Nyc | Life Putting - Dan Putt

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Disaster at JFK

Published on February 15, 2007 in customer service, nyc, personal and stocks.

(4 of Jetblue’s 6 baggage carousels were like this at JFK today…a baggage wasteland)

I had a fun full day at JFK airport today courtesy of Jetblue and the winter storm from yesterday. In the past I’ve been a Jetblue champion, often bragging about it to people as the best airline to fly. It has great fares (I can get to Columbus for $80 round trip), is usually on time, and of course it has live tv in every seat. But today I saw a different side of the Jetblue experience, complete chaos.

JFK was complete anarchy. There were people everywhere. People sleeping on the floor. People in every corner, seat, table, even the restrooms were filled to capacity.

There was little hope, if you were in the lucky minority, of even making your way to your gate for departure without being bumped around or stepping on sleeping, waiting passengers. I’ve really never seen anything like it. It seems that Jetblue after being backed up in yesterdays storm completely collapsed.

My biggest complaint in this whole scenario was their flight status system. I understand they are backed up, and even though I don’t like it, I would’ve been OK knowing my flight was cancelled this morning. The problem is, I didn’t know. According to their website my flight was not only still flying, but it was on time. Now I didn’t really believe it, but I didn’t want to risk missing my flight, so I went to the airport. Even after checking in, my flight was still listed as on time. It wasn’t until we were scheduled to board did they mention our flight had been delayed by 3 hours. Now call me crazy, but isn’t the point of the flight status (and presumably the technology investment behind it) to let people know AHEAD of time or PRIOR to arriving at the airport whether or not their flight was on time? If my flight was delayed 3 hours, didn’t they know umm 3 hours prior to departure that my flight was going to be delayed?

Ultimately after 3 hours of waiting for my flight was cancelled. Instead of letting me know, and keeping me fairly happy at home they let me spend $50 on a cab and come in to an already overcrowded airport with NO place to sit (even on the floor). By at least communicating the truth to me, they could’ve made the situation easier by telling me to stay away from JFK. They didn’t.

After my flight was cancelled, I had to go down to the baggage claim area, now known as the Jungle and wait another hour for my bag. It was not clear where or when my bags would show up because there were no announcements and even the nice Jetblue staff on hand were able to answer my questions. All I knew I was not leaving without my bag, because I knew I would never see it again.

I still love Jetblue as an airline, but they really need to get their act together, make this right for EVERYONE involved (everyone thinks they are the ones getting screwed), and make sure it never happens again. It’s clear to me that this situation was never planned for, and they are scrambling to fix things the best they can. Their employees were incredibly nice, and obviously overwhelmed. I was told that the only thing I could do was to call into their customer service center at 1800Jetblue. I called that number, and “due to high call volume, they can’t handle my call at this time.” Another screw up.

I also think the flight status system needs to mean something from now on. For now, I will not trust Jetblue’s flight status until they prove to me it’s accurate.

This is going to really be painful and costly for them to overcome. As one former customer interviewed by CNBC at JFK on Thursday said, “I’ve had many good experiences with this airline, but this one is bad enough that I’ll never fly them again.”

UPDATE 6pm EST: Jetblue’s 800 number is still down and I’m unable to get a hold of anyone.

A little excited…

Published on February 10, 2007 in nyc, personal and weather.

Almost exactly a year ago today, I wrote this post:

White with Envy

I expressed my jealous and excitement for the monster snowstorm hitting NYC at that time (while I was in Columbus).

Well I’m trying to stay calm while watching the development of a potential monster snowstorm this upcoming week for the east coast, and my first real east coast storm. It’s too early to tell for sure, but all the signs consistently are pointing to a big nor’easter for early next week. Very excited!

This is my main source of weather updates, this guy loves himself a good storm.

New York observations

Published on January 30, 2007 in nyc and personal.

So I’ve been in this crazy city for about 4 months now and there are a few things I’ve noticed that I find interesting (you may not).

NYC at night

(via flickr user ChrisFLinton)

Language differences:

here you’re not IN line, you’re ON line.

You don’t take something to go, but instead it’s “to take away.”

non dressy shoes are always “sneakers.”

Weirdos..

As expected, this city is crawling with very interesting people who really are in their own worlds.

Washington Sq Park Guy: This very short guy (around 5 ft tall) stands at the eastern edge of Washington Sq. Park around 8:30am. He’s dressed sort of like a high school principle with brown pants and a short sleeve shirt (no matter how cold it is), with what looks like a pocket protector in his shirt’s right front pocket. He stands there, constantly checks his watch, and mutters stuff to people as they pass by. It’s almost as if he’s watching his kids come into school, and he’s telling them to hurry to class. Can’t figure this guy out.

White Ninja: This guy hovers around the East Village, near my sisters place and I really can’t figure him out. He’s always dressed in ALL white including his keds shoes. The amazing thing is his whites are always extremely white, as if they were recently bleached. He takes great care of his whites, so he’s definitely got that going for him. He’s also, always in a hurry walking by at a speed walker’s pace as if he’s late.

Scrungie Guy: This guy seems to hover around the area around my building. He wears a rainbow smock (like what you’d see a nurse wear in a children’s hospital), some sort of weird tight leotards, and glasses. To top off the outfit he has his long grey hair in a purple (or green) scrungie. Weird.

Restrooms

These are precious, and I’ve learned that my brain takes note of potential access to restrooms no matter where I am. It’s much more important to remember where public restrooms are in this city than say Ohio, because they’re not as easy to find when you need them. I know from many walks up by the park where I can go, down 5th ave where I can go, and I can always fall back on a Starbucks or McDonalds. Starbucks restrooms are really like going to a different world. You never know what kind of people you’ll wait in line with, or what’s been thrown all over the restroom. I never been to a Starbucks that actually had two restrooms, and had them both in order. I won’t fault them though because there really is no way to keep up with the mass of humanity that flows through there. If you want a shot at interesting random conversation, go wait in line at Starbucks for the restroom. If you want to see interesting people, go to a Starbucks in the evening.
Dogs need to be clothed when it’s cold. You’re in the minority here if your dog doesn’t have a nice sweater or hooded sweatshirt when it’s cold out there.

Girls…Now there are some incredibly beautiful girls walking around this city, but either I’m the most unhip person in the world (possible) or I don’t understand at all what fashion is. I see more outfits that are obviously well thought out, that look completely ridiculous to me. Even more amazing to me is that looking good trumps everything. On days like today (it was probably 20 degrees this morning) I see girls with skirts on (bare legs!), some sort of 3/4 length tights (exposing their ankles) with incredibly high heels that expose the tops of their feet and look as comfortable to walk on as nails, rarely hats (it’s freezing!), and sometimes they wear these little jackets that couldn’t possibly keep anyone warm.

Food..Amazing.

Delivery…amazing. Calling to deliver? Awful. Are there any happy or pleasant order takers out there?

Laundry…amazing…I don’t mind paying a little more, you really can’t beat the drop and fold services. You leave them with a nasty bag of old laundry, and it comes back later the same day fresh clean, and very neatly folded!

Prices…obviously crazy high. The weird thing is you start to get used to it after a little while. 5 dollar beers? Wow. What is this, happy hour?

I could really go on, but this has already taken enough time. This city though really is a great place to live. It’s filled with so many talented, ambitious, happy, and interesting people. I’ve been fortunate to meet quite a few already, and I can only imagine who I’ll meet over the next year. I can see why some call this the greatest city on earth. I’m very excited to be here.

tunnel vision

Published on January 20, 2007 in business, delicious, nyc and tech.

Something I’ve talked with my friend Lee about extensively is the somewhat dangerous tunnel vision that goes on around here in the web/tech world. People seem to dismiss “old school,” companies as the has-beens of the economy. I swear I hear more about Digg supposedly being worth $60M, Facebook being worth well over $1B, or Delicious supposedly being sold for $30M than I’d like. These are not economic power houses as some seem to believe. Now don’t get me wrong, they are fantastic numbers for the investors and founders because these are low cost businesses to build/operate , but to portray any of these guys as new “players,” in the economy is laughable. Everyday, there are far bigger companies executing on 10, 20, or even 100 times the scale. Let’s not forget about the true leaders.

I think this guy sums it up best (from Reddit, via Drew )

Think about that, and then think about just how much panache WalMart has compared to google: Zero.

I get this impression everyday, and I’ve come up with an answer: I
am online everyday, and looks like always reading the same sites (a
little bit of herd mentality, I guess).

I was reading someone talking about how “Google is the 3rd computer era” and he made some snarky comments about IBM.

You know, IBM? That small 100 year old company with 80 billion in revenues last year? Yeah, that one.

And when I read about how Paul Graham got ~$40 million from his
“lisp startup” or the off-hours delicious got ~$30 million with “social
tagging bookmark WEB TWO POINT WOW” and people go NUTS on this, like if
it’s epitome of business, I just remember IBM makes daily deals of $200
million dollars.

Is it cool? Does it have free soda, candies and massages?
No. But do they know how to make money? You bet. And it’s damn hard to
make what IBM does too. If you play a video game from the next
generation, you own them that :p

A monster Snow Storm coming?

Published on January 19, 2007 in nyc, personal and weather.

(we had our first snow yesterday, this is Washington Sq. Park with some snow above)

Just found this posting on the accuweather blog that basically says the new weather pattern bringing cold to really the whole US, along with an active southern jet (which typically controls the moisture flow) and above normal sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic off the coast of New England, all point to a monster, if not historic snow storm coming to the eastern seaboard over the next 3-5 weeks…As I’ve said, Feb historically is a fantastic month for snow in NYC, so this pattern change is perfect time. I’m very excited as it all seems to be falling into place. As they say over the Accuweather blog about the possibility of a big storm, “the pattern is right for a big storm in the east….Just where and when is the question.”

I’m excited.

UPDATE:

It appears “the storm,” could be coming around the 30th of January based on long term model projections. Despite the extremely warm early winter warmth, I think it’s safe to say that New York will probably come close to the 40 inches of snow for the season that has been average over the last 3-5 years. With that said, I’m looking very closely at the contracts trading on tradesportsfor New York City snowfall. I feel pretty confident a big storm is coming, which would make these low trading contract skyrocket (especially for 20, 30, and 40 inches even if these target amounts aren’t reached). Those are very interesting to watch. If you want to make some money (if gambling weren’t illegal in the US) that would be a good place to look.

First snow!

Published on January 10, 2007 in climate change, nyc, personal and weather.

This morning I spotted my first snowflake of the year while walking through Washington Sq. Park. Others spotted it, and recorded it. The National Weather Service recorded the snow officially at 9:55am in Central Park, making this the latest occurrence of the first winter snowfall in the park since records began more than 100 years ago. Without getting too deep in my nerd weather talk, there is a definite pattern shift occurring, and temps should be normal (around 33 for highs, which we’ll be above today) or below normal over the next month or so. I’m also excited by the timing because Feb historically is the snowiest month for New York City, with almost all of the major snowstorms in city history occurring in the month. In fact, there’s some proof a decent Nor’easter could occur in the next 10-15 days.

With the new cold in NYC came the announcement yesterday, that 2006 was the warmest year ever recorded worldwide, and about 1.2 degrees above the normal worldwide mean temp of 55F. That may not sound like much, but is significant and most likely a record soon to be broken again (most likely in next 5-10 years). Six of the 10 warmest winters in US history have occurred in the last 15 years, and I think we’ll continue to break records like this. Winters like this will continue to accelerate the melting of Artic Ice cover, until we are free of Artic Ice cover in summertime of 2040 (hard to believe!), according to a study released last month, which quite frankly would be very, very bad.

I’m not proclaiming the end of the world, nor am I saying we should all go out and buy hybrids, I’m just presenting some more background on this winter’s unbelievable weather, that some say has not been seen since before the last ice ages occurred roughly 110,000 years ago. That’s pretty amazing.
Oh well, now on to check out the odds over at tradesports (yes, you can gamble on weather, crazy) for NYC snowfall..I think the 10inches contract looks good!

Hmmm

Published on January 6, 2007 in nyc, personal and weather.

I’m starting to think that everything I’ve heard about the painful New York City winters was a lie. This weather is amazing:

Where were all these 66 degree January days when I was freezing my butt off walking to class on the incredibly windy, artic OSU campus in January a few years ago?

Oh well, I’m loving this…off to long walks of exploration.

More on unusual warmth

Published on January 3, 2007 in climate change, nyc and weather.

As you may be able to tell by now, I’m very interested in weather and climate change and somewhat alarmed by this winter’s warmth. (take a look at the 5 day for new york: )

In a post over on Wunder Blog, Dr. Jeff Master’s went into further detail on just how unusual this widespread winter warmth and lack of snow really is. Look at the departure from normal snow depths at this time of year:
You’ll see that places like Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that normally are buried under 2 feet of snow this time of year, have barely seen an inch. Despite all the news coverage about blizzards in Colorado, this past December really was exceptionally warm, with temps running on average of 5-20 degrees above normal. But warm winters happen, and although they have been happening a lot more recently, this winter seems different.

The earth has a way of balancing things out, so as it is exceptionally warm in one place like it has been here, it usually is exceptionally cool in another place (like Europe or Russia).
This winter, however, has been incredibly warm across the Northern Hemisphere (although the summer in the Southern Hemisphere has been below normal). From Dr. Masters:

A persistent kink in the jet stream pattern typically sets up in these
cases, pumping cold air from the pole down to one region, and warm
subtropical air northwards into an adjacent region. However, that is
not the case this year. Land areas in huge areas of the Northern
Hemisphere, including most of Asia (Figure 4), have temperatures well
above normal. This is something I’ve never seen before–there’s almost
no cold Arctic air to be found.

Why is this scary, and potentially dangerous to have such warm winters?

The Arctic Ice Cap has shrunk by about 20% since 1979, and at the end of November this year, the amount of sea ice in the Arctic was about 2 million square kilometers less than had even been seen in any previous November. December has also seen the lowest sea ice coverage for any December on record. All this exposed water provides a huge source of heat and moisture in
the Arctic that retards the formation of the usual cold air masses over the adjacent regions of Canada and Siberia… the record low sea ice in the Arctic is probably a significant contributor to this winter’s record warmth.

He ends with:

I expect that the unnaturally warm winters we’ve experienced the past two years in the U.S. will become the norm ten years from now–and may already be the new norm.

I know I’ve been posting a lot about the excessive warmth we’ve seen this winter, but I can’t really believe it. I’ve only been a “weather geek,” for about 15 years but I do know for sure that there certainly has been nothing like this since I’ve been alive, and most likely since anyone reading this has been alive. It seems to me that climate change is not going to be something that happens gradually over hundreds of years, but more likely something that happens very quickly in a rapid chain reaction. The melting of the Artic ice caps is happening and will (as mentioned above) prevent normal cooling in winters, which will melt more ice caps more quickly, which will mean warmer winters, which will melt more ice caps even more quickly…etc. It appears to be happening.

I guess the obvious question I need to ask myself is, what can I do personally to make a difference?

Concerned

Published on January 2, 2007 in future and nyc.

I’m glad to see I’m not alone in my growing concern for global warming, encouraged by this winter’s extremely warm temps. Of course this is not the first time we’ve had warmer than normal winters, nor is the first time we had 60 degree days in December. But it seems to me that it’s really the first time the winter warmth has been as widespread and strong as it is. In fact Duluth, Mn reported, for the first time since record keeping began in 1875, a brown Christmas, or one without ANY snow on the ground. That’s 130+ years! That to me signals an accelerating worldwide trend to warming, and climate change may be more of a now than a then.

But I have to say, for now the weather is amazing in New York, so I’ll just do my best to enjoy it.

Search trends for better investments?

Published on December 12, 2006 in business, nyc, stocks and tech.

Hitwise , a great blog that talks about general web traffic patterns, had an interesting post this morning about Heelys the company that makes those shoes that have built in wheels. I remember seeing those shoes years ago, but only recently have I started to see them everywhere. The company went public this week and the stock did very well. It was priced at $21 a share, but opened at $38…one of the best IPO performances of the year.

Anyway this post with it’s exploration into why Hanleys was getting so many searches over the last month, really got me thinking. Ultimately Hitwise determined that the boom in search traffic was not related to the hot IPO, but instead to the fact that Heelys are a hot holiday gift item. So I’m wondering if more shopping is done online, which means that sales can be tracked in almost real time with website statistics, could one invest more wisely in retail related companies by closely monitoring web stats? I’m sure smart money is already actively doing this, but why haven’t I heard more about this? It seems really straight forward…Sign up for Hitwise (I’ve heard it’s fairly expensive, over $5-$10k a month), and then setup some keyword monitoring reports on items related to stocks you may or may not want to invest in. If the numbers look good, maybe way better than last year or better than expected, then buy (or worse, then sell). Presumably, you’d know way before most who would rely on company numbers or retail interviews.

I was fortunate enough to meet Jeff Stewart a few weeks ago, a successful New York serial entrepreneur and founder of monitor110.com, a company that scours the web to find relevant news before it hits the wires. They are providing enormous value to big traders, where knowing first can be worth billions. I think this is a fantastic service, but it’s still not quite what I’m talking about above.

I’d love to find a way to estimate sales numbers based on search numbers/web traffic trends. I bet it’s easier than you think.