The TSA pre-check designation is probably the best thing that has happened to me in my flying experience. This AM, not only was the screening agent extremely accommodating, they had a separate line set up for the pre-screened for the metal detector and x-raying of carry-on. I was the only guy in that line as I went through, while the non-pre-screened had another lengthy wait through their processing. Suite deal.
I really stumbled on to a great hotel location this time which will be very useful in future non-golfing trips to Phoenix/Scottsdale. The area at the intersection of the Loop 101 and Shea Boulevard is a well-developed, conveniently located, mixed-use area for retail, dinning and lodging. The fact that Total Wine was just a 5-minute drive was an un-planned bonus. The hotel was a Country Inn and Suites with Hampton Inn perks. At only $60 per night, it was an option well within my corporate budget. If there had been a Starbuck's next door, it would have been a home run. As it was, I didn't have to drive far for coffee.
I remain impressed with the Hertz program. While they initially had put a small truck in my name-designated spot because they were short on compact cars Saturday, I asked that they give me a car, so they just upgraded me to a mid-sized Chrysler, which was a real nice ride.
The return was slick again, and in addition to the printed receipt that they gave me in the garage, an emailed receipt was in my office email before I even went through security. And the base rate of $20 per day was another cheap date for the corporate pocketbook. (The airport add-on "fees" actually amounted to almost as much as the rental fee. Let's soak those out-of-towner's!!)
The business-side of this trip was also a success. Good meetings. Good information obtained. It always feels good on the way home when the goals for a big-effort trip actually get met.
Moving on...
I made an effort to stay on CDT while in AZ. This meant some early rising times by the local clock, but I like the idea of maybe getting out early on the bike tomorrow, and I didn't want the bod to be used to a later time. Since the phone and iPad automatically switch to local time, I leave my Timex on Central time, and just keep playing the math game of, "What time is it, really?"
The hotel had free HBO on the room TV so I watched a couple of movies to avoid the commercials. One was the last Bourne film, The Bourne Legacy(?), which I found to be mostly tedious. Those chase and fight scenes got long, repetitive and boring. While the movie generally met one of my two fundamental criteria for a flick (plenty of killing early), the writers/producers/director assumed that I cared way too much about the franchise for me to connect all of the dots. In the last 20 minutes of the show, I rarely looked up from my crossword. I did note that they closed the film with that same squeaky(?) music like they used at the end of the first Bourne movie. That was where they had the camera chasing the waves to the Greek coast where the girl was running the motor scooter rental store. Was that the thread that brought the story lines together? Whatever.
Since I didn't enter a post over the weekend, I'm giving 2 another recognition as DAUGHTER OF THE DAY for her birthday on the 18th. Here's an "action shot" with 1.01 at 2nd Coffee one morning recently in Woodbury.
I also confess to reading the NYT on both Sunday and today while on this trip. (Hat-tip to 2 for picking up on that factoid in one on my Twitter pic's.). I figured that I wanted a fully loaded Sunday paper for the coffee shop since I had no pals to chat with and the local fish-wrap in Phoenix is awful.
I remain impressed with the wide range of topics and geography covered in the Times. This commitment to global news and to the arts is admirable. Their tendency to slant all stories to a more progressive perspective? Meh. Not something I could take as a steady diet.
The cover story to the weekly NYT Magazine in the Sunday edition was about an experiment at the University of Texas-Austin to try to increase the success-rate of incoming freshmen from historically under-achieving demographics. It's an article worth the read. Essentially, the professors running this program at UT have been able to prove that changing the self-perceptions of the individuals in these identified groups has lead to significantly better results on the staying-in-school barometer. While my first reaction to this effort is that it sounds like a typical academic Do-Gooder's tendency toward looking through the rose-colored glasses at every issue, I'm
willing to let this program go forward for more discussion.
Education and family remain the keys to breaking the chain of poverty. Throwing more money at programs that have failed to deliver the goods seems like your standard government vision of "help". If there is something as simple as changing the delivery system to accomplish real change, we need to get there. I was in a pretty deep conversation about education with my pal Roy's brother Martin recently. Martin has been involved in some philanthropic education programs for years, and he preaches that long-term economic change requires jumping some educational sharks. My biggest concern here is that our colleges and universities seem more intent these days in getting progressive-thought taught to students rather than actually getting students to progress.
Let's see if I can get this published now that I'm on the ground.
Thanks for reading.
BCOT
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