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Jbeatty's Journal

jbeatty
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11/16/2007 12:42 #42163

Home for Christmas
Well not really my hometown, or my relatives for that matter. I just bought my tickets to go to Florida to see my family for Christmas. I was so excited to find nonstop tickets at decent travel times for $213. I am the self-proclaimed king of finding good airfare. But this is way cheaper than the usual jacked up rates around holidays. Let me tell you how excited I am to be flying my 10th airline and my 6th Boeing jet. Most people get on the plane and ignore it, but I love flying on different aircraft. After this I only have three Boeing jets left before I have flown all of their commercial production models. I have never flown Airtran before so I'm hoping it's a good airline. Has anyone ever flown them? Also on the subject when did Jetblue become so freaking expensive? They used to be the first place I looked because they were so cheap. Now they same flight dates would cost me over $500! I have no loyalty to airlines whatsoever, those frequent flyer programs are so lame anyway. Everything is restricted and sometimes you have to fly standby just to redeem your miles. I really hope Virgin US comes to Buffalo so we can have some nice price wars between them Southwest and Jetblue.
ladycroft - 11/16/07 15:27
airtran is ok. nothing remarkable, nothing terrible.

on my way to houston this summer i got to fly on a brand new jet and i was stoked. it was the first commercial flight. it smelled like a new car and i actually felt guilty that i left some pretzel crumbs in my seat.

jet blue does some really weird flight plans. i was looking at some for later in the year when i have to travel to the US and i think they wanted to send me from boston to jfk to chicago to buffalo instead of boston to buffalo. it was going to take 12 hours. eh.

just keep doing your own homework. it's takes more time but you eventually find that 'deal'.
james - 11/16/07 14:52
Jetblue has been the cheapest airline for me the past few flights I have had to take. But the options were really weird. Take my last flight for example.

I could
1)take the cheap flight direct to JFK for $100
or
2) Fly to Tampa direct and back to JFK for $1,080

wha?
janelle - 11/16/07 13:06
Airtran is so-so. What I don't like is that you usually have to fly through the Atlanta hub which is usually out of my way. But sounds like you're good with a direct flight. I also don't like that Airtran is simply the new name for an airline that had some serious accidents. The airline restructured themselves, renamed themselves Airtran and got a clean slate on the number of accidents they had because they were a "new" airline. Hopefully, they've dealt with the issues.
janelle - 11/16/07 13:03
Most of my airline and airplane model research has to do with researching safety records. I know the track record for various airlines and models of airplanes. I'm so terrified of being in a plane crash. I start dreading the flights to whatever the destination is weeks before the flight. Once I get to my destination, I usually feel okay on the flight back home. Although there have been times where I've seriously had to repress the urge to yell out "the plane is going down and we're all going to die" in mid-flight - however irrational it might be at the moment. I'd probably get kicked off the flight if it ever slipped past my lips! I still force myself to fly though because I like to travel.

On a side note, I'm so glad there's an airport in my hometown in central IL. It's very convenient for me and my family. But someone totally didn't believe me that there's an airport in my hometown. Like I'm going to make that up to impress people?

11/15/2007 13:54 #42143

Two pump chump
Although I will not divulge the pathetic number of women I have slept with, I will divulge how pathetic the first time was. I was 19 years old and needed to beat the 20 mark. I think I did by maybe a couple of months. The moment was really ruined by my lack of preparedness. Stopping to walk to the quickie mart 1/2 a mile in freezing cold rain tends to do that. Anyway it was on my friends apartment floor in potsdam, and I believe it may have lasted all of 2 minutes, give or take a minute. What can I say? I was excited. I can imagine she was largely disappointed.
joshua - 11/15/07 16:15
Nice! My first time was in my GF's bedroom, with her parents downstairs doing whatever it is that they do. My friend came to pick me up (I was 15 at the time), which was a total surprise - I still had the condom on when I left the house!
ladycroft - 11/15/07 15:53
wow. that's some honesty.
jbeatty - 11/15/07 14:51
I prefer your version too.
carolinian - 11/15/07 14:46
I misread "pathetic number of women" as "number of pathetic women".

I also misread:

"How pathetic the first time was. I was 19 years old and needed to beat the 20 mark. I think I did by maybe a couple of months."

as

"How pathetic it was being 19 years old after I beat the mark [of sleeping with 20 women], which I did in a couple of months."

I think my version of your story is funnier.
james - 11/15/07 14:06
Potsdam is a great background to this story.

11/13/2007 10:00 #42102

Gross
So yesterday right before Bio Lecture I really had to blow my nose. So I went into the bathroom next to the lecture hall, even though there was a disturbing odor permeating into the lobby. As I was washing my hands, out from the stall stumbled my bio professor looking disheveled with his shirt untucked, I thought wow he is either sick or hungover. Anyway he made a beeline straight for the door bypassing the handwashing process. I couldn't help but snicker during lecture everytime his hand came anywhere near his face. Remind me to never shake that dudes hand.
libertad - 11/13/07 22:05
That is gross. That is exactly why I hate touching door handles.

11/11/2007 20:22 #42084

Saigon Cafe
As a new Buffalo transplant its nice to be able to have a multitude of new restaurants to try. Tonight was my first dinner at Saigon Café. Overall a pretty good experience, the food was by far the highlight.

The Good:

I ordered Pla Jean, which is whole fried red snapper with red and green peppers in a ginger curry sauce, allegedly garnished with scallions but there were none to be found on mine. A few minutes after I ordered I heard the unmistakable sound of cold flesh hitting hot oil stream out from the kitchen. I could hardly wait to try it, this is the first time in several months I have had whole fried fish. It was by far the best dinner I have had since moving to Buffalo. They certainly know how to fry snapper well. The curry tasted vaguely familiar, like I had eaten it many times before. It had a little bit of Thai basil in it and a hint of coconut milk as well, slightly sweet and medium spice. It was a massive portion but I was determined to eat the whole thing. I avoided most of the rice because it was an ungodly amount. I had the urge to try the eyeball and it was really anticlimactic, just extremely chewy.

The Bad:

The service wasn't terrible; it just wasn't all that great. They do that team serving crappola, which I normally despise. There are a few exceptions when a place has captains and back servers with a system that works that I find it to be really efficient. This was more of a "whoever isn't busy" can take care of you sort of system that led to me not being greeted very promptly. They were pleasant however and I did get an excellent recommendation for dinner. I noticed that their reservation system is lacking as well. There were two parties that had a res for 7:30 and the entire dining room was sat. So maybe there are a few front of the house issues there.

The Indifferent:

As I was getting up to leave I peered into the kitchen window and to my shock they were using the same brand of canned curry paste that I buy. I was surprised they don't make it themselves, but honestly I really don't care. That dish was freaking delicious.

tinypliny - 11/12/07 18:06
So which brand of curry paste do you buy??
ladycroft - 11/12/07 04:43
i didn't even know they made reservations there, i've always just walked in. the mango curry is deeeeeeeelicious!
james - 11/11/07 21:08
I always forget to ask for recommendations. I have eaten their three times and each time I felt like I was getting Thai inspired Chinese takeout. MC is right, their soup is killer! I don't know anything about Thai or Vietnamese soup, but what ever it was they were serving it was delicious.
jenks - 11/11/07 20:51
I love that place. I eat there probably once a week. And of the four or so thai restaurants in town that I've been to (saigon cafe, saigon bangkok, taste of thai, and jasmine) I still think it's the best, even though most people I know like saigon bangkok better.
museumchick - 11/11/07 20:25
I'm glad you liked Saigon for the most part. It was one of my favorite restaurants in Buffalo. They make wonderful soups.

11/06/2007 09:29 #42001

Here it is
Although for only a few minutes, its only a matter of time before we can strap the skis on!
image
metalpeter - 11/06/07 17:54
Since you are into skiing I thought I should tell you about a cool event at Shea's that I'm going to that you might enjoy, I went to a event just like it last year, and it was aimed more towards people who ski or snowboard and not just watch movies about them but I'm going back this year.

Film premiere of PLAYGROUND
Special Event
29 November 2007 8:00 PM
Event runs November 29, 2007
Ticket prices are $18.50 Groups of 12 or more $17.50
PLAYGROUND – a film premiere by Warren Miller.
ladycroft - 11/06/07 15:06
it looks like it's raining dandilions!

i have to admit though, i'm going to freak out when it rains for the first time over here.
lilho - 11/06/07 10:20
dude, that insane. i feel like i live in eternal hotness. it scares me to think about global warming and what is going to become of us in our lifetimes.
mrmike - 11/06/07 10:15
Oh settle down. Pretty soon it will be April and you'll be struggling to get the skies off. Reactions to first snow around here always amazes me, like we've never seen it before.