• SABRE2th Tigress: Book 'em, Dano.

    Having An Off Day

    Friday, that is! I’m home for the day, which I scheduled off… God, about a year ago now, with the vague idea that I didn’t want to be at work on “Halloween Friday.” In years past, we used to make a much, MUCH bigger deal about decorating for Halloween and competing as teams and individuals for best concept, and in fact we used actually start building stuff or putting up decorations a week or more in advance. Not so much this year… a lot has happened, we’ve gone through a layoff cycle, we’re effectively between VPs until the new executive…

  • SABRE2th Tigress: Book 'em, Dano.

    Business Class vs. Coach Class

    It’s a tug-of-war between the “bean counters” and the “been counted (unworthy of an upgrade)”. If you’re not on your company’s VIP list, good luck with getting business class to Singapore… Cheaper business airfares still a tough sell in today’s economy – USATODAY.com Trying to lure business travelers back into more expensive seats, airlines have slashed business-class fares to foreign cities. Many business-class airfares to Europe this fall are 33% to 66% cheaper than a year ago, an analysis by FareCompare.com finds. While the cheaper fares are more attractive to cost-conscious companies, they are still a tough sell in this…

  • SABRE2th Tigress: Book 'em, Dano. - Traveling Along, We're Adventurers

    British Airways Means Business New York – London City

    BA started business-class-only flights from JFK to London City Airport yesterday. Inflight Internet access, full-recline seats, aimed at a niche market of go-bag executives. As in “It’s called a go bag because I keep it in the trunk of my car (NCIS)” Club World London City – British Airways Club World London City is our Business Class only service, with just 32 seats on board, flying between London City and New York JFK. Your entire journey has been designed to minimise airport travel time and check-in times whilst maximizing your productivity on board with OnAir capability allowing you to send…

  • Hot Off The Presses - SABRE2th Tigress: Book 'em, Dano.

    Smile Police? I’m A Hardened Criminal Frowner

    If they ever introduce face-to-face webcam/phone interfaces at work, my career in travel is so over. I’m what you might call a… hard-featured woman. When in repose, I always look like I’m frowning slightly. Gravity has taken its toll on my face somewhat, and it takes extra effort to lift it into a smile, so most of the time, WHY BOTHER?? unless I actually have something to smile about. As you might have guessed, I’m not a natural smiler, don’t have a particularly attractive smile anyway, and can’t stand people who walk around with big smiles on their faces all…

  • SABRE2th Tigress: Book 'em, Dano. - Second Life

    Second Life May Impact First Life Someday?

    Second Life provides virtual meeting space, may replace millions of airline seats annually someday. May need to learn building skills in SL beyond rezzing a box… New World Notes: What the US Navy’s Undersea Warfare Center Is Doing in SL (Updated) The last time I tried to visit the Second Life islands owned by the United States Navy’s Naval Undersea Warfare Center several months ago, I was blocked from entering most of it. This machinima above shows what they’ve been doing in Second Life, including rapid prototyping, data modeling, and VoIP-driven conferencing, much of it between other branches of the…

  • SABRE2th Tigress: Book 'em, Dano.

    Week In Review

    It was the first full week of work after the Christmas/New Year’s holidays, it was the first full week as a true member of my new work team (gradually, all the little hold-overs and pending stuff have dropped away), and it was my first full week of relatively good health after getting through a nasty, brutish, but mercifully short bout of sinus infection-with-cough. It was a good week, all told. I like my new team, and I’m having a lot of fun with my new neighbors. I feel like the last… five years or so on my original team has…

  • Blogs Wot I Read - Home Improvement - Music - Parish: Holy Moly (ECUSA) - SABRE2th Tigress: Book 'em, Dano. - Today - Twitter

    Big Red Snow Beast

    Last night’s snow (or as I originally typo-ed, slow), dumped only about 4 inches on suburban streets in the area, but the traffic was horrendous and there were enough minor accidents to put corks in all the bottlenecks. And due to the way the east-west arterials around here are blocked by large tracts of parkland or shopping malls, there’s only a few ways to get between work and home. If there’s bad weather, or traffic, everything gets choked off at one of two places. I started out pissed, as I had a late “hit” call where someone needed an exchange…

  • SABRE2th Tigress: Book 'em, Dano.

    Zabar’s Holiday Swag Basket

    Too bad for the New York hotel that sent this very nice basket of holiday treats that I’m no longer a hotel group agent. But it’s lovely! And I’ll take most of this to Holy Moly tomorrow. A true standing ovation! An overstuffed willow basket holds Elsa’s Story orange butter cookies, Almondina original almond biscuits, Zabar’s cinnamon rugelach, Zabar’s chocolate babka, Zabar’s cinnamon babka, Delancey cinnamon raisin rugelach, Zabar’s black and white cookies, Erica’s apricot-raspberry cookies, Beth’s ginger cookies, Dancing Deer Baking Co. lemon cookies, and Walkers short bread petticoat tails. Via Zabar’s Broadway Bakery Basket-Kosher – Gift Basket

  • Episcopal - Random Access Memories - SABRE2th Tigress: Book 'em, Dano.

    The Feast of Saint Nicholas

    St Nicholas is special to me. Not only do I attend a church named after him (he’s our “patronal saint” in liturgical churchspeak) but he’s indirectly responsible for my 20-year career in travel. As he’s the patron saint of children, sailors, and travelers, this seems more than mere coincidence. How’d this happen? When I was still living in Eugene, I was drifting along at a dead end job after I left college, working at a dry cleaners. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life or what I could do to improve my circumstances. More schooling…

  • SABRE2th Tigress: Book 'em, Dano.

    Jet Airways: Cutting Back

    Oh, boy. Jet Airways/9W is the partner carrier of American/AA in India, and we use them a lot for flights to cities beyond Delhi and Mumbai. A LOT, akshully. But then, our main client is probably cutting back on the expensive “send the entire team to that small city in India for 6 weeks of training at the remote facility” trips, anyway. BBC NEWS | South Asia | Jet Airways lays off cabin crew India’s largest private airline Jet Airways has laid off 800 employees as it cuts flights amid soaring costs. The company said cabin crew hired for a…