Paul T Cottey's blog

It was not a tough assignment:  Turn a $100 American Express gift card into a $100 iTunes gift card.

Round 1 went to American Express:  Because the gift card was not registered with an address, it could not be used successfully on-line.  When presented to the Apple Store, Apple tried to validate it, did not find an address on file (it’s a gift card after all), put a $1 hold on the card anyway, and then dutifully reported Amex’s rejection.  It takes until the 8th day for the $1 hold to clear.  Amex gets to keep the money another week, interest-free.  I call Amex, register the card, and wait a week.  Fast-forward to 8 days later.

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As of today, the University of Illinois has an unprecedented $436 million in unpaid state invoices.  University leaders have implemented a mandatory furlough, a hiring freeze, and a commission to review cutting administrative costs.  However, without additional state funding, the core mission of educating the UI’s 71,000+ students will be in jeopardy.  This is because the State of Illinois owes the University money, but hasn’t paid it.

I sent a letter to my representatives, State Representative Will Burns (repwillburns@att.net) and State Senator Kwame Raoul (raoulstaff@gmail.com or nsolomon@senatedem.ilga.gov), asking them to honor our commitments to the University.  Write your representatives too.  If you don’t know who represents you, look here.

Thanks!

I seem to return to this theme repeatedly:  Connectivity in the air.  Maybe it is because it is still new, and therefore interesting, or maybe I just think it is nice not to land with 27 messages queued up to go out and another 100 ready to come in.  I don’t know.

Nonetheless, GoGo Inflight is offering chances until the end of February to win free or discounted service with them.  Follow this link GoGo for a chance to win.  You may play every day, and it looks like you may play as often as you’d like.

Good luck!

I’ve been on a couple thousands flights in my life, conservatively measured, and I have sat in the first row before.  At least, I thought I had.  If the front of the plane is row “1,” then I sat in seat 0B last night!  I was on a Cape Air flight from St. Louis, and, on a lark, I asked the pilot if I could sit in the co-pilot’s seat if I promised “not to touch anything.”  He said, “Sure,” and off we went!

It was not a clear night, and so there wasn’t a lot to see out the window until the end, but I got to watch all the instrumentation and got to see him land when the airport finally appeared about 20 seconds before we landed.  Pretty cool!  Heck, I’ll ask again the next time.  All the pilot can say is, “No,” after all.

Maybe it is because the Bears stopped playing last year (some would argue in October or November, but I meant in December), but none of the games especially moved me this weekend.  The Golden Globes seem to have more highlights and are more interesting.  Except for the bad hairdos and the smugness, of course.

We were coming back to Chicago over the holidays and volunteered our seats in exchange for a direct flight.  We had had a first class upgrade, but figured the direct flight was a good deal, especially for $300 of vouchers!   A family of four made the flight because of that, so we were feeling pretty good.  The agent had promised vouchers and a first class upgrade, but couldn’t make either happen.  She was disappointed that she couldn’t get us A/B coach seats but did get us an E/F exit row, so we thought nothing more of it and happily arrived home.

I checked today and we each got a “Customer Service Bonus” (5000 and 3000 respectively) for our troubles!  Way to go American Airlines and thanks!

Update:  The points were actually because the flight we transferred on to was delayed.  It is still a nice touch, however, and I am not going to look this gift horse in the mouth!

As we get toward the end of a busy year, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Feliz Navidad

Gezur Krislinjden

Shenoraavor Nor Dari yev Pari Gaghand

Boas Festas e Feliz Ano Novo

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I got to thinking that all time zones are not created equally in that some are much more densely populated than others.  So, when Santa gets around to pulling his all-nighter, he has more work to do in some timezones than in others.  I figured someone had thought this through before, outside the North Pole, that is, but if someone has, he is staying silent about it.  So, absent access to Santa’s logistics people, who are probably pretty busy this time of year, I figured I would do a little mashup and illustrate it, if not explain it.

Here is a view of world population density by timezone:

As you can see, the amount of work to be done in some time zones is markedly more than in others.  (Look at Z, A, and B covering Europe versus O covering mostly Atlanta Ocean, for example.)  Obviously this is based just on raw population and not on religious belief or number of believers in Santa Claus or anything else, but I figure those can be left either as a useful exercise to the reader or as a part of some sort of government or United Nations grant!

Timezone map from http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com

World population from http://www.nationsonline.org

Thanks!

This was on my mind today, so I figured I would write it up.

How to pull (and recover from) an all-nighter:

1. Hydrate, don’t caffeinate.  Water, water, water.  It will keep you moving and surprisingly alert and doesn’t have any of the let-down that caffein does.

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