An Advertisement Worth Watching

My family knows I am a big fan of Disney. That is why it has been so hard for me over the past couple of years. Instead of making family-friendly movies, they have been preaching their own agenda that doesn't match my values nor my demographic. Today I saw an advertisement for the Disney Cruise Line that helped me feel the Disney magic of yesteryear.

Many years ago when I had young kids in my family, I had to go to Orlando to speak at an Oracle convention. I burned frequent flyer miles to bring the whole family and found an on-property hotel the company would pay for that could accommodate my wife and kids. Basically the only thing I had to pay for was park tickets and food. As our room had a kitchen, we just shopped at the local supermarket and came away with a bargain vacation.

Before that work-sponsored trip, our family vacations had consisted of camping in the mountains near our home. Don't get me wrong, I still love camping but really had my eyes opened. Since then my family has joined me on trips all over the country but they always get compared to that first trip to Disney World. For some reason we all found it magical.

Like the ad I saw today, we created traditions that my kids enjoy to this day. Furthermore I am making similar memories with my own grandkids. My wife and I have decided that next summer we are taking all of our grandkids over the age of 5 to Disney World without their parents so we can relive the magic of that first trip again.

Yes you might say today's ad struck a chord with me. Disney did a great job returning to what made them great in the first place. Let's hope they can do it again. 

Missed Flight Connection

Monday evening my wife and I flew home from visiting my son in Ohio. We got to the airport with plenty of time to make our flight only to discover it to be delayed. Normally we try to get nonstop flights but a layover in Detroit turned out to be less expensive. It also worked better with my work schedule as I could attend early-morning meetings on Monday with India. Unfortunately our flight out of Columbus got delayed by an hour and we only had a 45-minute layover.

Before boarding the flight we had 2 options. The first was to take the flight and hope that our connecting flight to Salt Lake also had a similar delay. The second was to spend the night in Columbus and take the early-morning flight out non-stop to Salt Lake. I felt like the second option admitted defeat before we even tried to get home and opted to get on an hour-delayed flight.

We arrived in Detroit and could see our connecting flight had yet to leave. As we guessed, it also had a delay and for a moment, we thought we could make it. We didn't as it pulled away from the gate about 5 minutes before we got there. In all my years of flying, I have only ever missed 2 connections resulting in me having to spend an extra night on the road and Monday night turned out to be one of them. Considering I have flown over 2 million miles, that is not bad.

My wife and I walked to a Delta Airlines customer service center and immediately talked to someone who could help us out. He quickly found our travel record and saw that I had attached my mobile phone to it. He sent a text with a link that opened a webpage offering us a selection of hotels to choose from. The first one, I didn't recognize the name and skipped over it. The rest I recognized as familiar brands such as Sheraton, Marriott, and Hilton. I knew I would not get any frequent-stay points and so it doesn't help to choose one where you have status. I picked one close by and started walking out of the airport.

The hotel had a free shuttle bus from the airport and so we walked to the shuttle pickup location. I decided to call the hotel to make sure we didn't need to schedule it and was told the driver was on his way. Soon enough he showed up and we made our way to the hotel. Upon check-in, I only needed to provide the confirmation number given when selecting the hotel for the evening. Furthermore Delta provided $48 in dining credit that the hotel restaurant easily took.

I did all of this on my smartphone. Not once did I need to pull out my computer. I also didn't have any paper voucher that could easily be lost. It all just worked. My wife and I had an enjoyable stay in Detroit complete with a late-night snack.

The next morning we caught an 8am flight to Salt Lake and made it home without any more adventure. Sure my wife missed a doctor's appointment and I barely made it home in time for my first meeting of the day, but we got home. My wife rescheduled her appointment and I only had to move a few activities around. Would I give Delta high marks for taking care of us? Yes. Am I upset about the inconvenience of taking an extra day to get home? Again yes, but circumstances being what they were, we did okay.

I am making a mental note to pay a few extra bucks and take nonstop flights when available. I am also very pleased with how the airline handled the problem. I've had another airline not be nearly so accommodating for a problem they caused and have not flown them in over 10 years nor do I plan to fly them ever again. But that is a story for another time. 

Double Checking Travel Plans

One of the best things about the Internet and most companies having an presence there is the ability to check things without having to call someone. Admittedly that means it is harder to talk to a real person but for double checking travel plans, it is a huge benefit. I rarely need to talk to someone about flights, rental cars, or hotels. When I do, I have special phone numbers that get me to a real human quickly.

This month I have several quick trips I am taking. Normally when I make flight reservations I also book a rental car. I have status with National and usually use them. Recently my status increased because of all the renting I did last year. That means I can rent a full-sized car for the price of a compact. It also means I get to the airport and can choose any car from the "Executive" level and don't have to rely on what is available in the "Emerald Isle." Yesterday I logged onto National's website to see if I booked the reservation for one of my trips before or after my status upgrade.

Imagine my surprise when I didn't see my reservation at all. It must have slipped my mind when I booked my flights. Being on the site, I quickly made a reservation. It asked if I wanted to use a free day I have earned and I opted not to as I the weekly rental rate is cheaper than knocking a day off my rental period. It gave me an idea though.

At the end of the month I will be headed to Disneyland with my wife. When I fly into the Los Angeles area I usually take Uber as it is less expensive than renting a car. Unfortunately the politicians in the area seem to be against Uber and keep imposing a number of extra fees which get passed onto the customer. Since I found myself on the rental car website, I decided to get an estimate on the price for a 2-day rental with one of those days being free. It means I will have to pay for hotel parking in Anaheim but it is still significantly less than a one-way ride between Disneyland and the airport. Naturally I made a reservation.

I'm glad I am an anxious traveler and discovered my mistake before assuming I had a rental car reservation. Without doing so, I would have gotten to my destination, jumped in a car on the lot, and then discovered I didn't have a reservation at the most inopportune moment. Yes, I saved myself some embarrassment.  

Lonely Ride Up the Mountain

This past winter will be one for the record books because of how warm it has been. Right now is the end of March but the weather thinks it is the end of April, if not May. Then Mother Nature decided to throw us a curve ball today with a cold front that brought temperatures at my house down to almost freezing. Unfortunately my truck did not like the sudden drop in temperature and decided to not let the radio work on my drive to the morning gym, Alta ski area. This is the 3rd time it has happened in the 7 years I have owned the truck. The simple fix is to allow the truck to warm up slightly, turn it off, and turn it back on. As the drive is not very long, I just drove to the ski area without the radio.

I had hoped my wife would like to ski with me for an hour this morning. She is not a fan of the freeze/thaw cycle we are having right now. In spring skiing, the snow starts out frozen solid. Imagine an ice-skating rink stuck on the side of a mountain. It is like that and if you don't know how to carve turns, skiing can be a little scary. Without my wife to join me, the ride up the mountain felt extra lonely.

There are also a number of displays that show up on my radio like time and outside temperature. Without the radio working, I couldn't see those either. I like to know the temperature so I can see it change over the 4000 vertical feet I climb to get to the ski area parking lot. Generally there is a 10-degree Fahrenheit difference but I had no idea today. All I could do is guess.

It is amazing how I have come to appreciate little modern conveniences for the short drive to the ski area. I thought about that and how technology provides feedback about the world around us. Something as simple as knowing the correct time is very comforting. Couple that with all the information we can get at our fingertips thanks to Smartphones and the Internet and we have the ability to be very aware of what is going on around us. Unfortunately we do not all take advantage of that information and there are a lot of ignorant people in the world. But that is a topic for another post.

The iPhone is Still a Poor Phone

Today I started with several meetings. Normally I would take them at home and use my home Internet connection. However I had a short break between my two morning meetings and my afternoon one and I wanted to get some exercise. My favorite winter exercise is skiing and so I drove the 25 minutes to Alta and used my phone for the meetings. I also had my computer if I needed it but I wanted to try something new to see if it would work.

My company uses Microsoft Teams for all of our meetings. Fortunately you can install Teams on your mobile phone for free. Yes, they want you to have an account with them but they also allow you to log in with just a meeting ID and password. I copied the information for my meetings onto a PostIt note and stuck it to the back of an Android phone I got to replace my home land line. When I got to Alta, I didn't bother getting out of my car and just logged into the first meeting.

I never really carry my Android phone anywhere because it is so large. That one quality made it perfect for my meeting this morning. Looking at a tiny screen can be tough for meetings and I wanted the largest one possible without having to pull out my laptop. The meeting went well as did the one after it. Then I could go ski for an hour before having to head home before my next meeting.

My experience this morning reminded me how poor my iPhone is as a phone or in this case how poor it is as an Internet connection. Lately my iPhone has lagged significantly with presentations to the point my view has lagged by several slides. That was not the case this morning. When I carried 2 phones it never was a contest as to which phone performed better. If I actually needed to talk with someone, I preferred anything other than my iPhone. I thought 5G would fix that for Internet connections but discovered that isn't the case.

Now in all fairness to Apple, my current iPhone is a 12-mini and needs to be replaced. I hope that Apple has spent some time improving their phone capabilities. Unfortunately given their past track record, I doubt that is the case but am hopeful. 

Artificial Intelligence Being Wrong

I recently visited Alaska to do some skiing and spent time away from my home ski areas Snowbird and Alta. First off, Alaska is a whole new kind of cold when it comes to skiing. I'm glad I opted to bring my warmest gear. 

While driving to the airport after a day of skiing at Aleyeska, I got a call from my ski buddy Jim. He said that AI told him Snowbird would be closing for midweek skiing at the beginning of April. Normally Snowbird stays open daily until it gets close to the end of the season and then it closes during the week and is only open on weekends. That normally doesn't happen until May. This is important as my buddy Jim will be coming to Utah for a week in April to do some skiing and that is kind of tough to do if the ski area is closed.

Yesterday I visited Snowbird and made sure to ask around if they announced any changes in their schedule. They have not. This begs the question how AI came up with a false schedule change. The answer is very important as it will help you understand why AI often provides the wrong answer to questions.

There are multiple ways that AI came up with an answer to when Snowbird would switch to weekend only skiing. The simplest answer is someone speculated on a date and the AI found such a posting and incorporated it into its knowledge base. This often happens in real life. Someone will state a guess as fact and we all believe the person. My dad once told me that magnets are created by hitting a piece of iron with a hammer really hard. While that may be one way to create a magnet, that is not how they are made. I recently corrected his misunderstanding. Doing the same thing with AI is a bit more involved.

Another way that AI can come up with false knowledge is through inference. We are having a particularly warm winter here in the western United States. When temperatures get above a certain point, snow starts melting quickly. This week we are expecting record highs and AI could recognize that when the average temperature gets above a certain point, Snowbird switches to weekend-only skiing. Unfortunately temperature is not how Snowbird determines when people are done skiing. They look at hotel reservations at their lodges as well as a number of other factors and will try to keep the daily schedule as long as Mother Nature allows.

The important thing to gather from this post is that Artificial Intelligence is often wrong. I don't know how many times I have asked Google a question only to have it spit back the wrong answer. While I have not kept close statistical records, I feel like I get the right answer from AI only about 20% of the time. It may point me in the right direction but I always verify the answer and augment what I am told with real human intelligence.  

Dining Reservations

Today I received an e-mail from the Cheesecake Factory. It reminded me that my wife and I have a gift card to the restaurant and so I immediately looked into getting a reservation for sometime this weekend. If you have never been, the Cheesecake Factory has a lengthy menu that reads more like a novel. I pretty much like everything on pages 6 through 27. They also always seem to have a line to get in and so reservations come highly recommended.

I logged onto the restaurant's website and selected a time on Friday evening. The website did a search and let me know they didn't have anything available at my requested time. So I searched for Saturday evening. Once again the site came back and didn't have anything at the time I requested but suggested a reservation only 30-minutes later. That works for me and my wife so I accepted the suggested time and we now have a date night planned. It did leave me wondering if the Cheesecake Factory's website always kicks out your first suggestion just to show you who is boss.

My experience this afternoon got me thinking about dining reservations in general. As I mentioned in a previous post, I spent last week in Orlando, Florida. One of my wife and my favorite things to do is to go to Disney Springs for dinner. You can make reservations on the Disney World app but often cannot get the restaurant you want because all the seats are taken. While there last week, I checked at one of the highly desired restaurants to see if they had any reservations later in the week. The receptionist looked at her calendar and gave me a time that worked. She then gave me an important piece of advice that will be very useful in the future: look at Open Table.

Open Table is a website that many restaurants use to book reservations. While the Boathouse in Disney Springs can be reserved using the Disney World app, it has more reservations available on Open Table. That is an important thing to know. Many times I have tried to get reservations in Disney Springs only to be disappointed and have to select someplace else to eat. Should that be the case in the future, I will check out Open Table. Hopefully that is a trick that works for you too.