Travel Tips from a Road Warrior - BusinessWeek

Travel Tips from a Road Warrior - BusinessWeek:

Great ideas from a professional traveler. If you are as much a traveler as a professional too, it's likely you have discovered your own travel tips. Please feel free to share some of those with us. And let me know what you think of Mr. Goldsmith's ideas.



Travel Tips from a Road Warrior
Business travel can cause undue stress. Here are ways to make it easier, from what to pack to how to sleep on the plane


By Marshall Goldsmith




Over the years, I have flown millions of miles for my work. I have logged more than 10 million frequent flyer miles on American Airlines alone! Already this year, I have visited Abu Dhabi, Amsterdam, Athens, Dubai, Edinburgh, Helsinki, Johannesburg, London (three times), Stavanger, and many cities in the U.S. and Canada.

A lot of people find traveling for business difficult. Some people don't like leaving home and family. Others find the logistics hard to handle. People who know how much I travel often ask me, "How do you do it?"
Here are some of my suggestions for making business travel easier:
1. Pack light. (This is easier for me than most humans, since I wear a green polo shirt and khaki pants almost every day.) Take what you need. Don't give yourself options. Make a decision on what you are going to wear—and just wear that. Use the hotel laundry. If you are staying for more than one day, they can clean your clothes. You probably won't have to have a unique outfit every day.

2. Don't book the latest possible flight. Things happen. Whenever you can, give yourself a back-up option or build in room for things to go wrong.

3. Get to the airport with time to spare. Given today's security precautions, last-minute arrivals can be a disaster. I have seen many late passengers trying to jump ahead of everyone in line and get angry with security people who are doing their jobs. Life is short. Don't do this to yourself and other people at the airport.

4. If at all possible, don't check your bags. If I checked my bags on every trip, hundreds of hours of my life would be spent standing by conveyor belts. This doesn't even factor in the extreme hassle and aggravation that comes when your bags are lost or misplaced.

5. Eat before you get on the plane. I have heard hundreds of fellow passengers grumble about how bad airplane food is. You don't have to eat it! While some components of air travel have gotten worse, others have improved. The quality of food and quantity of options at major airports is exponentially better today than it was 30 years ago, when I started flying.

6. Don't drink alcohol on the plane. The only time that I ever drink when flying is when I have two glasses of wine before an overnight flight. I am able to do that because I am going to sleep immediately, and all I have to do after I walk on to the plane is find my seat. If I am not going to sleep immediately, I find that drinking does more harm than good.

7. Learn to sleep on the plane. I have a unique approach, which works for me. I put on a blindfold, put the blanket over my head—then go to sleep. I often speak in front of large groups. I have to think about my voice. Having the blanket over my head holds in my body moisture and helps prevent the dry throat problem that occurs when we sleep on a long flight. Another benefit: When you have a blanket over your head, no one talks to you.

8. To help conquer jet lag, forget about where you have been—and where you are. As soon as you board the plane, set your watch to the time zone where you are headed. Never say, "Do you realize what time it is where I began this journey?" This type of thinking just screws up your mind and makes things worse. If you are headed to Bangalore, and it is 10 p.m. there when you board the plane, say to yourself, "I am in Bangalore, and it is 10 p.m."

9. As much as we complain about air transportation, I am amazed at how well the system works. In my 30 years of being a "road warrior," I have only missed one client meeting because of travel issues (a blizzard in Chicago).

Readers: I would love to hear from you. Please share your ideas on ways to make travel as positive as possible.
Marshall Goldsmith is the author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller Succession: Are You Ready? as well as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller What Got You Here Won't Get You There, a Harold Longman Award winner for Business Book of the Year. He can be reached atMarshall@MarshallGoldsmith.com, and he provides his articles and videos online atMarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com.

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Increased Greenhouse Gas Emissions Latest Target for Fractivists

The last decade has seen a sustained campaign by the hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") industry against its critics, as the fracking industry in the U.S. alone was worth an estimated $76 billion in 2010 and is projected to grow to $231 billion in 2036 if only those pesky environmentalists can be sidelined. According to Washington's energy Information Administration, production of shale gas in the United States in 2010 totalled 4.87 trillion cubic feet (tcf) compared with 0.39 tcf only a decade earlier.
The combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has already transformed North America's natural gas market in less than half a decade. In 2000 shale gas was 1 percent of America's gas supplies; today it is 25 percent. While U.S. energy companies began fracking for gas in the late 1990s, there was a dramatic increase in 2005 after the administration of President George W. Bush exempted fracking from regulations under the U.S. Clean Water Act. According to Washington's energy Information Agency, shale gas production has grown 48 percent annually.
But there are still some snakes to be chased from the industry's campaign to convince the electorate that natgas produced by fracking is safe, as on 8 December the Environmental Protection Agency said for the first time it found chemicals used in fracking in a drinking-water aquifer in west-central Wyoming.
Soothing the electorate, the industry group Energy in Depth reported, "The history of fracturing technology's safe use in America extends all the way back to the Truman administration, with more than 1.2 million wells completed via the process since 1947."
And the feds are backing fracking as well, as a new estimate from the U.S. Department of Energy, estimates that the national gas resource can be sustained for 110 years at current consumption rates.
Numbers?
In 2009 an industry-financed study reported that 622,000 people are directly involved in the discovery, extraction and distribution of U.S. natural gas.
As for "insider" influence, in 2005 former Vice President Dick Cheney, in partnership with the energy industry and drilling companies such as his former employer, Halliburton Corp., successfully pressured Congress to exempt fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws.
Even worse, a report released the following month by the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research noted that switching from coal to natural gas as an energy source could result in increased global warming, mainly due to the methane leakage problem, which is common but unregulated.
In a further potential federal sandbagging of the natgas industry, the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which studied fracking and deemed it safe in 2004, is taking another, broader look at the practice and may end up taking a more active role, with a broader study expected to be finished next year.
Maalox moments all – but now fracking is being charged with contributing to global warming by releasing substantial amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas 20-100 times more potent than carbon dioxide. According to Igor Semiletov of the International Arctic Research Centre at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, "Each methane molecule is about 70 times more potent in terms of trapping heat than a molecule of carbon dioxide."
Professor Robert Howarth, Profesor of Ecology and Environmental Biology and director of Cornell's agriculture, energy and environment program has noted that his research shows that one well-pad fracking shale gas would emit more greenhouse gases than a community of 100,000 people in a year. Methane already accounts for a sixth of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (GGEs). In addressing earlier concerns about the pollution impact of fracking Dr. Howarth wrote in Boston University's Comment 14 September article, "Should Fracking Stop?," "Many fracking additives are toxic, carcinogenic or mutagenic. Many are kept secret.
In the United States, such secrecy has been abetted by the 2005 'Halliburton loophole,' which exempts fracking from many of the nation's major federal environmental-protection laws, including the Safe Drinking Water Act... Fracking extracts natural salts, heavy metals, hydrocarbons and radioactive materials from the shale, posing risks to ecosystems and public health when these return to the surface… Because shale-gas development is so new, scientific information on the environmental costs is scarce. Only this year have studies begun to appear in peer-reviewed journals, and these give reason for pause."
Even worse, during the UN climate change conference in Durban last week, Dominic Frongillo, a town councillor from Caroline, New York, which is atop the Marcellus Shale seam, estimated to contain 489 trillion cubic feet of extractable natural gas noted that "Before I left for Durban, Professor Howarth told me that "preventing unconventional gas extraction could be the number one thing we could do in the short term to control growth of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions."
According to Professor Howarth, "Methane is an incredibly potent greenhouse gas… Our research indicates that methane makes up more than 40 percent of the entire greenhouse gas inventory for the U.S. … We really need to get this methane leakage under control, if we are to seriously address global warming." His paper, "Methane and the greenhouse gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations," written with Renee Santoro and Anthony Ingraffea of Cornell concluded that shale gas is more polluting than oil and conventional natural gas, noting, "The footprint for shale gas is greater than that for conventional gas or oil when viewed on any time horizon, but particularly so over 20 years. Compared to coal, the footprint of shale gas is at least 20 percent greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon.
The pushback has already started, with a number of his Cornell colleagues questioning Dr. Howarth's research methodology. See Lawrence M Cathles III, Larry Brown, Milton Taam and Andrew Hunter, "A Commentary on "The Greenhouse gas footprint of natural gas in shale formations" by R.W. Howarth, R. Santoro, and Anthony Ingraffea" @ http://cce.cornell.edu/.
What is clear is that while Cornell's faculty is divided over the consequences of fracking, the industry has impacted the university's Board of Trustees, which among other things oversees the university's $5.28 billion endowment fund. According to the 16 February 2010 edition of the "Cornell Sun," "Chairman of the Board of Trustees Peter Meinig '61 is one of the most powerful decision-makers at Cornell. But as the University begins a long process to consider whether it should lease its land in the Marcellus Shale to gas drilling companies, Meinig's former ties to the natural gas industry has raised some eyebrows in the Cornell community and beyond. From 1993 to 2001, Meinig served on the board of directors of Williams Companies, Inc, one of the nation's largest natural gas companies. A Fortune 200 company that generated $1.42 billion in profits in 2009, Williams transports about 12 percent of the natural gas consumed in America everyday and has interests in the Marcellus Shale basin, according to the company's website."
What is clear is that the impact of natural gas hydraulic fracturing at Cornell has turned into a mounting academic storm with passionate advocates on both sides of the fence. It is notable that Cathles', Brown's, Taam's and Hunter's critique features prominently on the website of America's Natural Gas Alliance," (ANGA) a pro-industry advocacy group.
Let the games begin!

(Charles Kennedy is Deputy Editor of OilPrice.com. The original article appears here.)

Minivans are perfect. Why do we hate them?

Minivans are perfect. Why do we hate them?

Few forces are more powerful than human vanity. We shape and recast the world around us in ways that enhance our image, as if we were jewels, and the world our setting: the society lady commands workers to construct a grand staircase where she can dramatically appear before her assembled guests; the general conquers continents so that they can be ruled in the fashion he prefers.

MORE RELATED TO THIS STORY

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GREAT ROADS

Great Roads: The joy of driving the road less travelled

ROAD RUSH

The F-150, Ikea and the thousand dollar day

VIDEO

Peter Cheney tests Ford's auto park feature

Vanity also rules the world of cars. Which brings us to the Honda Odyssey, a brilliant vehicle with a single flaw: it’s a minivan. No vehicle genre has a less-sexy set of associations: soccer moms, middle age spread and parental obligation... [more; go to link http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/car-life/cheney/minivans-are-perfect-why-do-we-hate-them/article2181460/ ]

Are Your "New" Tires Really New? - Gasbuddy Gas Prices

Are Your "New" Tires Really New? 


Who knew? There is actually a way to know if you're getting 'NEW' new tires or 'OLD' new tires. I have wondered if some businesses have tried to pass this off on me, being a female they likely thought they could get away with it. And until now they would have been right. Now I know the secret. Give the article a look so you can say you do too.

DOT required marking showing date of manufacture

Study Breaks Down How Your Mileage May Vary

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/09/study-breaks-down-how-your-mileage-may-vary/


Have you ever wondered why on one tank of fuel your mileage is outstanding then the next you can't believe how unbelievably bad it was? Well this study can help you sort that out. Then maybe we can get a more even out average. Cause I most certainly have wondered about just this thing.
Of course these guys used a vehicle under the worst of conditions. Which hopefully yours is not, then used standard common sense practices to see how they could improve mileage from there. Like I said interesting stuff. Give it a read.

10 Cars that Refuse to Die - Kiplinger

10 Cars that Refuse to Die - Kiplinger

Here's a great slide show of some oldies but goodies that have been given an admirable title, Too Tough To Die.

Don't be Jim

Don't be Jim

Check out the' I Can Drive Drunk' game included.

[more/ go to link]
http://www.dontbejim.com/

Best Cars for Long Road Trips - MSN Autos

Best Cars for Long Road Trips - MSN Autos

Being with the family for long stretches requires comfort. What happened to the Family Summer Road Trip? Oh Yes, gas prices soared out of control thanks to greedy speculators and refiners.

Drivers adjust lifestyles to gas prices | Tulsa World

Drivers adjust lifestyles to gas prices | Tulsa World


I wish I could adjust my lifestyle to flow with the pump prices. But impossible. My lifestyle is about transporting those who need it where they want to go, not where I want to go. Not that I'm complaining, cause I'm not. Everyday is an adventure. Just some adventures are more exciting then others.

I'm often asked how I like doing what I do. I always respond with, " Most days I love it. But like any job there are days when I just wish I hadn't gotten out of bed." And it's true. This is my job. And as with any job there are good days and bad days. So, if I could change my lifestyle what I would do is eliminate the bad days.

GasBuddy's weekly gasoline outlook - Gasbuddy Gas Prices

GasBuddy's weekly gasoline outlook - Gasbuddy Gas Prices

"The BIG OIL MONOPOLY has been raking in BILLION's. The highest profit margin of all time. More than any company in the US, all based on fake made up speculations or any other excuse they think will fly. There is no honest reason gas is still over a dollar a gallon more than it was a year ago, none other than greed. And they wonder why we think of them as greedy parasitic bastards. The economy was hurting before the BIG OIL greed mongers saw this as an opportunity to gouge us again. And buy doing so this time, has done more harm to the US economy than ever before. Its time the government does what they were elected to do and protect the American people from the grip they have on us. We need to "LIMIT" the amount of profit they can make on made up speculative reasons. They need to be forced to prove the reason for a price hike like other utilities. We buy gas for what it cost us today, not what we think its going to or might cost us next month because we think OPEC might slow production or whatever."

posted by padlocks2 and agreed with by me.

"This is the way the stations price their gasoline in my area ( northern Indiana) When the price of oil goes up they raise their prices to include the gas they already purchased when oil was at the lower price. But when oil goes down they wait to lower their gas price until that cheaper gas price gets to them. They all do it that way and they usually stick together!!!!"

posted by mlambo and agreed with by me.

I repost these comments because they make sense and where already out there when I went to put in my 2 cents. This way I got 4 cents worth of common sense and still have mine to add for better than a nickels worth. The more common sense the better I believe.

What about my 2 cents? Well, I am an advocate for finding and stoning all the greedy bastards of the world. It's one thing to be smart enough to earn a honest dollar off your fellow mankind. A whole other to actually take advantage of a situation to put a dishonest dollar in your pocket. Which is what I believe the corporate bastards at the big oil companies have been doing for the last few years. Instead of helping fellow Americans by holding prices down for as long as they can, they have jumped at every chance to raise prices and keep them up. Putting billions in the coffers. Thereby putting BIG bonuses into their hands. Greedy Bastards plain and simple.

White House lowers 2025 CAFE target

http://green.autoblog.com/2011/07/26/report-white-house-lowers-2025-cafe-target-to-54-5-mpg/



These kind of numbers just seem so unreasonable to me. I drive a Dodge Caravan mini-van currently that I'm told should be getting 17 city and 24 highway. Not even close.

Alright, if I'm on the open freeway,using the cruise and keeping my RPMs right @2000 I can get near the 24 mpg promised (of course the speed limit is 70 and I'm doing @62). City really doesn't come close. Most of the time I average around 12 to 14 mpg. I do all the tricks. Easy acceleration, don't dash from red light to red light, and keep engine well maintained. To get anywhere near a number like 54.5 is just unfathomable to me.

And as the article explains this is after lowering the number from 62. Of course the automakers have lobbying groups that are pushing hard to get this number even lower. They even realize that these kind of numbers are near impossible. That's asking for a 5% increase every year according to the article.

The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) are regulations in the United States, first enacted by US Congress in 1975,^[1] and intended to improve the average fuel economy of cars and light trucks (trucks, vans and sport utility vehicles) sold in the US in the wake of the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo.

$1 gas price rise cuts SUV value 13%, ups 'econobox' 10% - Drive On: A conversation about the cars and trucks we drive - USATODAY.com

$1 gas price rise cuts SUV value 13%, ups 'econobox' 10% - Drive On: A conversation about the cars and trucks we drive - USATODAY.com


Where do us mini-van drivers stand? Not that it truly matters cause I manage to get the most use out of a vehicle before trading it in as automobile possible. Seriously.

The mileage on one of my retired vehicles is always well into the 300,000 mark. Granted I take excellent care of it. I maintain a clean interior, don't allow back seat smoking, and car washes every couple of days. Under the hood I try to do oil changes right at or just under 4000 miles but sometimes I miss the mark. Tires are rotated regular. Replaced as needed. Anything else that goes wrong is always replaced with new parts, no second hand refurbished or salvaged parts. Can't afford a second break down time loss.

So when I do a trade-in I get high marks for condition, but that's offset by low marks for high mileage. I get about fair condition market value the way it is now. My concern on this matter is for more of the everyday casual driver. If they maintained their vehicle like me, but had the much lower mileage how would they fair in resale? That's why reading such articles is so enlightening.

Uncle Sam Tries to Drive Us Bonkers

Uncle Sam Tries to Drive Us Bonkers

Woman says TSA hair search amounts to racial profiling - The Hill's Transportation Report

Woman says TSA hair search amounts to racial profiling - The Hill's Transportation Report


So this is how far the TSA has gone. They actually want to search hair. Undoubtedly the victim in this case is right. TSA racially profiled her. Some of the comments posted  to this story are truly unbelievable. (e.g.)

You know what they say, if the hair fits, search it.

President Obozo probably put this woman up to screaming racism so that it would distract from the 9.2% national unemployment rate announced today.

Anytime you search an African American, it "seems fishy to them." 

I had rather have my hair searched than find someone with a bomb in their dreadlocks sitting next to me on a plane.

What will it be next. Because someone black gets a seat assignment in the back of the plane, that will be racism as well.

All these kinds of complaints come from the fact that President Obama had done more to hurt race relations in this country than to help them.

Let's call it like it is and stop playing around because we are afraid to speak out candidly about race for fear of being labeled a racist.

TSA, search hair, cracks, mouths and eyebrows on everyone, regardless of this racial screaming. Better safe than sorry.BY IF THE HAIR FITS on 07/08/2011 at 14:47


This kind of reaction is a bit over the top I think. Obviously this person is not a frequent flyer who has had his/her personal self assaulted by the TSA. Far to many horror stories from America's airports by far too many people for this kind of unsympathetic thinking. The story should be read as it is meant; the TSA like Homeland Security are far overstepping the bounds of our civil liberties. It's time we, the people, stop this kind of communistic onslaught by our government.  I say hip-hip-hooray to the lady who spoke up and called it like it was.

Why Gasoline Should Be More Expensive in the U.S.—and Why It's Not - Ecocentric - TIME.com

Why Gasoline Should Be More Expensive in the U.S.—and Why It's Not - Ecocentric - TIME.com


Ok so you're thinking green gas should cost much more than it does. But thank goodness it does not. If I were paying the price at the pump that I should under the green standards me nor anyone else could afford it. As a transport service operator, fuel is my #1 overhead. The way it stands now green pricing would put me right out of business. Citizens could not afford the rates I would have to charge to make a profit thus make a living. Every business is about being able to pay the bills which includes payroll, so I'd have to be able to pay myself. It would not be possible if the pump was charging me green prices.

Cities including Vienna to Munich and Copenhagen have closed vast swaths of streets to car traffic. Barcelona and Paris have had car lanes eroded by popular bike-sharing programs. Drivers in London and Stockholm pay hefty congestion charges just for entering the heart of the city. And over the past two years, dozens of German cities have joined a national network of“environmental zones” where only cars with low carbon dioxide emissions may enter.

I'd like to see any state in the western portion of America besides California try these ideas and have them succeed. The area is too rural. Too much open space in getting from one town to another. The Northeast coast and most of California are congested enough that it's possible they could enact some of these ideas, though I don't think they would sit well with the citizenry. So for now America will pay the extreme prices petro has reached but the country is not yet ready to pay to go green at the pump.