JFK T5 "a fligth to nowhere" on jetBlue

No, this isn't some kind of a joke or sarcasm towards jetBlue and their delay/cancellation woes. I really did take jetBlue on a flight to nowhere this weekend and it was sweet!


I was among 1,000 other loyal jetBlue TrueBlue members to be invited to participate in a test of the luggage system and operations at thier brand spanking new terminal 5 at JFK airport. I first heard about this event on FlyerTalk.com and since I didn't get a personal invite right away I quickly asked one of the other members to forward me a copy of their's... but just a few days later I got my very own invite from jetBlue. I was joking that I must be at the bottom of jetBlue marketing list because it seems I always get special offers and promotions about a week after everyone else.


Upon arrival at JFK the first thing that strikes your eyes is the old TWA terminal: Eero Saarinen building that will now symbolize jetBlue even though TWA sign is still above it. The new jetBlue parking lot is very convenient and parking on the 5th floor allows you to walk right into the walkway connecting AirTrain to both T5 and T6. The walk to the main terminal is quite long, which will be pretty awful when on the rush, but it's something we'll have to learn to deal with.

The new terminal is spacious! If I could use one word to describe it it would be huge. The new TSA security area looks quick and infact after checking in for my pretend fligth it was a breeze. That was probably the most realistic part of the whole experience, while everything else was going according to the script the TSA were quick to turn around people carrying water, change in their pockets or even forgetful folks like me that left his keys in his pocket.


The most attractive part of the new terminal itself, aside from all the shops and restaurants that weren't there yet but had reps on site giving more information, was the gate area 14, 15 and 16. There are seats aligned along the huge windows overlooking the runway and quite a few jets caught the attention of the participants, everything from regional commuter jets to double decker Boeing 747's.


We were allowed to keep the carry-on bags we checked in to test the system, and after checking in for my pretend Las Vegas flight and arriving from Oakland I made my way outside to the tents set up on the departures driveway to have lunch with everyone from the participants, the media, to the Port Authority cops and of course many jetBlue big wigs including the CEO Dave Barger. They had catered food, some entertainment and a drawing for free flights anywhere jetBlue jets... unfortunately with my luck and even after a pretend flight to Las Vegas I was still unlucky and didn't win anything.


I did score a few hats and luggage tags though, before heading home.


Thanks jetBlue for a really special experience, I can't wait to fly out of there... JFK so far is my primary local airport even though both EWR and LGA are significantly closer.


www.jetblue.com

Boston vs. NYC, Summer '08

Not sure why I always think of this annual business trip as a big deal, but it really is. Like last year I was back in Boston for a meeting at the beatiful Seaport World Trade Center. Having done this before I was able to spend more time on planning which lead to much better quality time spend it the city.

Although Boston proper is a mere three and a half to four hour ride from Northern New Jersey, for the second year in a row I decided to take a flight up there. With gas prices so high and rising it wasn't necessarily a bad idea considering Jet Blue was such a reasonable choise. I booked a roundtrip for a mere $149 taxes included and was able to grab first-class like seats sitting in the front of the plane at seat 3A both ways. I love this about Jet Blue, you're the first one off the plane and on your way about your business.

The trip started off real well, we landed five minutes early and my chauffeur was not expecting me to come out so soon, but at least he was there. The policies of Boston Coach are a bit odd, but acceptable. The ride to the Seaport Hotel took no more than ten minutes and after leaving my luggage at the concierge desk I was on my way to the meeting.

After a long but catered event I was ready to crash for the night, and unlike the previous year I picked a very convenient and upscale hotel right next to the Seaport WTC. The Reinassance Waterfront is a newly completed highrise with some magnificent views of the Boston harbor and a modern touch. I was thoroughly impressed with the whole experience starting with checking-in to the room, the amenities in it and even the gym which I used at around midnight... it was simply amazing. I even decided to go for a walk downtown, to check out the Quincy market again and all the pubs that lead to it through the tiny streets. Its great how clean Boston is.


The flight home was again delayed. I attempted to go on stand-by but the door was literally closed in my face and I ended up waiting for my flight which was over an hour delayed once we boarded the aircraft. Luckily I had a buddy I met at the meeting to keep me company so the time went by real quick. I'm really looking forward to next year if I'm lucky enough to do it again.



I'd like to keep my posts limited to a unique experience at a time, but this addition to my Boston trip not even a week after I returned is a must. Thanks to my uncle I was able to go to my first major league baseball game and what better venue than the Bronx Bombers playing the Boston Red Sox at the legendary Yankee Stadium. This is the last year that games are played at the old stadium as the new one is nearly completed so the game was very special.


If you haven't noticed already hardly anything I do goes perfectly as planned and this game was no exception. My sister had to work that day so we left for the Bronx rather late. I was able to cruise through traffic quite easily but parking was another story. Even though we had free parking passes no parking spots were available, all official lots were closed and the unofficial private lots wanted to charge a hefty $30 for valet parking... Yeah right! I ended up dropping my sister and her friends off at the entrance to the stadium and circled around until I found a good spot to leave the Jeep on the Grand Concourse.


It was a little over an hour into the game when I walked into the stadium and found out the Yankees were playing a rather fast pased game. It was already fourth inning and they were winning. The seats we got were excellent. We were in section 19, 77, C 1 through 4... which meants we were a mere four rows up from the field just past first base. We saw all the players real close and were happy to see them win.


Not sure if I'd be making it a habit to go to any more baseball games but for my first one this was a great experience. Perhaps an obvious observation but comparing downtown Boston to downton New York City (we decided to go to Little Italy after the game for some thin crust pizza and canolies) NYC is filthy... soooo sad!


Links:

Jet Blue: www.jetblue.com

BostonCoach: www.bostoncoach.com

Boston Seaport: www.bostonseaport.com

Renaissance Boston Waterfront: Marriott Hotels

New York Yankees: yankees.mlb.com

Boston Red Sox: redsox.mlb.com

NYC, New Jersey '08

Its been a long time since I went anywhere or did anything other than working my two dead-end jobs and going to the gym every morning trying to get in shape. But things are not as grim as it often seems. Through my new job I was able to participate in a very neat event taking place under the Hudson River in the Lincoln Tunnel.

I was invited to attend the Lincoln Tunnel Challenge, a 5k (3.1 mile) event benefiting the Special Olympics of New Jersey. I had never done any such events before so in all honesty I had no idea what to expect, however I was very excited to participate in a charitable function and invited my sister and best friend to attend with me.

The plan for the event was to go to the Coach USA garage and take mass transit as was advertised on the event web site and highly recommended by the people from the company. However after getting home late the night before, being burned out and unable to get out of bed in time I overslept that opportunity.

Not to worry there was plenty of parking and after arriving in Weehawken in much less time than it would have taken if we were to take a bus, we were on our way to register in order to receive our numbered bibs and the timekeeper RFID chip. Shortly after the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had the southern hole of the tunnel blocked off and we were walking towards the start finish line. My sister had just received a ticket from EZpass for going through the wrong lane on the GW bridge so I made sure to take a picture of her on foot at the EZpass toll booth... not paying the toll again, as usual! ugh...


I had been going to the gym every morning for the past few months so I had full intentions of running the entire length of the tunnel and back, but since it was crowded and my skater shoes made my feet hurt right away, a nice stroll through it was what my sister and I actually ended up doing. We took pictures throughout our walk, especialy at the dividing line between New York and New Jersey under the Hudson. My best friend though ran, and finished the challenge in half the time that we did, which was impressive. The tunnel itself, which was apparently cleaned before the event was quite dirty, the air in there was very stuffy but nevertheless it was all right. It surely provided for many great picture ops on both sides of the river, and the presence of all the NYC Grey Line sightseeing busses added to the ops available for us. I had never been on a double-decker bus before so it surely added to the memories.

I cannot wait to do this again next year!

New York City, NY in August 2007

Seems like forever since I last traveled and as ironic as this trip to Manhattan was over the course of the past few days, it was still enough for me to feel like I got away from the mundane life I've been living, or rather working my ass off...

The occasion appropriatately enough was my buddy visiting from Albaquerque, New Mexico. I've always offered folks a tour of NYC on the forums and finally someone took me up on that offer I guess, but we certainly had a blast.

First order of business was of course to get his Charger SRT8 out of the trailer and line it up with the New York City skyline for some fantastic early evening shots. One of my favorite spots along the Hudson River is actually on the Jersey side, well there are two of them separated by about a thousand foot cliff drop. So there we were at the new Port Imperial Ferry terminal when the things didn't go as planned. Luckily Arthur's Landing Restaurant was in the same parking lot so we simply brushed the problems off and had a relaxing dinner in an outdoor patio right on the water overlooking midtown Manhattan.


The following day I was up bright and early on my way, fighting rush hour traffic of course, to the Holiday Inn in Fort Lee to take my friends on the tour of the big island of Manhattan. First order of business was to hit Fifth Avenue for some upscale shopping. I took the scenic route of course following Park Avenue from its start on the Harlem River Drive all the way down through the Met Life building. It was neat to show my buddy the different neighborhoods of NY, starting in Harlem following the side of the aboveground Subway all the way until it goes down under and changing the outlook of the city from the Projects into some of the most expensive real estate in the entire boro. Right as we were about to go through the Met Life building and drive over 42nd street we saw a new NYPD Charger cross the street in front of us, for a Mopar fan my friend was impressed.


After a lengthy walk down Fifth Ave and a quick stop at Tiffany and Co, we headed down to the Empire State building via Times Square and past Radio City Music Hall. My friends ran up while I circled around in my Explorer and after a short wait we were back on the road. My friends were very impressed with the views from the observation deck high atop the Empire State building. I still have to do it one day... Its amazing how much us locals take for granted, I think I find it easier to take a trip to Los Angeles than going to New York City right under my nose.


The next order of business was very important, it was dinner time and my Italian amigo had only one place in mind Little Italy! So we headed downtown and found our way on to Mulbery Street. The cobble stone streets were a nice authentic reminder of the place we got to although the pot holes and uneven pavement took us on a rollercoaster in the freaking capital city of the world, I think Mayor Bloomberg should spend a lot more money on road construction because that was pathetic.


After a short walk in the center of Little Italy we grabbed a table at Da Nico Ristorante. The food was fantastic although as usual it took some time before the main courses found their way to the table. But it was great to see some fresh off the boat weighters working the tables with a very distinct and authentic Italian accent. Very impressive, considering since I haven't dinned in Little Italy (even though I've driven through there about a dozen times in the past few years) since I was on a high school field trip back in 1996.


As day turned into night the last stop on our tour was to hit the World Trade Center site so my friend can pay his respects. Surely no trip to the WTC would be complete without a quick detour through the Financial District and I found my way through parts of Wall Street to show them a glimpse of the Exchange building which was blocked off to traffic, and a nice view of the ass of the Bull as we went back towards Battery Park for a quick glimpse of the Statue of Liberty in the distance. We spend some time at the World Trade Center and headed back to Jersey via the Lincoln Tunnel.


Anybody from this area would surely know that taking the George Washington Bridge would be the one and only way to reach Fort Lee, but I had another trick up my sleave. Immediately after coming out of the tunnel, I showed my friend the views of the opening scenes of the Sopranos and quickly turned down onto JFK Blvd to show them my other favorite spot overlooking NYC skyline, the Hamilton park atop the cliffs in Weehawken. The views were breathtaking as cheesy as it sounds, its true. We snapped some shots, enjoyed the views and headed back to Paramus for a quick stop at a local Dodge dealer where we just had to take a peak under the hood of a Top Banana Yellow Daytona Charger for informational purposes obviously...


The following day my buddy followed my instructions to find his way to the Liberty State Park in Jersey City for a ferry to the Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. I wanted to join him so bad but since I've taken so many vacations for travel before I had to cover other coworker's days off as she traveled to Mid America, go figure! Thats another place that I wish I would go to more often as I was on the Statue of Liberty last in 1996 on another high school trip. Although I am definitely one of the few civilians who can brag to have driven a vehicle onto the Ellis Island! Yep, its true, while the island is an island, obviously... there is an old military bridge that US Park Police use to get to the island where they have the command center for this National Monument.


Anyway, I should just follow my own preaching on the company web site and become a tourist for a day and explore the magnificent city right under my nose here instead of going thousands and thousands of miles away to Miami, Chicago or Las Vegas... although stay tuned there will be seven new flight segments coming up in the next two months.


Links:

NYC Visit
Statue of Liberty
Empire State Building
Little Italy
Chinatown
World Trade Center
Port Imperial Ferry
Arthur's Landing

Western New York in January 2007

Never thought keeping my New Years resolutions would be so easy, its only January and I already took my second major trip of the year. This time it was not exactly something I was looking forward to, instead I had to make a traffic court appearance to answer for a ticket I got last August while driving back from Canada. But, as an adventurous person I planned ahead and when life threw lemons at me I made lemonaide.

I decided to fly to Rochester and again Jet Blue was my best choise so I booked it. The court was in Stafford, NY a little spec of a town between Buffalo and Rochester and since they've been getting freezing rain and snow since the winter began I didn't want to take any chances driving my car for 400 miles. Jet Blue was a bargain, I found a SEVENTEEN magazine offer to save $17 bux each way off of already discounted $49 dollar each way fares, and with my Florida vacation credit of $40 bux ended up paying about $44 total with taxes for the trip out of pocket. The only thing that bothered me was parking my car at JFK which would have been prohibitevly expensive so I relied on the good old public transport system and spend only about $22 bux on NJ Transit bus, NYC Subway and the Air-Train. The flight JFK to ROC was incredibly smooth, even with the snow at the destination.

I booked Enterprise at the Greater Rochester International Airport not so much because it was the cheapest but because they had the lowest surcharge for drivers under 25. With my Rutgers Alumni Association card they dropped the surcharge altogether and gave me a 10% discount. The dude at the counter though tried to rip me off by placing me in a Chevy Aveo when in actuality I booked the next step up which was a Dodge Neon or similar. Luckily the next step up there was a Chrysler PT Cruiser, and the one that I got was vanilla color so it was a beaut! I was never fond of these until I got to check one out in person, and the next 24+ hours I spend in it were really fantastic. And it only cost about $45 taxes and fees included.

Upon getting out of the one terminal small airport I went to downtown Rochester to familiarize myself with the city, but with all the Inner Loop, all those I390's and I490's it wasn't so easy. First impressions of the town were somewhat run down and industrialized community, but towards the center of the city there were some neat office buildings and best of all I was able to leech some free WiFi to work on my web site and send out a few last minute e-mails that I couldn't do at JFK because I couldn't authenticate there. Go figure...

Shortly after getting done with all that I set out on the road towards Stafford. The trip was supposed to be 27 miles and just over a half an hour but it took more because of the light snow along the way. I arrived very early anyway and decided to go explore Le Roy, NY the town nextdoor. Did you know Jell-O was invented there? I didn't... They got a whole museum dedicated to it. I guess besides that fact the only other exciting part was signs for Six Flags which must be a big attraction out there, its located about twenty miles out of Le Roy towards Buffalo. But I didn't go that far, instead I went to D&R Depot restaurant which looks really old and very cool. It sits right next to the rail road tracks and on the walls throughout the building are paintings and pictures of what life used to be and how travelers on the locomotives paid that house a visit hundred of years ago. It was nice. I ordered an ostridge burger and some root beer, both tasted like nothing I've ever had before, very authentic.

The court itself was uneventful, I was able to plead my case and got the charge amended to something I could live with. The judge was fair, to the point that since the trooper didn't show up he wanted to adjourn the case until the date he does, but I wasn't up for that because of the long and expensive trip and we worked out a deal.

Shortly after I headed out I90 Westbound towards Buffalo and ultimately Niagara Falls. My goal was to go to Niagara Falls, Ontario and dine at the Skylon, the bubble in the sky high above the falls with the rotating restaurant in it. Going across the border was easy although I don't think the Canadian officer took me seriously when I told him I'm going to Canada for diner. Neither did the US border agent who kept on asking repeatedly what am I hauling from Canada in my PT Cruiser? The diner itself was expensive! I was a little price shocked to see anything on the menu above $45 dollars, I mean its in Canadian dollars but still... damn! I only had a Lobster soup and Ceasar Salad but the bill came out to $50 anyway... might as well had ordered stake.

I didn't bring my camera so I didn't get any shots of the trip, but unlike my Key West adventure if I were to take pictures all I'd see is snowflakes in front of the car, because the storm only worstened on my way back to Rochester. I didn't book a hotel room as I was not planning to stay too long, in fact I was going to go on standby with the first flight out. And its exactly what I did but not until I tried a Rochester tradition: a garbage plate from Mark's Texas Hots. The dish was a surprise, I could swear I made something this bad myself on one of my hungry hungry hippo fits where I spend a few minutes throwing anything I could find on a plate and eating it in a rush. The dish consisted of some macaroni salad, a cheeseburger, a burned hot dog and some hot sauce all on one plate. At midnight it was delicious.

From there I went back to downtown Rochester, spend some more time Online checking e-mail and working on my web sites and then headed to fill up the car for the first time, all that driving around and it only took one fill up $33 bux for about 330 miles and gas was rather more expensive in Western New York.

I got on the standby flight out back to JFK, and already felt pretty tired because of being up for so long. Before we took off they de-iced the plane which I've never experienced before but was always curious how its done, now I know. Then hopped on the subway, switched to a bus at the Port Authority and was home by eleven. It was a productive trip, I hope I never have to do it again!


Links:

Jet Blue: www.jetblue.com
Enterprise: www.enterprise.com
Skylon Tower: www.skylon.com