Just a follow-up to my previous post on Golden Gate shots....here are some of my favorites. It's amazing how small tweaks in camera settings can lead to such different shots.

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I'm a fan, Tom's a fan, so is Anil. But the big question now is how much will the rate increase be?

In an e-mail to members, CLEAR CEO Steve Brill broke the news that a price increase will be coming:

This fall, Clear's price will increase. It's a price that reflects the rapidly expanding value (and cost to us) of the Clear network.

However, we do not want current Clear members like you, who supported us from the beginning, to have to bear the brunt of these costs.

Renew now for up to three additional years of Clear at the current price of $128, which is significantly less than we will be charging this fall.

The key line in that snippet is: significantly less than we will be charging this fall.

How much is significant? Double, triple? The service is worth what I pay now and sure it's great that I can lock in three years at a reduced rate, but......how much?

P.S. I also get a bit squirrelly when a service offers the option to pay for large amount of time upfront, i.e. how's your cash-flow?

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Late last week I was able to take a brief vacation. Good times, but always too short. Back to work.

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Last weekend (or was it the one before that.....) I was in Washington DC for BlogPotomac, here are a few highlight shots from the event. The entire photoset is here.

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Of course while in town for BlogPotomac I spent some time snapping some shots of the DC-usuals during my time there. You know the drill....photoset is here.

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I've flown Delta almost 80,000 miles so far this year...and all I got was this lousy letter.

Just kidding :-)

Actually since reaching Platinum a few weeks ago it's already paid off big-time. The big question is how many miles will I end up with at the end of the year? That million-mile club isn't looking to far off :-)

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When I was in San Francisco on Friday I stopped by the Citizen Space Co-Working office. Great space and people.

My last co-working stop was Independents Hall in Philadelphia, PA.

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Following-up on my first post about the tunnel at Detroit Airport, here are a series of photos from the same spot showcasing the changing light. The last shot is purposely over-exposed:

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I was in Indianapolis on Mon/Tue last week for the Regional Airline Association conference. While there I was allowed in to the new Indianapolis Airport which is still under construction. It was bizarre to be in such a large space with almost nobody in it. Some of the photos are here. The main hall features a huge open space with a massive skylight.

Speaking of big, here's a shot of the new Lucas Oil Stadium which will house the Colts starting this fall. This is also a very big building. More photos...

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I've been on the road again this week, big surprise there huh? In four days I've been from/to/through: Orlando, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Detroit, Manchester, Atlanta and Miami. Yesterday I had a quick layover in Detroit. One of my favorite airport spots is the tunnel between the A and B concourses. I could stare at the lights for hours. I took a number of photos with the different colors which I'll post later (here they are), but for now I'll leave you with this one.

Speaking of airports, the other night I was part of a select group that toured the new Indianapolis Airport. It was somewhat bizarre to stand inside a huge empty building like that. I'll be posting those

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It was reported recently that the Atlanta airport has delayed selecting/deploying a registered traveler program. I am a Clear member and love it. In response to Atlanta's decision, Steve Brill, CEO of Clear, recently e-mailed members, here's a copy of that e-mail:

I'm writing to you with frustrating news about a needless delay of the Registered Traveler program at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

When Hartsfield-Jackson began its process of choosing a service provider for the program last October, we cheered the news and quickly opened an enrollment center in downtown Atlanta. We anticipated lanes opening in December or January, because the entire process has generally taken about three months (although in some places, such as San Francisco and Salt Lake City, it has moved considerably faster).

However, through the winter we heard no decision from the Airport. Then, last Friday afternoon - six months after the process began, during which time four other major airports launched Registered Traveler programs - the Airport announced that because of plans to build four additional security lanes it was delaying implementation of the program until this summer.

Hartsfield-Jackson is run by some of the most dedicated, highly regarded professionals in the industry. So we hesitate to be critical of this decision. However, we are disappointed and surprised, for the following reasons:

1. We have implemented Clear at airports - such as Washington Dulles and San Jose - where construction was going on. If anything, Clear has helped to ease crowding during that time.

2. Atlanta Airport stated that its goal in adding the new lanes was to reduce average wait time to twenty minutes or less. Even if achieved, this would still mean that some would stand in line forty minutes or longer and that no one would have the simple, predictable five minutes or less passage through security that Registered Traveler's 140,000 members now enjoy at 17 airports across the country. So, even after the new lanes are added, a Registered Traveler program will be needed.

3. Indeed, even with the addition of just four new lanes to ATL's current 28 lanes (a 14% increase), Hartsfield-Jackson will have fewer lanes per departing passenger than Orlando - which pioneered Registered Traveler and is glad it did.

4. And Clear's lane concierges - plus the prospect of new, enhanced security equipment - make Clear's Registered Traveler lanes move so much faster that they absorb more people than the other lanes while still speeding them through - which means that all travelers in all lanes move through the airport faster.

5. The Airport's construction program will cost the Airport $25m, according to the Airport's own announcement. Registered Traveler costs the Airport nothing. In fact, it will bring concession revenue to the Airport, plus hundreds of new jobs to Atlanta. In fact, in our proposal Clear offered to build and staff a whole new lane for the Airport - which, according to the Airport's announcement, would be worth more than $6m. So, while the building of four new lanes is obviously beneficial, one of them could have been built at no cost to the Airport or City taxpayers, plus generate concession revenue and new jobs for the City. So, why not do both?

6. Clear's lanes could be operating and speeding travelers through security within four weeks of approval, whereas the construction program is scheduled for this summer. Again, why not do both?

In short, there is nothing about this lane construction project that should preclude Registered Traveler, while everything about the modest goals of that project actually makes the case for Registered Traveler stronger.

We hope to meet soon with the Mayor and the Airport to review these facts and persuade them to change this decision to delay the program. At the same time we are working with one or more of the major airlines operating out of Hartsfield-Jackson to make arrangements for them to sponsor Clear in Atlanta immediately, an alternative that the Transportation Security Administration has allowed when an airport chooses not to act on its own.

Thousands of you have written or emailed us about ATL in recent months. So, I suspect that you are as frustrated as we are.

Therefore, I hope that you will help us bring Clear to Atlanta immediately by contacting the following key decision makers and sharing your view that it's time that Atlanta implement this common-sense, cutting edge program.

Indeed, both the Mayor and City Council have to approve the $25m construction program; so, it seems logical to ask them to make sure at the same time that the faster-track, highly beneficial, and revenue-producing Registered Traveler program is not delayed any further.

Here are the officials you might want to contact:

- Shirley Franklin, Mayor of Atlanta, sfranklin@atlantaga.gov, 404.330.6100
- Benjamin DeCosta, Aviation Manager, Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, 404.530.6600
- Council President Lisa Borders, President, Atlanta City Council, lmborders@atlantaga.gov, 404.589.1037
- Council Member Clair Muller, Chair, Atlanta City Council Transportation Subcommittee, cmuller@atlantaga.gov, 404.330.6051

I travel *through* Atlanta quite a bit, so I don't have to deal with security that often, but if I lived in Atlanta I'd be furious.

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A few more favorite shots from my London trip (Part 1 here):

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I'm in Wyoming to speak at their Governor's conference. I spent some time today traveling outside of Casper, WY. Words just can't describe the vastness. More pictures to come soon.

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I finally finished processing and uploading all my photos from my London trip. The photoset has 417 shots, (including the PR Geek Dinner) but here are some of my favorites:

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As Sandi pointed out, today is Big Ben's 150th birthday. As luck would have it, I happened to be in London this morning to celebrate (not really). Here's a shot of the clock, Big Ben, the bell, is inside with the birthday cake.

Mike and I took the train from Windsor and arrived in London early for some great light for photos. More photos from my UK trip are over on the Flickr.

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I'm off to Portland on Sunday to keynote the Oregon Governor's Conference. While I'm in town I hope to meet-up with Justin, the new co-worker at Voce and a few other folks.

Tuesday I head to London with Mike Manuel for some Voce-related work/meetings and some tourist-type stuff. While we're in town Neville Hobson is organizing a meet-up/dinner/pub-crawl on Saturday, April 12th. More details on that soon. Neville has the details posted.

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A month ago Delta posted their new in-flight safety video. As a frequent Delta flier (40K miles so far this year) I have the current video pretty well memorized. I watched the new one and figured that it would appear in cabins soon. Well in the past few days the media discovered the popularity of this new video staring flight attendant Katherine Lee. Let's just say Katherine, or Deltalina as she's being called has some fanboys out there.

Delta has been quick to pick-up on the momentum and have a new blog post up today written by Katherine.

I can't help but think of the irony of this situation though. If you remember way back to 2004 when Ellen Simonetti was fired by Delta for blogging. Ellen writes the Queen of Sky blog and was perhaps the first 'sassy' blogging flight attendant for Delta.

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I made it back from Seoul last week and hope to post a recap of my trip there soon....amazing city. I've been buried with project work these past few weeks and the load doesn't get any lighter.

April is a busy travel month with trips to Oregon, London, Michigan, Wyoming and Nebraska. May brings Indianapolis, New Hampshire and Miami to name a few.

Talk to you soon, I hope :-)

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Combine rain with a foreign city full of neon and you get a fun photowalk. Here are a few select shots from Seoul on Thursday night.

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Swap out the language on the signs and it could be New York or Chicago. More shots from Seoul over on Flickr. Of course, other things are the same no matter where you go.

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No, I'm not going to SXSW. I think I've been asked that 50 times in the past few weeks. Why not? Well on Sunday I head to California for a few meetings then I'm off to Seoul, South Korea for a presentation and a bit of tourism.

It will be my first time in Seoul, any suggestions? Of course I'll be taking my camera.

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At some point today, Nick and I will be heading down to Miami for Future of Web Apps. Looking forward to seeing many old friends. We're going to miss BarCamp Miami though.

Of course I'll be taking some photos :-)

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This past Saturday I had a quick up/back trip to Atlanta. During some downtime I walked over to the Georgia Aquarium and decided to take all my shots using my fisheye lens. It seemed somewhat appropriate for an aquarium :-) Photoset is here.

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Back from San Francisco...quick, hectic trip. I was in town to help out with this and this. I did manage to get outside for a little bit to take some photos though.

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Travel is a big part of my work life. With that I compiled the list of things I can't travel without:

Tumi Ducati Suiter
At the end of last year I bought myself a present for all my travel, the Tumi Ducati T3 carry-on with built-in suiter. The bag features the standard Tumi quality and breaks the mold of your standard black bag. The built-in suiter is the sweet thing though. Rather than carrying a separate suit/folding bag, you can easily include a coat and a few dress shirts. If you keep things in their original dry-cleaning bag everything comes out perfect. You're not still checking bags are you?

Ex-Officio Travel Clothing
If you travel a bunch and you're not wearing Ex-Officio you don't know what you're missing. The majority of my travel wardrobe is now Ex-Officio. The travel clothing is comfortable, resists wrinkles and is durable..plus it looks good. With a proper roll/packing job I can fit a week's worth of clothing in my 22" Tumi carry-on.

LowePro CompuRover AW
Sure it's a big backpack, but it needs to be to carry my laptop, my camera and all my lenses. Yes I take my camera and lenses everywhere. The CompuRover does the job and protects everything inside. My standard luggage haul is the CompuRover and the Tumi.

Fly Clear
I've written about this before, so has Anil Dash and Frank Gruber. If you frequent airports that have CLEAR you need to sign-up. The ability to bypass the standard line for security is well worth the yearly cost. My home(s)-away-from-home are MCO, SFO, SJC, IND, EWR..they all have CLEAR.

MacBook Pro + EVDO
Somewhat of a duh....but yes the MBP is my primary work machine. The true mobile office experience comes with EVDO. Sure just about every laptop has wifi, but so many airports still charge an absurd rate for wifi (same for hotels). With EVDO I rarely have to use the paid (and even free) wifi.

Nikon D80
Since purchasing my D80 in 2006 there is not a trip that is has not gone on. I also carry all my lense (50mm f/1.4, 17-55mm f/2.8, 70-200mm f2.8 and 10.5mm f/2.8). Yes it gets heavy sometimes, but it's worth it. It allow me to take pictures like this and this...to showcase just a few.

iPhone
The promise of the iPhone was that it condensed the features of a few devices to one form-factor. That's certainly true in my case. My iPhone is now my iPod and my video player. Before any trip to California I load up at least two movies.

Sony PSP
This is the latest edition to the travel must-haves. I recently received one of the new slim-PSP's. The current game-addiction of the moment is LEGO Star Wars II. If unchecked, the PSP can provide hours of inflight entertainment :-) Yes you can watch movies on it, but I've got that covered with my iPhone.

Hertz #1 Gold
People seem to think that you need to use Hertz frequently to apply for #1 Gold, i.e. build up points or miles to get the benefits, you don't. Sign-up online and store you credit card information and some other things online. Each time you rent, your car is auto-magically waiting for you. Each time I fly to SFO and walk past those huge lines at the rental car counter I wonder, why don't these people sign-up for #1 Gold?

There are some other items that help, i.e. Delta Crown Room, a good frequent flier program, etc.

Now to turn this into a meme :-) I have a few colleagues that travel quite a bit as well. Let's see what they have to say: Jake, Shel, Chris, Tom??

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I head out later today for a quick trip to St. Petersburg beach...yeah it's rough, but it is work related. After that stop, I'm off to Atlanta for SoCon 08.

This is the second year for the event so it will be interesting to see the changes/expansion. I'm helping out in a number of ways.

In the morning I'll be providing a quick wrap-up of the discussions so far. In the afternoon I'll be leading two sessions. The first is a general Social Media Overview and the second is on Photography and Flickr. I'm almost to 15,000 photos on Flickr, so the plan is to upload the 15,000 shot during that session :-)

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I'm not supposed to be in Seattle, but I am. I'm supposed to be in Spokane, Washington...but with 16 inches of snow and a plane off the runway we never made it. I spent the night last night at the Marriott Waterfront, aka the Gnomedex hotel. I keep wanting to walk across the street to the conference center...force-of-habit.

Anyway, I had some time this morning to play with my new 10.5mm fisheye lens. This is the rail-line in front of the hotel.

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Now that Shop.org has wrapped up in Orlando I'm on my way to Savannah for BlogSavannah. I have the honor of leading the opening discussion. I had a great time at last year's event...and always love visiting Savannah. (Photo from BlogSavannah 07)

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Most U.S. states have a Governor's conference. It's an event that brings together the various tourism and CVB (convention & visitors bureaus) from around a state. This year I've been booked to keynote quite a few of these events around the country. Here's the confirmed list so far:

I'm looking forward to each of these visits. I hope to spend a few extra days on Wyoming and Oregon to get some photography in.

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During the holidays Cinderella's castle at Walt Disney World is covered with icicle lights. It's a sight to see, while it lasts. A few days before they're scheduled to be taken down I ventured out in the Florida cold (40's) to get some night shots with the new tripod. The full set is here. I also plan to post some fireworks shots as well.

The photo above the the 'standard' light for the castle, but as the castle lighting changes to different hues, it changes the look of the icicles.

One of my favorite castle shots is always from the side with the reflection in the moat.

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One day over the holiday break I flew to Savannah and visited Fort Pulaski. I posted the majority of the photos in black & white to go along with the 'historic' theme. The entire photoset is here.

Did I fly to Savannah just to visit this fort? Nope, it was mostly an end-of-the-year mileage run to up my Medallion status on Delta :-)

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I'll be on vacation till the end of the year. On Friday though I'll be in Atlanta to meet-up with some folks like Amani Channel and most likely Dave Coustan and perhaps J. Brotherlove :-)

The haunts will be Midtown, Chow Baby, and then Buckhead.

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This past Tuesday we visited ICE an interesting and very cold display at the Gaylord Palms resort in Orlando. It's hard in photos to do justice to the display. Many of the sculptures are so big you can't get a sense of scale. The shot below is a tunnel that's made completely of ice and lights. Very cool. The entire photoset is here.

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After a week (or two) at home it's back on the road. Here is the travel schedule:

- Wednesday/Thursday: I'll be in Indianapolis, IN to speak at a few events before heading to DC
- Friday: I'm in Washington DC for a conference and a quick lunch with Geoff Livingston

Next week it's off to Voce home-base in Palo Alto from Monday-Thursday. The following week I make a quick-trip to Cleveland to visit with my grandfather.

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This past weekend we went to Disney's Animal Kingdom to play a bit. It was the first time we've been since the new Finding Nemo the Musical opened so we caught the early show. It was an amazing show, well worth the visit/wait. If you don't know anything about the show, the performers are puppets, with a twist. The puppeteers do not hide, they are part of the action as well.

Of course I took some photos :-) You can find the entire photoset here.

We were lucky to make the visit with John Frost of The Disney Blog. John knows his Disney stuff and provided a number of trivia tid-bits during the show. You can read some of his posts about Nemo:

- Finding Nemo - The Musical, Now in Previews
- Finding Nemo - The Musical, Meet the Creators

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Anil Dash has posted a review of his first CLEAR experience. If you don't know what CLEAR is, you'll get a good idea from his review. A few friends have recently signed up for the program and all love it so far.

I recently created a Facebook group for the 'fans of CLEAR', or people I know that use the service :-)

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On Thursday and Friday I was in New York City for a presentation. During my downtime I ran around the city as much as I could to grab some photos. The night shots are here, the day shots here. The highlight of the trip was being able to present in the boardroom of the New York Stock Exchange.

In the corner of the boardroom is a massive Faberge vase, the NYSE spokesperson said it was the largest piece that Faberge ever created. It was a gift to the Exchange from a Russian Czar for helping finance the Trans-Siberian Railway.

The 70-200 f/2.8 Nikon lens came in handy for this shot of the Chrysler Building (same shot in black & white).

And this shot of the Empire State Building (same shot in black & white)

I was also able to visit the famous B&H Photo Video, which, if you're into photography is like candy-land. Dinner on Thursday night featured PR bloggers Constantin Basturea and Stephen Davies. It was a quick trip, but a good trip.

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Alicia Dorset, Dave Coustan and I took the afteroon and played a bit of hooky to visit the Georgia Aquarium and World of Coke in Atlanta. This was my first visit to the Georgia Aquarium since I wrote about their Flickr group. Aquariums are one of my favorite locations to take pictures, plenty of interesting subjects and plenty of contrasts. I love shots like this one below. I recently created a silhouettes group in Flickr to gather all my contrast shots.

At the aquarium it's hard to tell who is on display, the fish or the people. This fish is clearly mugging for the camera.

The scale of the main viewing room at the Ocean Voyage exhibit is hard to comprehend till you're there. This shot makes me think these people are stading in front of an IMAX movie screen.

And please folks, if the sign says no touching, don't touch. Complete set from this recent visit, shots from January 2007.

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If you're an aviation geek like me and live in Central Florida, you may want to head over to Orlando International Airport today since the Airbus A380 is scheduled to land around 4pm. Chris Gent from the Orlando Sentinel's Conway blog has all the details on the short visit.

Unfortunately for me, I am flying to Atlanta earlier in the day and will miss the visit :-(

Of course you could wait till Wednesday and make the 'international' trip to Orlando to celebrate the opening of Ikea and then go see the A380.

Photo from Airbus

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I'm off to Atlanta today to take part in the Executing Social Media Conference. Chip Griffin and I are leading the opening keynote session. I'm looking forward to seeing many old friends from the conference circuit.

On Thursday I head to New York City for a meeting on Friday morning. Then it's back to Atlanta for the weekend and a few days next week.

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Howard Greenstein contacted me a few weeks ago to let me know that his family would be at Walt Disney World for a few days on vacation. We made plans to meet-up this past Sunday at MGM Studios. It had been a while since I had been to MGM and was really looking forward to the new Lights Motors Action stunt show, as well as a few other things. The LMA show was great and I took a ton of photos. The complete photoset from MGM is here.

Another highlight of the trip was when Howard and I starred in 'Harbor Attack' as part of the Backlot Tour attraction. Yes, Howard and I were trusty (or is that rusty) deckhands on a PT boat that was attacked.

If you ever have the chance to star in this movie, remember to put your hood on, since you will get very wet.

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Yesterday I sent out a tweet that I was heading to Independents Hall in Philly. A number of friends either direct-messaged me or e-mailed me to say, "Don't you mean Independence Hall?" Nope.

Independence Hall is a coworking space in Philadelphia that is run by Alex Hillman. (Back when Indy Hall launched in Philly I posted a congrats to Alex) Alex Rudloff and a few other folks are looking to start something similar in Orlando.

I worked for an hour or two at Indy Hall and snapped some photos. The environment was great as was the conversation. The entire photogroup is here.

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I'm not really at Buffalo Airport, I'm in Athens, GA for the UGA Connect conference. However, I did take some cool photos of the sunrise at Buffalo airport this morning.

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Last week during my trip to Indianapolis I was able to go one other special place besides the RCA Dome. This was something really special for me as a racing and Formula 1 fan. I was able to get on the track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, not driving though, walking. The pictures below are: 1. Right on the track surface of Turn 1 which has a 9 degree banking 2. Me on the famous Yard of Bricks. Cool stuff.

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You remember the Spirit Airlines story I blogged about a few weeks ago. Well it just keeps getting better. Yet another paper has mentioned it, this time the Chicago Tribune. What is Spirit's response? I'll let them speak for themselves:

"We wouldn't respond to a blog post," said spokeswoman Alison Russell, who noted that their original tickets cost a little more than $35 each and they turned down the offer of $100 in travel vouchers. "This goes back to the larger question of the veracity of everything you read on Internet blogs. Our customer service is great."

Nice. Spirit says their customer service is great. Well Alex has about 400+ people who have commented that don't agree.

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Thanks to the 40 of you (at last count) that left a comment on my previous post about my change in direction. It's great to get feedback from so many friends. The Voce Nation launch went very well yesterday and the content keeps coming with the first podcast going up today.

Now it's on to the real work and back on the road. Tomorrow I start a rather lengthy road trip. Here's the itinerary:

Wed: Fly to Buffalo, NY
Thur: Working in Buffalo, NY for the majority of the day
Fri: Travel to Atlanta, GA then on to Athens for the UGA Connect conference
Sat: Still in Athens for the UGA Connect conference
Sun: Travel to Philadelphia, PA for PRSA International conference
Mon/Tue: Hang in Philly for the PRSA International conference
Wed: Travel to NYC for the day before heading back to Orlando that night

Seven days, five cities, four plane trips and one jaunt on Acela. It will be my first time on Acela and I'm looking forward to it.

I'm looking forward to meeting Kevin Dugan for the first time and hanging out with my UGA friends as well as Paull, Constantin and KD. Sunday is the big blogger dinner in Philly, more fun.

See you soon.

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At the end of this past week I spent some time with the Indianapolis CVB. As a CVB, they have some connections and were able to get me into some cool places. One of which was the RCA Dome, home of the Indianapolis Colts. I was able to have my run of the place, even on the field. I snapped quite a few photos, including some shots of Peyton Manning's locker, and his chair :-)

I even got to ride the turf fluffer.

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On Wednesday of this week I was at a speaking event at Daytona Beach. Before my session I walked up and down the boardwalk area. This was a shot of the bandshell that I snapped.

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When you travel quite a bit things like luggage become really important. Especially if you never check bags. Serious travelers know that you never check bags. Not checking a bag has saved me a number of times.

I've been using my trusty Briggs & Riley carry-on for the past few years, but I'm really lusting after the new T-3 Ducati series from Tumi.

Nice. Anybody is free to buy this for me and send it my way :-) I'll let you know my address. I ended up buying it for myself right before Christmas :-)

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I'm still recovering from BlogOrlando and hope to have a big wrap-up/thank-you post up in the next day or two. For now though I'm off to Chicago for the MarketingProfs B2B Forum.

On a good-travel-karma-note, my first requested upgrade since becoming a SkyMiles Medallion member was confirmed, woot!

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October is shaping up to be another busy travel/conference month. Three key events to highlight that I'll be speaking at:

MarketingProfs Business-to-Business Forum: I'll be leading a panel on the second day of the conference.

University of Georgia's Connect Conference: A few days of fun in beautiful Athens, GA.

PRSA International Conference: I'll be part of a panel on Monday and then presenting on Tuesday. In addition I'll be joining Kami and a few others in blogging the conference for PRSA. As with recent conferences, I'll be mostly focussing on photography. We're trying to organize a blogger dinner for Sunday during the conference.

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The other day a colleague and I went to the airport at the same time and went through security at the same time. He gets held up by the TSA for the 'extra' bag search because he has a small amount of lip-balm in his bag. I walked right though with no problem.

What's in my bag? Or I should say, what's almost always in my bag? My Bogen Manfrotto 680B monopod. The thing weighs a few pounds, is made of metal and can be extended to five feet in length.

Yep, you can't take lip balm on board but a metal bat is OK. In all the trips I've taken this year I've never been questioned once about this, or received extra-screening. Of course I do use the CLEAR program so maybe that has something to do with it. However I mostly use CLEAR at the Orlando airport, they're just now opening up in SFO and other airports I frequent.

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While I'm spending time in Mobile, AL for a conference I snuck away and spent some time aboard the USS Alabama. The thing is huge and photos don't do it justice. There is one sense of scale when you're on the deck, then you go below deck and keep finding room after room and story after story. I've uploaded a photoset from the afternoon. The bottom photo here is from the engine room. Lots of tubes :-)

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SPRF/PRCA. that's quite the acronym, it stands for Southern Public Relations Federation and Public Relations Council of Alabama. The group is holding their annual conference over the next three days in Mobile, AL. I'm slated to speak on Tuesday, but I'm heading to Alabama today.

Why early? I plan on sneaking away on Monday afternoon to photograph the USS Alabama and some of the other 'hardware' they have at Battleship Memorial Park.

I may post a few session recaps from the conference as well. We'll see.

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I recently reached Medallion status with Delta's Skymiles program. I'm not sure if I should be happy or sad about this. Either way I'm looking forward to my first upgrade.

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Yesterday I visited the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex to plan a pre-BlogOrlando event. During my brief stay I was able to 'ride'...whoops, 'experience' the Shuttle Launch Experience (SLE).

That little slip was on purpose. The SLE is just that, an experience, and not necessarily a ride. When you tell people it's a ride they have a certain expectation and if you're thinking ride when you get on it, then it might not meet your expectations. This issue is compounded by the fact that there are a bunch of 'rides' about 60 miles away at places like Disney and Universal Studios.

That brings up the question, how do you marketing or tell people about the experience which simulates an actual Space Shuttle launch without using the word ride? When you try to tell somebody the word 'ride' always seems to slip in there.

I'm a space/aviation geek so the ride/expereince was cool and something I look forward to taking my son on soon.

The rest of my photos from KSC can be found on Flickr.

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I'm sitting at Orlando airport (MCO) using their free wifi (go Orlando!). It's been a hectic past few weeks and I'm almost at the end of my marathon travel run. I'm at Gnomedex till Sunday and then I make a quick trip to Phoenix at the end of next week.

After that I'm home for a while, thankfully. I need some time to slow down and catch up. Then it's time to start ramping up for BlogOrlando.

Plus there are some work changes coming up....more on that later.

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