I understand that ain't going to happen, ever.
Don't worry about it. The odds of something happening are still stupidly low.
I'm not following. Are you saying that it is no more safe to have 250 people fly from NY-LA that to have those same 250 people separately drive from NY-LA? That the total number of accidents (casualties, fatalaties) will on average be the same?
This is basically my experience too. The only way that I can actually sleep on a plane is if I get on while already at the brink of exhaustion.
For me its the rush to stand up after landing. So that you can then wait for 10 minutes. I don't get that at all.
EDIT: I recently had a woman ask me to move when we landed so that she could get out. I was on the aisle and she was in the middle. I obliged, only because I'm a candyass.
FIFY.
My last trip back from Hong Kong I failed to achieve my upgrade to business, and had to spend the 11 hours to San Francisco in a middle of the huge-middle row in coach. Oh joy.
I hate flying - and it's the fear factor much more than any sort of discomfort. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I've never let it get in the way of any vacations or work travel, but I'm definitely a white knuckle flier.
I get the statistics. I even get a lot of the science/physics of it.
I just do not feel right flying.
I've never been to Europe primarily because I don't think I could handle a flight longer than 5 hours or so.
I'm the same way. Years back, I liked it when you could see into the cockpit. Made me feel more comfortable for some reason.
I feel much better in a small plane where I can see everything, even though I know statistically I'm at much more risk.
Here's a decent comparison of accident rates. Basically, airlines like to point at the "Deaths per Billion Kilometers" method, where they score best, rather than the "Deaths per billion hours", where they score well (but not best), or "Deaths per billion journeys", where they score poorly.
Really, the best method to evaluate safety would be a mixture of the three stats. Also, air travel is still relatively safe when compared to other modes of transportation (and riding a motorcycle is just asking for trouble to happen).
EDIT: I guess I was just trying to say that, while better than many other modes of transportation (including cars), air travel is not quite as safe as airlines like to say.
I meant what I said about flying being a "miracle." Just keep in mind how incredible it is that you are traveling such extraordinary distances so quickly. So, you have to sit in a chair and read or do crossword puzzles for a number of hours while experiencing this miraculous convenience.
That this is apparently the worst ordeal of some people's weeks is just an expression of how wonderfully comfy our lives are.
For me its the rush to stand up after landing. So that you can then wait for 10 minutes. I don't get that at all.
Yeah, I'm always amazed by the mass of stupidity in our species.
For me its the rush to stand up after landing. So that you can then wait for 10 minutes. I don't get that at all.
Yeah, the rush to board makes sense, as everyone is competing for the limited overhead space. But there is no point whatsoever in immediately standing up upon landing; depending on where you are on the plane it's going to be a lo-o-ng time before you're going to be able to move.
I just keep reading my book. Usually it's half a damn chapter before it makes sense to put it away and stand up.
Sure, but it doesn't make me less uncomfortable or fatigued. Tomorrow I'm going to get up at 5:30 am, go to work, wait for the train to Newark, wait for the AirTrain to the airport, wait to board the plane, fly for 6 hours and then wait to get off the plane, and then drive to my brother's. I figure I'll get into bed about 2 am my time. Miracle or not, I'm going to be tired and grumpy. Especially on a Friday when I'm already gassed from 5 nights of short sleep in a row. That said, I'm the best passenger an airline can hope for. I don't complain, I'm patient and I'm respectful of those around me.
That's not peculiar; if you get on too late, there's a good chance the overhead bins will all be full.
The rush to get off I always attribute to people just wanting to stand up after sitting all that time.
I think that is mostly to get some space in the overhead bins, which are always crowded.
How many people in this thread commented on carrying their luggage on-board? There is not enough overhead room to store moderately large roll-ons for everyone. I travel a lot and invariably the last 10-20% of the passengers have to have their carry ons either shoved under their feet or taken off and put in the checked baggage. The increase in charges for checked bags has made this phenomenon even more pronounced.
I'm a bit taller 6'3" and probably fatter at around 250. No way I can sleep in coach. Last long haul flight was Mumbai to Atlanta -- about 17.5 hours -- I got upgraded (lay flat seats are nice even for big fatties like me) but my traveling companion didn't. My guilt lasted about 30 seconds.
I've long advocated that the maximum size of a carry-on should be halved. People are starting to drag on ridiculous pieces of luggage.
The thing is, once I'm in the air I'm completely fine. In fact, I take the window seat as I even like to look out the window (My standard joke to the desk clerks and attendants used to be that if we were going down, I wanted to be able to watch. Today, not so much.)
The takeoff and landing, however, are traumatic. As are random and utterly safe yet detectable changes in altitude that nevertheless make me think we've run out of gas.
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