Amtrak has been under pressure from Congress for years—it seems like forever—to cut costs in order to achieve what no other national passenger rail system in the world had been able to do: break even. As it is, Amtrak has made remarkable progress, to the point that they are recovering something like 90% of…
It really bothers me that I still haven’t quite gotten the Credit Card/Loyalty Program semi-scam figured out, and I’ve been playing the game for a long time, chasing after all that “free” travel. In my case, living 2500 miles out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I figured when it came to a…
The PBS News Hour recently ran an interesting feature about reviews. You know, the kind you find on the TripAdvisor website … in fact, the kind you find on almost any web site that’s trying to sell you something, whether it’s a hotel room or a camera or a toaster. I think we all…
Back in the mid-1980s, I joined forces with a young art director in Honolulu and we formed a small advertising agency. Essentially, I was words; he was pictures. As with most new agencies, we had to put together a roster of small clients and, to be honest, some of them were a little — shall…