Airline baggage tags: How their brilliant design gets bags from Point A to Point B. – Slate Magazine.
Just been flying a bunch this week and saw this really good article on all the design aspects that go into the modern luggage tag, kinda amazing how much we take it for granted (of course I am probably not thinking about this because we are crammed in like cattle and our flights are all delayed, but oh well).
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Not a breakfast taco, but two delicious tacos from Torchy's in Austin
Recently took a trip to Austin, TX and came away wanting to go back for a number of reasons. One of them has to be the breakfast tacos, not necessarily the actual items which can be duplicated fairly easily at home, but the idea of them. There is something about the cross cutting nature of the breakfast taco in Austin that is interesting to see – Mexican places have them (so called interior Mexican), Tex-Mex places most definitely have them, and so do Burger King, coffee shops and taco chains and all serve real breakfast tacos because the ‘true’ breakfast taco is an American creation riffing off the Mexican taco of course and sometimes using Mexican ingredients. Anyway, back to the taco, you can do anything with it, I think eggs make sense as the only given, flour tortillas are the norm in Austin and point to its anglo roots. Other than that you could go in any direction – American cheese and jimmy dean sausage, sure why not, but you could of course go towards more interesting ingredients, delicious fresh salsas, mexican cheeses, avocado, fresh chilies, beans, chorizo? All sound good and all have a place.
This morning looking at a freshly picked banana pepper (spicy) from our garden – the first pepper of the year – I decided a breakfast taco was in order. And here is where they are great, they are so scalable. I wanted a lighter meal so one taco for me, one for the gf using one egg split made for a perfect meal w/ some fresh blueberries, but hungover craving a large meal three tacos w/ chorizo would fit that bill too.
Today’s breakfast taco featured:
2 flour tacos griddled them to be hot, but not crispy
1 egg, beaten w/ a dash of milk, pepper and salt
finely chopped onion (red today) sauteed
chopped banana pepper (hot) sauteed w/ the onion
chopped tomato (added to the egg mid cooking)
dash of Tapatio
green onion tops for garnish
shredded cheese (was TJ’s Mexican blend)
After cooking the onion and pepper quickly, took 1/3 of it out to garnish on top, then added the egg and scrambled adding tomato part way through just to warm. topped w/ cheese to slightly melt. put half of the egg, pepper and onion filling into each taco, top w/ the remaining onions/peppers and green onions and a few dashes of hot sauce (some Tapatio today)
It was delicious, featuring the fresh flavor of the banana pepper whose heat was slightly cut by sauteing it. Served w/ some blueberries it was a quick meal start to finish and we were off to work.
See NY Times United Tastes- Tacos in the Morning? That’s the Routine in Austin
for more on breakfast tacos in Austin (oh and for Torchy’s that does have breakfast tacos as well as the delicious ones above, I think one was brisket and one was fried avocado see their website here)
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Been in Spain now for over a week and have really been enjoying it. Figured I’d throw up a picture from sevilla here just by the Alcazar Palace and the gigantic (worlds largest depending how you measure it) catherdal here.
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Was up in Bar Harbor, Maine a month ago and had meant to put up some shots. Had never been before and it was spectacular.
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Just on the way back from a brief visit to Seattle. While there I was able to make it over to one of my favorite spots , Pikes Place Public Market. While it is packed with crowds of tourists, it is also packed with all kinds of great food, from fruit and fish stalls to prepared foods to sit down spots. Yesterday for lunch I stopped by in one of the many alleys at Pikes Place Chowder and grabbed a cup of their chowder of the day, which was Crab and Oyster along with some other flavors such as chorizo and sweet corn. The chowder was great, with a little kick from the chorizo and the sweetness off corn and crab. Gotta give it a recommendation as a worthwhile lunch spot when in Seattle.
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Live from SF some pics in front of Hills Bros Coffee (don’t worry I am not drinking any)
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So I am sitting (when I write, not when it gets uploaded) here halfway between Dallas and San francisco in seat 13F and I thought why not fire off a post. I am on my way to SF for what looks to be a great weekend, visiting great friends in a really great city that I only have spent a little time in, and getting some good meals in. I’ll through out my props to the inter terminal transport in Dallas, which is simple and you don’t need to leave security ( a plus for a lot of reasons, the one that came to mind today was not throwing away the overpriced water I bought in Ohio) for comparison sake Newark you need to go through security if you train (I hear if you bus, you don’t but they don’t make that common knowlege.
I’ll leave you with a picture of Ohios domeless statehouse, not the only State with no dome, but the only rotunda without a dome ( apparently the civil war led to the dome craze as troops returned home having seen the capitol building.
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Observers agree that fuel prices were perhaps the single biggest factor in Skybus’ demise, but they disagree on some other points. Some say the company wasn’t managed properly.” Columbus Dispatch “How could it happen”
Skybus burst onto the scene as the newest low cost US airline last year formed in the model of Ryan Air and other European budget no frills airlines. Just as suddenly as it appeared it burst into flames ceasing operations last Friday and leaving passengers stranded and without any infrastructure to help them. With so much promise and so much positive attention why did Skybus implode? Well it looks like some strategic errors and poor management are to blame but so are the skyrocketing fuel costs where oil almost doubled in price since they opened up shop.
Plenty of other mistakes were there and I think the $10 tickets were never that great an idea – sure they created some buzz, but they could have created buzz for west coast flights with higher prices, and the lack of a phone number and no contingencies to help in the wake of mechanical errors placed the airline as an airline that really could only be relied on by those who had a few days off or a very flexible work schedule.
Its too bad that it happened this way because Skybus created a great buzz here in Columbus and got some people who might have never thought of coming here, do just that. Hopefully JetBlue who left Columbus since Skybus opened up shop might return, but with the market the way it is, I am not getting my hopes up.
See Dispatch story “How could it happen?“
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Just got back from a brief but enjoyable trip to London, always enjoy getting to walk around that city and amazing to see how international it is even compared to 10 years ago. Anyway, as you all well know the American economy is struggling under the problems of the sub prime lending problems, and it is interesting that while in times of crisis we as a country apparently have no problem with Middle Eastern soverign wealth funds buying into our country (I have no problem, but you remember the Dubai Ports?) but with Citi needing a massive cash infusion after their bad debt write down oil wealth was ready to step in, and really thats the way it should work – so I was happy to see it (don’t forget when people are invested in each other and trading with each other they don’t really feel like war..).
Another interesting issue is the greenback, with the US dollar continuing to seek lows I saw a pretty amazing sight, Airbus, the consummate reflection of Europeans and their nationalistic interests, looking to build a plant in the US South, in order to capitalize on the low dollar and offset the pain that dollar denominated airplane sales are causing them. So while my trip to England was severely penalized by the $2 to the pound conversion, hopefully we can start getting those Euros to come spend their money over here and to up our exports as we gain competitive ground.
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Half the reason I planned a trip to London was to go watch Arsenal play, the north London football club (soccer) that I follow. Playing away at Fulham meant a less then competitive game (Fulham is facing relegation with their bottom 3 of the table spot) and while Fulham plays at Craven Cottage, one of the smallest stadiums in the EPL, I figured demand would mean that coming up with a ticket would be possible.
One thing I didn’t know, nor did my friend who purchased the tickets via Craigslist was that fans could claim a lost ticket and get an exact reprint. Well that’s all and dandy, except when it basically gives you a real ticket, hologram and all to sell and then to show up at the match w/ your new ticket to show up and watch the match. Thats exactly what happened, the group of us who went got scammed, we got in the stadium alright (squeezing through the famously narrow gates, having our tickets scanned into the system alright – you wouldn’t think they would work after being reissued would you?)
At this point my day and weekend couldn’t have been looking any better, just having walked along the Thames to Craven Cottage the picturesque old style English stadium, about to see a great 3pm game with perfect weather. Twenty minutes into the match things were looking good, until a group showed up wanting to sit in our seats and that’s when, slowly we learned about the duplicate tickets, the fact that the folks sitting down instead were probably in on the whole act only made it worse and no amount of debate with the stewards would lead to us getting to stay. Thankfully it wasn’t the match of the century, Arsenal scored their first of three goals while we were standing around arguing with the steward.
While it didn’t ruin my trip, it sure left a sour taste in my mouth for the rest of the day. So be careful of the ticket touts in the UK and next time I am gonna make sure to get my tickets through my supporters club or not bother at all (I tried to snag tickets through the Arsenal America club, but had missed the deadline).
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