Free prizes that cost the winner money...

I'm not a big fan of employee giveaways for doing stuff you should be doing. A previous airline employer for years gave away "perfect attendance" awards for free first class travel. For decades, this program allowed employees to get the occasional free ride to Europe in pure opulence -- champagne, caviar, hot nuts... you name it. While I got to benefit from this program, it seemed a little odd to be rewarding people for simply showing up for work.

But to the point of today's post, it seems that taxes were not included in the free travel, and quite often employees cashing out the passes were a little miffed to find out they had to pay (upfront) sometimes upward of $50 in taxes to use the "free" passes...

Reality set in during the early 2000's, and the company got rid of the program... Predictions of massive ill-will ensued, but wouldn't you know, without the incentive, it seems that people still showed up for work... Go figure.

This morning, I got an email about a company holding an employees-only contest, this time with a Blackberry Bold as the prize:

Take the Information Security Quiz and win a BlackBerry Bold 9700*!

Dear Colleagues,

<Big snip to take out corporate-speak explanation on why Information Security is critical...>

Participation will be anonymous, but for those of you wishing to be entered into a prize draw for a BlackBerry Bold 9700*, please add your name and e-mail address. We look forward to your participation and any comments you wish to make.

The quiz will close at midnight on Friday, 05 March 2010.

Good luck to those of you that enter!

<Small snip to take out the name of who is sponsoring this >

* the winner of the BlackBerry Bold 9700 will get the physical device for private use without any provider contract

I'm sure that the people arranging the contest find it to be a great prize, but imagine the surprise when the winner finds out that they have to fork over an extra $360/year just for the data plan...

Whats even more ironic... this company uses Blackberries for internally provided smartphones. I'm sure that someone can probably figure out how to swap out the SIM card from a company paid phone, but you'd think they'd have thought about allowing that to be done in the first place...

Back to the point... if information security is important, don't make it a contest to read about what's important. Just require it, and save the prizes for something fun.

If You Like Pina Coladas...

Just when I thought social media had gone as far as it could, I stumbled across this.


At first I thought this was just a spoof.

But sadly, it's not.

There's actually an online dating site for married people to find hook-ups with other married people.

Hoping to find out it was a joke, I did some digging into their FAQ, and realized it was for real... Based on comments from other blogs and websites, it also appears to also be a bit of a scam. Apparently, married men have been buying subscriptions to the "service" for up to $250, and not getting any "service" after forking over their money.



That I find funny in a slightly sick and twisted way.... They're counting on the fact that if you're dumb enough to sign up for an online service to help you cheat on your wife, you're probably not going to go to far to complain or try to get a refund.

The site claims to have an "affair guarantee" which is what drew my attention in the first place -- I wanted to see if getting caught was covered by their guarantee (it's not).

Discussing it with some friends in the office, I can't help but think about the story told in the Rupert Holmes song lyrics from the 70's... He and his "lady" (not clear if it is his wife or just a significant other) both get tired of each other, put ads in the personals seeking something more exciting as an escape, and wind up on a blind date with each other.

Something tells me that if a husband and his wife wind up hooking up together, it might not be quite as romantic as the ending of the song, but you never know...

Land of Red Tape

The last rite of moving is over... transferring our license plate registrations from Arizona to Illinois, and trading in the AZ license for an Illinois one.

Let me just start by saying I had little problem transferring my license and registrations when I moved to Texas. It was essentially an even exchange - give them the old registration, fill out a form, and get a new registration.

Same thing in Arizona -- hand over the old registration, and we got a new one (albeit extremely expensive...). Even better with Arizona was the fact that they don't want to ever see people at the DMV, so the drivers license didn't expire until your 65th birthday. When clearing security a few weeks ago at Atlanta, the checkpoint screener (who was quite old) said "I hate seeing documents that won't expire until I've been dead for a couple years...".

Then there's Illinois. Everything is different here from the Red States I've lived in...

To get a drivers license here, you have to have your original social security card. The fact that it says right on the card that it is not to be used for identification purposes doesn't seem to matter... So today wasn't my first visit to the DMV -- I never carry my card, and never have. Since I never use it, finding it was also an adventure.

On today's visit, I had to take the written test, and only got one answer wrong --- the question was "how far do you signal a left turn in a business district?" with multiple choice answers "you don't need to", "at least 50 feet from your turn" and "no more than 200 feet before your turn"). I answered B, but it was C. Technically, B was correct, but I was in no mood to argue with the test scorer...

Test finished, photo taken, and then the license printer screwed up my license. The counter staff couldn't figure out how to reprint it, and almost had me sit for another picture, but then a supervisor figured out how to reprint...

Irony of irony, my original IL drivers license number (issued when I was 16) was XYZZ-NN06-YYYY, and 30 years later, my new license number is XYZZ-NN66-YYYY...

With only one number different, does this mean there were only 5 other licenses issued for the entire Chicago area between 1982 and 2010 for people with the exact same birthdate?... Wierd.

License in hand, I was off... to the other side of the office....

Vehicle registration here is an even bigger pain in the rear.

Again, in AZ and TX, if you had your previous registration, it was simple. Not in Illinois. They want the previous registration *and* a copy of the title or loan agreement. I had no idea where to even start finding papers from 2006 thru 2008 in The Queen's filing system. She only could find one of the four loan agreements... So we were mostly screwed before even walking in the door.

The motorhome was the easiest to do, and the one vehicle we have no intention of driving on a daily basis... For the two Jeeps, I had photocopies of the title, which we also found wasn't good enough for the DMV. The van? We had to call Honda and get a copy of the contract faxed, which meant waiting for their offices in California to open for the day.

While waiting for Honda, I managed to get hold of the other three banks, and have contracts faxed to the DMV office. By noon, I had everything taken care of, with the exception of Honda. It took a full four hours for Honda to get around to faxing the agreement.

Dealing with the DMV is never fun, and neither is trying to find four randomly filed pieces of paper in a filing system that only one person in our household partially understands...

And to their credit, the ladies at the Elgin DMV facility were more than accommodating. One of them even took pity on me and let me jump the line when I came back for the last two vehicles... That would have never happened at other facilities.

But it's finally done. We're Illinois residents. And so are all four of our vehicles...

Another new series...

Last year, SciFi's BattleStar Galactica came to an end, and there was much mourning. The way they wound down BSG's storyline was a little anti-climactic from my perspective, but like with the Sopranos, it was an ending that didn't leave a whole lot of room for a sequel.

The story doesn't end there, though. Intentional or not, Ron Moore and the writers didn't do a lot of setting up the lead-in to the BSG storyline, and that's resulted in Caprica, airing on Friday nights in BSG's old timeslot on SyFy.

The Caprica story is set on (brace yourselves) the planet Caprica, 58 years before the BSG story starts. The BSG pilot was set 40 years *after* the original war with the Cylons, and that war was said to be 12 years long. That leaves about six years of space for new storylines.

Like BSG, there is a mix of experienced and new actors. Eric Stoltz and Esai Morales have been around for a while, Allesandra Torresani was a child actor, but most of the rest of the cast are relatively unknown.

So far, the storyline is slow. I'll confess that I've fallen asleep several times watching it, as there's little action compared to BSG. But, that's part of the draw as well. It's meant to go into the personal side of the show, versus action. There are some interesting parallels being drawn on religious themes (I won't comment too much on that as a possible spoiler), including continuing some Mormon undertones also present in both the 1978 original BSG and the 2003 remake on SciFi.

I'll give it a pass for now and see how they end the first season. If you're a BSG fan, give it a try. But watch it during the day so you don't fall asleep...

Rolling History

I love it when history and daily life coincide... I'm riding Metra bilevel car 7848 today. My dad likely rode this car in the early '70s.

Built by Pullman-Standard in 1970, it is one of only about a passenger dozen cars still in use today which wore the Chicago & North Western Railway's forest green and coach yellow livery.

The CNW was sold to the Union Pacific in 1995, ended intercity passenger service in 1971 when Amtrak was formed, and commuter service in 1974 when the Regional Transportation Authority was formed to take over commuter rail in the Chicago metro area.

RTA assumed ownership of the CNW's passenger cars and some locomotives (as they did with most other railroads providing commuter service in Chicago), and repainted them thru the late 70's.

In 2003, RTA started purchasing new equipment, and most of the older cars were sold for scrap years ago, but a handful still remaining intact were brought back into service when oil prices spiked in 2008.

This car was one of the few saved from the scrapper's torch. With the State of Illinois on its way to bankruptcy, it is possible it may see 50 years of service, as RTA doesn't have money to buy new equipment.

Up In The Air

I suppose it's just a bit ironic that I'm writing this from an Admirals Club as I get ready to leave on a Sunday, missing Valentine's Day with my wife, and instead of spending Presidents' Day with the kids, I'll be in meetings...

"Up In The Air" with George Clooney opened in theaters last year, and to much acclaim, if you're into airlines. Supporting cast included American Airlines, and there was no shortage of airline porn in the film, albeit not very realistic at all times...

For those who didn't realize, the movie came out of a book written by Walter Kirn, and a good one at that. I was on a delayed flight last December, and sought out the book to read onboard my flight once it finally left for Madrid, and then France. I'm not one to buy books to read on a flight, but made an exception for this, since it was highly reccommended by some friends. I was not disappointed...

Reading a book on an airplane about a guy who practically lives on an airplane is ironic at best. The more I read, the more I related with what was going on in the story, with a few exceptions. First of all, I didn't have a on-the-road mistress to meet up with every couple weeks, and the type of consulting I do is nowhere near what the guy in the book does (he's hired to fire people...). But, far too much of the story rang true. Living out of a suitcase, having the security checkpoint dance figured out, my love of the clubs and other perks that come along with elite status, and the drive to make sure that every dollar spent and mile flown was directed to maximize my frequent flyer mileage balance...

It's no shock that I'm an AAdvantage member. I worked for American Airlines for over 17 years, and living in the desert, I had one choice of airlines heading east, and one choice heading west (Southwest). So, I racked up elite status within three months of moving to the desert, and have managed to keep it with the move to the prairie. I like AA for some reason -- they meet my minimalist expectations, and they (or a oneworld alliance partner) serve most of the places I need to fly. So I fly on them. Thinking of flying someone else is like shopping at Lowes after having worked at Home Depot -- you just don't do it...

And the clubs... Yes, I'm writing this from an Admirals Club. It's not a place to get drunk. It's a place to charge my laptop, get on wifi (including to blog...), and have a Diet Coke or four before getting on a flight. I can't speak highly enough of the value this offers, so much that my VP agreed to change their policy on reimbursing memberships after I pushed the productivity gains...

Anyway, I digress. I saw the movie with my wife, and got elbowed in the ribs more than once for pointing at the screen and saying "I do that..."

If you haven't seen it, read the book. Then see it. You'll be a little disappointed perhaps, but both storylines are good, and speak to the "glamour" of life on the road these days. If you're married, well, don't get too many ideas (especially from the party scenes) if you intend to stay that way. I'd like to say more about the plot, but hate spoilers, so I won't.

Time to board with my Priority Access and head off into "Air-World"...