You can't buy class

I try not to be too much of a class warrior if I can help it - it's too easy to get caught up chasing your tail and coming off as an envious chowderhead - but every now and again I just can't help myself.

Tonight was the worst night I've had on a tour all season and it's safe to say that a few extra bucks in the pockets of the group in question had something to do with it. As I think I've mentioned here, I'm spending the summer as a guide with a Segway tour company and nothing puts the fear of God into our customers like knowing that the $500 damage deposit hangs in the balance.

Remove that natural barrier to asinine behavior and it makes for a long evening.

Without getting on too much a diatribe, it's worth noting that I rarely have to warn people too many times to take it easy on the machines. Step one is a gentle reminder. Step two is a "please stop." Step three is a "please stop" and a description of what will go wrong if they don't stop.

Now, steps four and five are rarely used, but four is Step three with a graphic description of the injuries that will follow (bonus points if it happened on my tour!). Step five had never been used before tonight, but entails threatening to cancel the tour on the spot.

The main thing I learned this evening is that if you verbally emasculate a grown man in front of Buckingham Fountain in full view of their friends and several families of tourists, they will refuse to make eye contact with you for the next hour and a half. They will also pout, avoid eye contact and continue to act like a child who has been quieted in church.

They will not, however, change their behavior.

Go figure.

At the end of the whole mess, the guy who had paid for the group came up and tried to slip me a $20 as a tip. To be completely honest, I didn't really want the money at that point, I just wanted to get on my bike and get home to my wife and dog as quickly as I could and so I skipped the portion of the end-of-tour procedure where we mention that there are tip boxes out.

I declined, but didn't want to make a scene, took the money and stuffed it into my pocket.

Here's my issue.

Acting like a jackass and then throwing a few bucks around doesn't make things OK. It's essentially a blank check for assholes to keep acting like assholes and then feel better about themselves when they're treated like children by someone who is willing to chew them out every now and again. Accepting a tip is, in my mind, saying that all's well that ends well.

On that note, I got home pretty quickly, grabbed The Girl and headed down to the all-night diner on the corner where we ate greasy food, laughed and left the whole $20 and a little more for our waitress, who just happened to be in on her night off.

All's well that ends well - sometimes you just need to extend the ending.

(Image from: SoulAssassins.com)

When my train of thought goes off the rails

Heading home from work last night, I was thinking of the concept of tipping as a means of showing your gratitude.

In addition to the arguments against it in Freaknomics - essentially, why would you tip at a restaurant that you rarely visit or, worse yet, at a restaurant out of town, where you will likely never visit again - I was thinking in the larger sense of the tour company I work at now.

First, there's no real frame of reference between guides. Even if a coworker gives a better, higher energy, more informative tour, how does the customer have any clue how good or bad my tour is? It's a hard thing to quantify.

Second is the idea that many other countries and cultures don't tip at all. The answer for those tours where you walk away empty-handed is a shoulder shrug and a comforting, "Well, in Country X, people don't tip," from someone else in the shop.

Great. That's why we provide a gentle reminder at the end of the tour that tips are acceptable in the States and specifically in our shop. I don't intend to go around Europe in a cowboy hat, dumping ketchup on every meal I'm served - when in Rome, right?

Still, despite that potential post kicking around, I was thinking of the service industry and the story that "tips" is an acronym for "To Insure Prompt Service." Only, isn't that the wrong homophone?

Here's where Dictionary.com comes in handy:

Insure: 1. to guarantee against loss or harm. 2. to secure indemnity to or on, in case of loss, damage, or death. 3. to issue or procure an insurance policy on or for.

Ensure: 1. to secure or guarantee: This letter will ensure you a hearing. 2. to make sure or certain: measures to ensure the success of an undertaking. 3. to make secure or safe, as from harm.

Yup. Thought so. Though I might pull in more cash if I did make threats of loss or harm.

Regardless of the situation, don't forget to tip tep your service industry workers. Many of us need that supplemental income.

(Image from: Social-Marketing.com)

How much is your sanity worth?

By and large, I am very skeptical when any major corporation wants to "give" me something or do something that appears in my best interest.

Want to sign me up for a rewards program? Who will you be selling my e-mail address, phone number and home address to?

Would I like to be a preferred customer and receive 15 cents off a can of soup? What kind of consumer profile are you attempting to create by dissecting my shopping habits?

Usually, it's a combination of my own paranoia and looking too far into things that eventually result in the big "gotcha" moment - though I suppose that's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy to an extent. It's something I've come to terms with.

Still, when I was getting the pieces in place to switch cell phone companies this week from AT&T/Cingular to Sprint, I saw the light. Rollover minutes are a devious plan to trap cheap punks like me who can barely stomach the idea of throwing away theoretical money once it has started to pile up in our accounts.

I'd been a customer with AT&T first and weathered the storm when they were bought by Cingular. With that switch, the Cingular folks introduced rollover minutes and I watched them pile up for over a year now.

AT&T didn't offer this option and I rarely used my monthly allotment of minutes - primarily because it's expensive to go over, especially on a monthly plan. With that month-to-month deal, I was charged as I went, with the account reloading once a month.

When I was on the road, I could tear through minutes like there was no tomorrow and watch them repopulate when I was home and could turn the phone off. Still, for a benefit that I didn't have when I opened the original account, I grew very protective of my tiny savings account of talk time - especially because it held a set dollar amount for me on my phone.

My new plan is the same price, but instead of 250 minutes, period, I now get 500 weekday minutes, free nights and weekends and unlimited data. For another 100 bones, I have a Palm Centro that streams everything but nuclear launch codes to my pocket when I'm out on tour.

Yet, it stung just a little to let those $150 in minutes slip away when I cut AT&T loose.

I have a better plan, I'm a lot happier with my phone and Cingular made no attempt to try and keep me as a customer after a handful of phone calls to check account status as I prepped the number to be ported to Sprint, so in the big picture, it's all upside for me.

Just a word of warning to all the cheap people out there - use up those rollover minutes or be ready to feel a small sense of loss when you switch cell phone companies. It kind of feels like being shot with a small caliber bullet.

(Image from: SarangShah.com)

A solar-powered airplane! We'll call it "The Icarus!"

It's pretty difficult to ignore the rising gas prices this summer, regardless if you commute to work daily or just watch the prices at the grocery store climb as it becomes more expensive to ship any sort of product from Point A to Point B.

Was it only a year ago that I was aghast at gas sold for $3 per gallon? Man, I miss the gold old days of 2007.

When people are scouring the country for used Geo Metros as a cost-effective alternative, things are getting out of control. That was, until American Airlines announced its new policy of charging $15 to check just one bag if you want to fly with them.

While it's somewhat plausible that the United States will eventually move towards something other than petroleum to power its vehicles - just as soon as the energy barons find a way to consistently charge for it - how the hell are they going to pack enough batteries into a plane and still have it remain airborne?

Occasionally, I wonder about the possibility of a major sport falling off the map and never being heard of again. Given the issues with each sport at any point in the past decade, it's hard to ignore the fact that one could spin out and just be gone and only be heard from again on trivia night.

I've been having those thoughts regarding the use of gasoline - mainly regarding the wisdom of purchasing a classic car that might not have the fuel to run it in 30 years - but I can't imagine how this will hit the airline industry.

To go from a point where airplanes rides were luxury items, reserved for the very rich, to affordable, accessible flights in under 50 years is one of the wonders of the 20th century. Flights have gone from the cheaper alternative to driving - both in terms of actual and opportunity costs - to being slowly priced out of the average American's vacation plans. Coupled with gas at over $4 per gallon and the only viable alternative may soon be simply staying at home.

The bigger question looming is whether air travel will remain an affordable option long enough to try and find some wiggle room in terms of providing power for the jets.

Think it's far fetched?

Check out the Wall Street Journal, via Consumerist.com:

Scott McCartney, who writes the Wall Street Journal's "Middle Seat" column, has some thoughts about what consumers can expect from airlines, now that oil has hit $130 a barrel. He says that "he change in oil prices from a year ago to today translates into $24.6 billion in added fuel costs for passengers and cargo airlines on an annualized basis," which is more than the airline industry has ever earned— its best year saw $5.3 billion in earnings.

Oh, that's not good. Not good at all.

(Image from: AllPosters.com)

Truck is a dirty word in Chicago

I'll admit that I'm in the minority here in Chicago by owning my own vehicle and the fact that said vehicle is a truck.

Of the five people in my apartment building, my wife and I own both cars. As younger folks in the city, the three people downstairs have no vehicles between them. I've tried to be as unapproachable as possible to ward off any conversations regarding borrowing my truck.

Sure, I'd be happy to drive someone to the hospital in an emergency - but if there's blood, they're riding in the bed, no doubt about it.

It's no secret that the city would prefer that I drive something more sensible, like a Honda Accord, that takes up less space, adds less to the carbon footprint of the city and isn't so tough on the streets.

But there's the rub.

I drive a Ford Ranger that is small in comparison to modern SUVs and sips gas by comparison. I can't help but be a little frustrated when shelling out $180 for my yearly city sticker. Where do I file an appeal?

For those who haven't had the pleasure of purchasing city stickers, Chicago requires a sticker for street parking every year. In theory, you're paying for city services that are required by vehicle owners and they're more than happy to ticket the hell out of you for non-compliance. For newbies to the city, get ready to see those tickets pile up through the end of June as the city nails people who skated by without a sticker this year.

(Additionally, here is the link for online sticker purchase if you don't feel like standing in line at the local currency exchange for what will seem like hours on end.)

As a fairly rational person, I saw the difference between sticker charges - $75 for a car and $180 for a truck - and tried to work out the price jump. Trucks are usually heavier, creating a disproportionate amount of wear and tear on the roads and, they're longer, taking up more space, even when parked on the street.

The funny thing is that when I was looking up the vehicle weight for the form, I needed another vehicle to compare it to, so I chose my wife's six-cylinder coupe.

The tale of the tape shows that my truck gets roughly the same gas mileage (two miles better in the city, two miles worse on the highway) and is just over a foot longer. Still, the truck costs twice the price, but is a hair narrower and only 18 pounds heavier. So much for the wear and tear theory.

I understand the idea behind different plates for the big trucks and why the city tries to police the scrapper trucks that patrol the alleys of the city for reusable junk and metal. I understand the law keeping bigger pickups off Lake Shore Drive, even if I think it's stupid.

But to charge extra for a truck, regardless of the license plates, which for smaller trucks are the same as the city's cars? How can I not feel screwed?

If I'm going to pay for it, I'm getting my money's worth - if you need to find my truck, it'll be the one parked diagonally, halfway on the sidewalk.

(Photo taken for Siberia, Minnesota - it's my Toby Keith portrait of the old truck, strategically hiding the destroyed rear fender on the passenger side.)

Police Supt. dying to beat nature into submission

In the same week where people went nuts over a gas station accidentally offering gas at $2.50 a gallon, the Chicago Police Department let it slip that they were kicking around the idea of buying a bunch of SUVs for the rank and file to patrol in.

Citing "rugged winters" Police Supt. Jody Weis suggested that with the department's squad cars needing replacement, SUVs might be the way to go. That's where he lost me.

New radios? Great. Standardized firearms. Not a problem. Chevy Tahoes? Bad idea.

In addition to the usual maintenance costs, now the department is looking to run bigger vehicles that guzzle increasingly more expensive gas? How did this make it out to the media?

The funny thing is that departments around the country have already come under criticism for this, when gas prices first started to escalate a few years ago. City councils were asking why higher-ranking officers were given SUVs that were more expensive to buy and maintain. Cost-cutting measures were put into place to replace full hubcaps with smaller ones that just covered the lugnuts and were less likely to fall off in a chase or if an officer hits something in the road.

Not only that, but why Tahoes and not something more economically friendly like a Ford Escape or something in that weight class?

The idea that the Chicago Police are seeing this as an option makes me nervous. In a meta moment, I'm inclined to guess that this might just be the sexiest idea that came up, sp the media latched on, but luckily, it appears that the Tribune has done a little homework first:

If Chicago police switched from the Crown Vic to an SUV, some might question the cost, maneuverability and eco-friendliness of such a fleet, especially in light of Mayor Richard Daley's push to make the city green.

But some departments in smaller cities, such as Plano, Texas, have moved toward SUV fleets, citing higher resale value and more room for police gear.

And an extensive annual test of police vehicles conducted by Michigan State Police and reported in Law and Order magazine in November showed that the police-package Chevrolet Tahoe actually "accelerates, brakes and corners like most police sedans" and has a fuel efficiency estimated to be the same as that of the Crown Victoria.

But that's only about 11 miles per gallon.

(Image from: ThomasDealsOnline.com)

But that's not what you're supposed to do!

This post by Consumerist.com made me chuckle this morning, hearing that most people are planning to spend their prebate to pay off bills instead of dumping the money back into the economy.

I've heard more than one friend threaten to take their found money and make a donation in that exact amount to the Democratic Party, but putting the money in savings or paying off credit card bills has also been a big winner.

While I doubt that it's keeping anyone in Washington up at night, I get a small degree of satisfaction in knowing that such a short-term fix isn't going as well as planned.

Who says Americans aren't fiscally responsible with their personal finances?

Won't someone think of the tigers?

I knew this was coming, but didn't imagine it'd be so anti-climatic. The pro-tiger rally was held in San Francisco, with nearly as many dogs as people in attendance.

Still, the folks quoted were right - it was a tiger being a tiger and what do you expect of an animal that gets loose?

The folks at PETA really shit the bed on this one, by not latching on from the start. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, there were four or five people who showed up for a bonfire and they put a happy face on the turn out by telling everyone how heartfelt their participation was.

The funny thing is that some poor reporter got shipped out to witness this on a slow news day. This had to be a new kid at the paper, working on New Year's Day and forced to come up with something.

It's amazing that I'm beating the bushes to get back with a newspaper, isn't it?

As a means of basic housekeeping, here are a few things that have been sitting around:

* There's a chart that has the remaining shows that were filmed before the writers' strike to help you figure out when TV will suck like crazy. With The Office already dried up, among others, it helps to know how many episodes are left around the dial.

Considering new shows like The Big Bang Theory are already on their third lap around with only six or seven episodes filled, I wonder when the networks will cut those off.

I'm most afraid of the new reality shows that are in the works. Most are very, very bad and run the risk of destroying any sort of watchable television.

* Finally, after catching up with my friend, Heather, over the holiday, I'm pretty sure I couldn't fill her shoes at a government think tank. I could, however, break down rap songs into their basics for graphical representation.

If econ had been more like this, I would have opted for a different major in college.

(Image from: MyConfinedSpace.com)

Self-fulfilling prophecy

I'm looking over Amazon.com tonight and bemoaning the fact that we don't have as much disposable income as we've had in the past. There are a lot of good DVDs on the cheap, but I can't justify spending $50 on movies right now.

I'm working on justifying half that, though.

It reminded me of two things after The Girl chimed in with, "Oh, Cyber Monday!"

First is this tidbit from Al's Morning Meeting on the Poynter.org site:

BusinessWeek discovered in 2005 that not only was the Monday after Thanksgiving not the biggest day for online sales, it was not even in the top 10. BusinessWeek found that the biggest day fell somewhere between Dec. 5 and Dec. 15.

Secondly, it's strange to think that it was just a few years ago that I had to write and editorial explaining why shoppers would choose to shop online versus heading to the malls leading into the holidays.

Some people were terrified that they wouldn't get their gifts in time (if at all) and I had a discussion that was longer than it should have been to defend my position that it was perfectly fine to do all of your holiday shopping online.

Looking back, it reminds me of an ad I saw reprinted in a classic car magazine that was selling people on the idea of the toilet seat.

(Image from: PhoenixGame.com)

The System

I know that the city of Chicago does not have my personal best interest in mind in any of the decisions it makes. In fact, I like to think of Mayor Daley as storming around his office complaining about how much better the city would be if there was no one in it.

This was evident this week when I saw the street sweepers pass through and then the tickets for the cars that weren't moved go up after that. Sneaky, sneaky.

I've been on the receiving end of this before, where I saw the street sweepers work and leave and then moved my truck back before lunch. When I came back, the ticket was waiting for me.

I'm convinced this isn't a timing issue as much as policy designed to drive the city's revenue. Bastards.

The story is the same in my monthlong quest for a city sticker. You would think that you'd be able to find a city sticker at the local alderman's office, but you'd be wrong.

Finally, if you want a good laugh, try finding hotel rooms in Green Bay during football season. Craphole rooms that retail under $50 per night are suddenly in demand and the price goes through the roof.

Yes, Frank, I know - supply and demand. I was awake in Mr. Chasey's Econ Class and sitting right next to you every morning - it doesn't make it right.

I'm wondering how much an RV would run me for the weekend.

(Image from: CheeseheadUniversity.com)

The economics of moving

One of the joys of living with someone else - and moreso than when you just have typical roommates - is the God-given right to criticize what they do, when they do it and how they go about achieving the same goals as you.

Case in point - our weekend spent packing for the move home.

When I shook out a garbage bag, the dog ran for cover - I asked him if that meant that between a pack rat and a piglet, he didn't hear many garbage bags around the house.

It brought up an interesting train of thought - you have to do something to keep occupied when throwing out two years of phone books, right? - that is illustrated in our house whenever spring cleaning time rolls around.

As a pack rat, I will keep all kinds of garbage for years and years on end, while the Girl is more prone to throwing things out and buying new if she needs them again. My instinct is to save that second trip to the store and additional investment, while I realize that this comes at a cost as well.

Exactly when would I need half of the crap I've collected? In the case of my high school ID card, I'd guess never. I'd really like to see a solid dollar figure placed on all of those worthless knickknacks.

Still, it's been nice to see some cash roll in for things we would have just pitched before the advent of Craig's List. Not nice enough to convince me to part with my Justin Timberlake bobblehead, but nice enough.

(Image from: JaniceWise.com)