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October 23, 2007

Vishy's Indian English Dictionary: (hair) slide

slide./slyd/ or /slAYd/. A hairpin. Probably named for how it is worn by ladies: sticking the open end into your hair and then sliding it into place. As I grew up in Mumbai, I also heard it being pronounced as slAYd (rhymes with 'glade').

(Note: Bobby Jindal of Louisiana is making headlines because he was elected as the first non-white governor of the state in about 130 years. I read in his wikipedia bio that he helped his wife deliver their son by himself and named him Slade. That's what got me writing this blog entry.)

Posted by Vishy at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)

October 15, 2007

Impressions of Virgin America vs JetBlue

I flew Virgin America for a business trip to the San Francisco last week, after probably about a dozen consecutive flights on JetBlue. I have always been a big fan of JetBlue for a number of reasons: the live TV (with Comedy Central, which I don't have at home), the legroom, the friendliness of their crew and of course, the awesome low fares. This year though, the airline has been beset by growing pains. Their carefully optimized model of passenger-assisted cleaning of their aircraft, which allows for quick turnaround times, leaves inadequate wiggle-room in the face of delays. As it is, they don't have a large fleet, and weather-induced delays in one corner of the United States can quickly ripple through the system and create an avalanche of delays.

After several such delay-addled flights on JetBlue, I decided to try Virgin America, Richard Branson's low cost airline whose goal is to make flying fun again. I was fairly excited about flying Virgin America, even days before the actual flight (Karolina can attest!); I can't remember the last time I was bouncing off the walls like that. I was most excited about the in-seat enterainment system, which included TV, chat and games. I was also psyched about the availability of a power plug so I could work on my laptop without it running out of battery.

In the end, the Virgin America experience was overall on part with that of JetBlue.

Where VA was better...

The crew members on VA were a lot friendlier than those on JetBlue--as our takeoff was delayed for 45 minutes in evening rush hour air traffic, the captain offered to make up for it by letting passengers buy movies on his credit card. The shiny black leather seats were also slightly better. The chat feature didn't work on my outbound flight; chat worked on my return flight, but I slept through most of it because it was a redeye.

VA and JetBlue were about the same...

Legroom wasn't substantially different between the two airlines. I should note that I sat in a non-exit row seat. On many VA flights, you may be required to pay $25-50, itemized separately, to get a coveted exit row seat.

Where JetBlue was better...

JetBlue has some free snacks, which are useful if you arrive at the gate at the last minute, and feel gouged paying $8 for a cheese-and-fruit plate on board VA flights. Also, JetBlue has full-on live TV, not packaged 4-hour programming that repeats 1.5X on a cross-country flight.

Although I didn't end up taking advantage of a lot of the nifty features of VA, I'd say it's worth flying them once, just to give them a try. For future flights, it's a tossup whether I'd take JetBlue or VA--it depends on how the rewards points compare. I do know that I'll avoid flying out of JFK around 6:00pm, because of the delays it introduces in any airline's schedule.

Posted by Vishy at 03:12 PM | Comments (0)

October 05, 2007

Hail, Yet Another Web Service Is Born...

Man, my regular readers are going to be disappointed with the level of activity on this blog this year, but trust me, it has been for totally legitimate reasons. This time around, I even have something to show for my silence on this blog: WhenGuard.

WhenGuard is a simple Web service I wrote entirely for fun and to keep in touch with my inner programmer. I decided to put it up publicly because it might even be useful for some people.

WhenGuard is a Web service that can keep a secret. If you are a public relations professional, blogger, educator, attorney, musician or anyone who deals in time-sensitive information, you might find WhenGuard useful. Please do check it out and send some feedback my way!

Posted by Vishy at 09:41 AM | Comments (0)