Call me a grinch, a misanthrope, a DINK (dual-income-no-kids), or the anti-cute-police, but I hate (hate a thousand times over) ill-behaved children/infants/screaming banshees in upscale restaurants.
Upon doing some research, it turns out I’m not alone. Not only are there message boards, websites, even petitions to promote child-free dining, it turns out there’s an international social club devoted to the baby-free lifestyle.
I’m not a card carrying NoKidding member yet, but for now I plan on asking restaurants what their child policy is before attending.
Here, a few pre-screened restaurants that refuse to break out the coloring books and crayons:
Read correspondent Connie McCabe's first Chile dispatch here.
Monster earthquake notwithstanding, this is a big year for Chile, nothing less than her 200th birthday. But no one is talking much about that anymore.
Michele Bachelet’s Bicentennial Advisory Committee had been mapping out a host of celebrations, initiatives and projects to benchmark the big year. New cultural centers were rising up. A satellite was to be ejected into space. Plazas were to be renovated; parks improved; poetry contests held.
Yesterday, thanks to catastrophe-hungry media, the only things the world saw being held were rifles and iron bars as angry Chileans cleaned out a mini-market just outside Santiago. And the world saw this again and again. That and images of tanks rumbling through debris-strewn streets of Concepcion and smoke billowing ominously out of supermarkets. There’s also the scene of the weary fishermen and their families—what is left of them—combing through the shattered remains of what was, just days before, a coastline of idyllic beach destinations. And people fighting tear gas and each other for a few canisters of powdered milk and scooping up water from blown-up baby swimming pools.
NBC - New York | The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating why a child was allowed to direct air traffic at John F. Kennedy airport, one of the busiest airports in the country.
The FAA says a controller brought the child to work on February 17th and allowed him to talk to pilots.
"Pending the outcome of our investigation, the employees involved in this incident are not controlling air traffic," the FAA said in a statement. "This behavior is not acceptable and does not demonstrate the kind of professionalism expected from all FAA employees." The agency declined to comment beyond the statement.
In Alaska it’s about surviving winter—a long, long winter. Fortunately, people in Anchorage have not only a frontier spirit but a sense of humor. And so there is Fur Rendezvous, affectionately called the "Fur Rondy" by locals, now in its 75th year and serving up 10 days of crazy winter fun from Feb. 26 - Mar. 6.
The festival leads up to the start of the more serious Iditarod dog sled race, which kicks off March 7 (and runs a 1,200-mile course to Nome).
Racing is part of the action during Fur Rondy too, in the form of the World Championship Sled Dog Races, with 30 mushers and their teams competing for an $80,000 purse, on a 25-mile course. But that’s about as competitive as Fur Rondy gets.
Other festival events, as I witnessed for the first few days, range from the sublime to the ridiculous, including whacky snowshoe softball (competitors fall a lot), a Frostbite Footrace (costumes optional) and the World’s Largest Outhouse Race (yup, teams competing pushing outhouses).
With spring on the horizon but record-breaking cold temperatures still ravaging parts of the country, everyone—especially travelers caught by a surprise storm or frigid temps—is doing what they can to stay warm.
While most people temper the bitter chill by adding multiple layers to their outerwear—that seems reasonable, no?—for some, that is apparently not enough. Enter iTunes App Store.
I know what you're thinking. How can an iPhone app possibly help keep me warm? Mashablereviewed an app that claims to be able to turn your phone into a hand-warming device. How does "Pocket Heater" work?
The app works by stressing the iPhone's processor, battery and other functions to cause the device to overheat and hence become warm to the touch. In theory, this stressing shouldn't cause any damage to the device or yourself, but this is still something we'd classify as "no warranty, use at your own peril."
Three minutes. Such a short time in the big scheme of things, but such a long time when the ground is shifting under one’s feet. Everything changed in Chile in those three minutes. Even for those of with mere superficial damages. Like me.
I live in Santiago, and I don’t remember if I was sleeping or not when it started. I just remember hearing a low rumble, almost like thunder. I knew what it was; as the whole world knows, Chile gets more than its fair share of earthquakes. I thought I would just wait it out. But then the rumble got louder, the headboard started slamming against wall; the windows rattling, and the closet doors inching open and thumping closed. Not so gracefully, I nudged my husband. He had been sleeping, but before I could ask what he thought we should do, he was sprinting down the hall.
The Consumerist | Today marks the beginning of what could be an ugly four months at JFK International Airport, as the NYC-area travel hub loses its busiest runway for renovation work. This move has forced the airport to reduce the number of flights going in and out by 20% during this time.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates all three major airports in the NYC area, has reduced the total number of arrivals and departures at JFK from around 1,300 to 1,050.
The redo on Runway 13-31 isn't just a simple repaving job. The $376 million effort will widen the runway by 50 feet and add taxiways, all with the goal of reducing flight delays by around 10,500 hours each year.
London, England (CNN) | In the name of improved security a hacker showed how a biometric passport issued in the name of long-dead rock 'n' roll king Elvis Presley could be cleared through an automated passport scanning system being tested at an international airport.
Using a doctored passport at a self-serve passport machine, the hacker was cleared for travel after just a few seconds and a picture of the King himself appeared on the monitor's display.
Adam Laurie and Jeroen Van Beek, who call themselves "ethical hackers," say the exercise exposed how easy it is to fool a passport scanner with a fraudulent biometric chip.
The service allows customers to receive boarding passes electronically on their mobile phones or personal digital assistants (PDAs) and eliminates the need for paper boarding passes.
London, England (CNN)
