35 Kids + Airport = Potential Nightmare

As I leave for my trip and the Curious Commuter takes a month long hiatus from the bloggersphere I can’t help but worry about logistics.

The logistics of arranging 35 7th and 8th graders in Boston’s Logan Airport to get from Beantown to D.C. – can these 12 and 13 year olds be trusted to carry their tickets? Chances are one of them is bound to lose the flimsy film like paper they are handed at the gate. Chances are one of them will lose the information and possibly stray from the group and find comfort in a nearby Au Bon Pan kiosk forgetting about their gate # and terminal. Chances are also good that after this trip my hairline will continue to flank both sides of my forehead in the epic battle of which side will get the the middle first. I suspect a few grey hairs will emerge in the process.

Being the Curious Commuter, I have come up with the perfect solution to this problem. Luggage tags, meet my campers’ wrists.

You heard me. Why should tickets for minors under the age of 18 be paper tickets that they have to hold on to? Why not make them bracelets!? Easy, sticky, disposable tickets that are attach themselves to the wrist of the young traveler.

No more digging through pockets and handing over chocolate covered tickets to security. Just hold out your hand, scan the barcode and you are set.

I much rather put bracelets that won’t come off easily on 35 kids instead of counting on them to have their tickets available and in tact.

So the idea of the day – airline ticket bracelets for travelers under the age of 18. This should cut down on paper and cut down on the stress of parents, teachers, trip chaperones, and camp counselors. Which in the end, makes everyone in line a little less frantic and angry.

That’s my idea for the day – who says it couldn’t happen?

Rock on,

Joe

No Commuting for a Month!

As my idea of the day post for 7/2/2010 has just been saved and ready to post, I must explain the month long hiatus mentioned. Last summer I had a best friend participate in a month long “vacation” from work to serve as a director of a summer teen tour. I had never heard the phrase teen tour nor did I know what it entailed.

Tracking her expedition of leading 40 or so 16 and 17 year olds across the country to go up and down the west coast to locations such as San Fran, Las Vegas, Bryce Canyon, Arizona, Wyoming, etc. A ridiculous trip filled with mandatory fun such as rodeos, vegas shows, alcatraz tours, baseball games, swimming on the roof of a Vegas strip hotel, you name it – they did it.

Intrigued, she told me how to apply and referred me to the company, the adventure had begun. I applied in early Fall, interviewed, was offered the position, worked with my supervisors to get the time off and by winter and the new year, I was all set and ready to go. Come late spring, here I am ready to serve as a counselor on the Eastern Adventure for Rein Teen Tours.

This is no vacation. This may be time away from the office, but I assure you it is not a vacation.

We have 30 or so campers in the 7th and 8th grades to watch over, 24/7 for 26 days. I am ecstatic.

Even with my new Droid Incredible, blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, will be pretty occur in instances that are few and far between. That coupled with my supervisor offering a friendly challenge of not using social media while I am away, means that my web presence will go from 5.5 days a week to zero…for an extended period of time.

But I am not worried. Although, the timing is rather poor as my blog just surpassed 1,000 all-time visits and I reached over 300 followers on Twitter. (Feats that are probably minuscule to some but to me, awesome milestones.) I would have liked to keep that momentum going but text heavy options are an issue so here is my solution. Picture based.

Do you want to know what I see and what a 26-day bus/camping/hotel tour of Canada/East Coast looks like? Well you can. Follow my album here: http://picasaweb.google.com/jginese/EA# All images will have been taken with my Droid Incredible so here is hoping that the camera on there works out. (There are no pictures yet, my tour begins on Tuesday.)

So no ideas, no blogging, less tweeting. If this isn’t a social media detox, I don’t know what is. I will be blogging, but I guess in the good ol’ days this was called journaling. You actually use a pen or pencil and write on paper in a book, and if you want to share it with someone you have to give them the physical book. Scary. (Yes, I am being facetious.)

In any case, hopefully those stories will lend to some amazing new blog posts and no doubt some hilarious tweets about the sayings and actions of 35 7th and 8th graders as they explore Canada and the East Coast.

In the meantime, follow the pics and look out for a random tweet every now and then.

Rock on,

Joe

Taste Tabs

I was in a meeting the other day that followed a group who had leftover Dunkins Munchkins and a Box of Joe. Small things like this make me love higher ed. Extra food at the end of any meeting or gathering is dealt with in one of three ways: leave it/offer it to the group coming in, put it in a common area with students with a sign “FREE FOOD”, bring it back to the office to share with office mates. I doubt any food ever really goes to waste, unless it is in the dining hall.

So as the box of Joe and Munchkins were staring me down, I caved. I had given up on coffee during the week to kick the caffeine addiction and jitters during the work day. I gave up donuts and donut like pastries (crullers, sticks, etc) for Lent and never went back. But something about those Munchkins, and that coffee in a meeting around 11 a.m. I just couldn’t help myself. I divulged with a half cup of black coffee and 2 sugar munchkins, a combination of flavor and smell that I missed dearly. What I didn’t miss was the subsequent sugar high and slight caffeine boost and crash later on.

That being said, I wondered how I could have had that same flavor and smell in my system without having to actually eat those two items. Candles only get your sense of smell going and I really needed to TASTE these things in order to satisfy this craving.
Alas, the idea of the day – taste tabs! Listerine has these for mint flavor and breath freshening. What if this idea was expanded to other flavors? Dieters rejoice!

Want that glazed donut taste without all the calories? Here is the glazed donut taste tab. It disintegrates on your tongue with a quick explosion of the flavor you are looking for.

Flavors I’d want right away:

McDonald’s Fries dipped in honey
Starbucks Venti Iced Caramel Macchiato
Wendy Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger
S’mores
Cheesecake (any flavor)

Taste tabs – giving you the craving you are looking for without actually eating it.

That’s my idea for the day – who says it couldn’t happen?

Rock on,

Joe