Duty Free hut on the New York / Quebec border

I drove up to Canada recently through Vermont, and took the route over the islands in Lake Champlain, past farms and boating jetties. This linked me up with I-87 in New York State. I then crossed the border into Quebec, and was surprised at the small rural roads and this tiny Duty Free store:

Sitting out in Times Square

Part of Times Square is now set aside for walking and sitting around on chairs. A nice way to spend a summer evening in New York City:

Just what we needed - new TSA rules

News from United:

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has announced the implementation of the Secure Flight program. This program is intended to enhance the security of domestic and international air travel for all passengers through the use of improved TSA watch-list matching, as well as reduce the instances of passenger misidentification.

In accordance with this new policy, United® will be making changes to its reservation process that you, as a valued member of Mileage Plus®, should become familiar with.

How will Secure Flight affect you?

In the coming months, United will begin to request the following information from all customers when making a reservation:

• Full name (first and last, as it appears on the non-expired, government-issued photo ID you will present at the airport)
• Date of birth
• Gender
• Redress number (if one exists)*

If you use a travel agency or an online booking agent to purchase a ticket, you may be asked to provide all of the above information; including your full legal name, as it appears on your non-expired, government-issued photo ID.

Please note the importance of the name on your ticket matching exactly the name on the ID you will present at the airport.

Monolith Festival in Colorado in September

Isn't it ironic that this oh-so-indie boutique music festival is so overtly sponsored by Esurance?

That said, the line-up is pretty good:

http://www.monolithfestival.com/lineup

And it's good to see boutique music festivals springing up in the US. If it takes insurance companies to make that happen, I guess it's good.

Mother and daughter flight attendant team on JetBlue

I flew JetBlue down from Boston to Virginia last night. Great service as usual, and the flight was only $76 [I'm paying 4 times that to fly back to up to Boston from Newark tomorrow on Continental].

The flight attendant (or "air hostess" as I would say) team was a mum and daughter. Never seen that before. Funny to hear "and in the back of the cabin, my mom".

Seen in Vermont - a sign telling you not to drink from the toilet

Seen in a Vermont Welcome Center off I-89 yesterday.

For most of us it is not necessary to put a "non-potable" sign beside a toilet. The only visitors to Vermont who I can see benefiting from this sign are literate cats.

Adams National Park in Quincy, MA

Well worth a visit: The Adams National Park in Quincy, MA



The library:





The "old house" itself:

Guy lives on Airtran planes for a month

You know that guy who got a job blogging from Hamilton Island near the Great Barrier Reef?. Well, this might be the opposite of that: a guy is spending a month flying AirTran flights around the US, blogging and (ugh) tweeting as he goes.

Now, I have spent about a week of my life on Hamilton Island, and probably also about a week on AirTran flights. I can safely say that even though AirTran has friendly staff (once an AirTran pilot let my son sit in the pilot seat after the plane landed) and low fares (especially from Boston to BWI), flying for a month is not something I'd be blogging happily about.

And these have to be the most unconvicing Twitter posts ever:

"Got up at 4:30am. I thankfully feel great."

"Having an incredible time. "

and the clincher:
"Just did "Fox & Friends" on Fox News. Lots of fun"

http://twitter.com/mmalkoff

Security bags for sale at Dublin Airport

The bags are on sale in a coin-operated dispenser. At the security line, there is a recycling bin for the "capsules" which contain the bags.

Maybe they should have used one of those grab-claw games, so you could pay your couple of euros, then attempt to pick up one of the bags using a mechanical claw. That would add a bit more of a challenge to the whole process. Or maybe I should not suggest that, in case anyone from Dublin Airport is reading this....

Foudroyé

In French there is a single word, "foudroyé", for what takes three words in English: "struck by lightning".

CNN.com is, right now, streaming its French language coverage of the missing Airbus 330, en route from Brazil, which may have been foudroyé somewhere between Brazil and the coast of French West Africa.

http://www.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=stream1