ssullivan

Yes it is common practice with the discount airlines in Europe. In fact, some of them, like Ryanair, are so incredibly low-service, that they don't have window shades, jet bridges (you walk across the tarmac

That is a great site. I was a contributor for it when it was first being developed, providing some of the details on the Continental and Northwest fleets. There are a few items on it that are a matter of the site owner's personal opinion but for the most part it's quite accurate.

Actually the short subway section was kind of needed. The rail line has to dip down to get under the Central Expressway, and the Cityplace complex. Had it been elevated through this section it would have had make some sharp curves to deal with the buildings and the freeway's curving route in this area. It made sense to go underground for a more direct route without the sharp curves, which allows trains to run at a faster speed. When that rail line first opened, the underground Cityplace station didn't even exist. It was nearly three years later before it was opened in late 2000 (that section of rail opened in 1997).

Just depends. In the case of Ike, and three years ago with Rita, Continental charged nothing to change tickets. No change fee, no add/collect on the fare. Nothing. I know, because with Rita I was trying to get home to Houston for four days and had a ticket that required multiple changes. This time, with Ike, I was scheduled to connect through IAH the Monday evening after the storm, and had to change my flight around to connect through EWR instead. And yes, there have been cases where some of the airlines, in some situations, have waived change fees, but required that the same fare class still be available on the new flight in order to avoid a fare increase. If the same fare class was fully booked, you had to pay up to the fare of the next available fare class. That sounds like what you've encountered before, and I do think it's a very deceptive and unfair practice.

According to the latest timetable, the 777 to 764 switch is only for about six weeks, starting right before Christmas and lasting until early February. At that point the 777 returns. This is probably a reaction to the decreased demand for travel to Europe that always happens in the winter, and the fact that Continental is wrapping up retrofits to the older 777s that involve installing the new on-demand in-flight entertainment system, more BusinessFirst seats, new power ports at every seat, and overhead crew rest areas. They may be taking advantage of the decreased winter demand to speed up the 777 retrofits, and put a 764 on that route, before demand picks back up in the spring. Also this spring Continental has the new Shanghai flight starting which will require a couple of 777s, so it makes sense to get the retrofits wrapped up this winter while there's less demand for those planes. As for the new BusinessFirst seats, none of the 777s have them now, and none are getting them until next year. It is a small step down from the current 777 BusinessFirst seat to the current 764 BusinessFirst seat, but there are also a lot of frequent fliers who prefer the 767 seat anyway. For economy passengers, Continental's 767s actually have a more comfortable seat than the 777s

Yes and no. Northwest does charge a fee for certain seats, but the vast majority of aisle and window seats are available to all passengers at the time of ticketing without any additional fee. The seats they charge extra for are some of the exit row seats, and some oddball aisle seats that are just like any other aisle seat but a little closer to the front. Northwest never has implemented a charge for across-the-board seat assignments. The truth of the matter is very few Northwest passengers pay for a preferred seat assignment, as the seats they charge that fee on amount to an extremely small percentage (most definitely 5% or less) of Northwest's total economy class seat count. Price depends on a lot of variables. Generally I find Southwest to be the same price as other airlines in most markets that I would consider flying them to, which isn't many. And while Southwest is good about hitting most major metro areas, there are a lot of smaller cities they don't fly to, and there are some pretty big cities (Atlanta, New York, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Boston, Charlotte) that they don't fly to as well.

As it stands now, Delta is the only full-service domestic carrier who is not charging for the first bag. However, I doubt that will remain the case. Delta's merger partner Northwest is charging $15 for the first bag, and I'd be very surprised if Delta didn't eventually adopt that policy. Among some of the smaller airlines, you can still check one free bag with AirTran, Frontier, and JetBlue. Amazingly, "no thrills" Southwest is not charging for the first bag or the second bag. Alaska Airlines is the only other domestic carrier who is still doing this. Yes this fee stinks. But it doesn't affect me at this time due to my status at Continental. I'm far more upset about today's other announcements at Continental

At this time, Continental will not be charging for bags checked at the gate. I have confirmed this with a gate agent I know and she assures me that they have been told that they are not to charge customers for checking a bag at the gate because it will not fit on board. However, this is going off the assumption that passengers will continue to show up at the gate with regulation size carry-on bags that should fit. If enough passengers start showing up hauling enormous bags that would never stand a chance of fitting in an overhead bin, I wouldn't be surprised to see Continental start charging. But for now, the plan is to not collect a fee at the gate for checking a bag after boarding has commenced because it wouldn't fit on the plane.

We have Five Guys here in Atlanta, and I it every once in a while. I've found the location closest to us a little inconsistent though. The first time I ate there it was great. But the last time it was way too greasy, and the entire burger just tasted like oil and grease. The fries are quite good though. And yes. a regular cheeseburger, fries, and drink at Five Guys will set you back $10. However, you can go cheaper by ordering a "Little" burger, which is still huge and bigger than most fast food burgers

Nope, you're not alone in that one. A friend of mine in Arizona said something to the effect of "She looks like the librarian in the opening scene of a porn flick. Pretty soon the glasses come off, the hair comes down and ..." Well you know the rest.

Hmm, did we watch the same speech last night? Because the one I saw was about returning this nation to one of prosperity and peace. We certainly aren't in a time of peace now, and for most of the country, prosperity was tossed out in the trash sometime around 2001. I'm all for advancement and opportunity. But the administration of the last 8 years has resulted in fewer opportunities for both for many, if not most, Americans.

Well, it depends on the airline. In the case of United, which has Economy Plus, you're not getting one of those seats without paying extra unless you're a United Premier or higher in the Mileage Plus program, or the flight is very full and you don't have a seat assignment yet, and the only empty seats are in Economy Plus (in which case there's an extremely high probability you're going to get a middle seat). Some airlines, like Northwest, are charging for certain premium economy seats regardless of whether it's less than 24 hours until departure or not. The only way around that one is to have elite status in Northwest World Perks, Continental OnePass, or another SkyTeam frequent flier program. Midwest Airlines, which has traditionally offered first class-like 2

It opened in the late 1980s. It would help Galleria III if they'd renovate it to at least look like the rest of the Galleria. A few years ago when they replaced nearly all of the interior furnishings and d

Continental might have some involvement with the bus service. They do have a link to information about the new service on the front page of Continental.com as of a few days ago.

You did. Not that I think Toronto is bad or anything, but it's certainly not Barcelona.

I drove US 90A back in May right before I moved. It's amazing how fast that project has gone. It seemed like the original section to be upgraded on US 90A from 610 to just south of Hiram Clarke Rd. took forever to get built a few years ago. Then the next phase from that point to the Sam Houston Tollway seemed to get done pretty quickly. Since then the section south of the Tollway has flown right along.

Well, that, but it's also mostly due to the fact that at work we use a different company for our business travel, which is almost every week for me. And I earn tons of free days with that company to use for my personal travel because of my work travel. I usually have 25-30 free rental days a year at my disposal, so I manage to not pay for a rental car that's coming out of my pocket very often. Unfortunately they aren't transferable to my friends and family, and every year I usually have a few free days that go to waste because they expire before I can use them.

I guess it just depends on how often you use it and how convenient ZipCar is compared to a traditional car rental. With Enterprise's hourly rentals I assume you still have to pay for gas? And of course a regular rental company is going to charge extra if you want any insurance. I personally despise Enterprise and consider them to be the summiest of the scum of rental car agencies, but to each his own. I'd personally be happy to pay $75 a year to ZipCar to be able to pick up a car when I needed it to avoid Enterprise. But again, that's just my opinion and they do a big business so obviously others don't share my opinion of them. In any case, I'm still glad to see this type of service coming to Houston and hope it will take off. I know they've done quite well in many other cities.

I've only been to Barcelona, but it was incredible. I would go back in a heartbeat. You can see my pictures from that city by clicking here. My partner and his sister are actually going to Spain and Portugal for about two weeks in November. Unfortunately I'm not going; I have no vacation time left this year and that's a horrible month for me to try and take any time off this year due to my biggest project ever at work entering its last 30 days on November 1, after a two-year implementation period. So of course I'm insanely jealous that they're going and I'm not. But I'll survive. We're already planning our next big vacation together, which will be to Peru, Chile, and Easter Island next spring.

I'm using iTunes version 7.7.1.11. I'm on a Windows XP PC. I just tried it on my PC and it works. The key is you have to try to play the file after you've moved it. Here's what I did: Move the file from the local computer to the network drive. Open iTunes. Select the file you just moved to the new drive from the iTunes Music Library. Click Play. iTunes will tell you the file cannot be located and ask if you want to search for the file in the new location. Click Yes. iTunes will open a window that allows you to select the new drive and/or directory the file is saved in. Click OK. iTunes will update the database with the new file location. It will not create a new entry for the same song. Your existing playlists will be preserved. You only have to do this once for each file. Do this, and it will work. Yes, it's a little bit of a hassle, and you do have to try to play each file to get iTunes to ask you to specify the new location for the media file. But it will work, and you won't have to rebuild any playlists, or end up with duplicate copies of everything.

In this morning's Chronicle: The full article is here on the Chronicle website. I'm thrilled to see ZipCar branching out into Texas, and hope they'll expand beyond this initial location on the Rice campus. The article says they're considering other locations, including the Texas Medical Center, Downtown, and UH. Services such as ZipCar are a key step in making Houston more livable for residents who choose not to own a car. I think it would also be great if ZipCar provided cars at some points adjacent to MetroRail lines or Transit Centers. They do that here in Atlanta

I second that vote. Gumbo Shop's shrimp po'boy is amazing. And the gumbo's quite good too.

Agreed. It's stunning

You can do this without creating tons of duplicate audio files. When you use the File - Add to Library command, iTunes does not create a copy of the media file, nor does it move the media file. It simply creates a link in the database to the media file, which is left in its original location. So you can have a central network drive with all your files on it, and then individual computers on that network, each with iTunes installed, and the library in each iTunes installation referencing files stored on the network drive. There's no need for duplicate media files doing this. And each computer's individual iTunes installation will maintain its own playlists, play counts, and ratings. I don't think you'll have to completely blow away your existing playlists. Try just moving the music files from an individual computer to the network drive, then opening a playlist in iTunes after you've moved the files. When you open the playlist, iTunes will tell you it can no longer find a file and ask if you want to search for the file in a new location. Click Yes or OK to run the search. It will then allow you to browse to the network directory where the files have been moved to, and should update the database to reflect the new file locations. I did something similar to this a few years ago when I got a new hard drive, and made it the master drive in my PC. However, I kept the old drive as a secondary drive. iTunes was reinstalled, along with the OS and all my software, on the new drive. However my music was all on the old drive. I was able to get iTunes to update the database links to every media file I had without having to blow away and rebuild any existing playlists.

This is very true. I graduated with my BA in 1996 and haven't had any one inquire about my GPA since around 1999. And I had a GPA that I'm not overly proud of. I went to a very selective private college, and didn't have the maturity at the time to really study