We currently have a highly competent provost at Heebie U and it has really driven home for me what competent leadership actually means
But does she disruptively leverage the innovative synergies with strategic dynamism? That's true leadership. With attitude.
What is a provost anyway? Like a meta-dean or a demi-chancellor?
I looked it up on Wikipedia. I don't know why they don't go with demi-chancellor.
"Dean of Students" is the person responsible for making sure the undergraduates don't have sex with dead livestock.
A provost is someone who acts on behalf (pro-) of your-plural (vostros) interests.
Doesn't a good leader get other people to do their research?
Leadership means remembering to not look at unfogged when your desktop is the one shared on the call.
I don't know if this was actually your point, but the story doesn't say to me that leadership is a thing at all. It says that hard work and good judgement are things. But we can talk about hard work and good judgement without talking about leadership.
Leadership is PEEING DURING ITS WORKOUT.
All those things are necessary but not sufficient for good leadership; one needs also to be good at managing people. I'm good at all the things you mentioned, but I'm not nearly diplomatic enough to be good at managing people regularly.
A true leader doesn't need no stinkin' research.
A true leader only consults his gut.
Leadership is SOMETHING SOMETHING POLARITIES.
Titles and styles of reference could use some serious beefing up. Most people have a field of some responsibility (maybe a lot), a place of birth, and a few educational affiliations to use.
X of Alexandria, the Missourite, program arch-officer of the solar system.
Instead of undersecretary, maybe meta-administrator.
There are some worthwhile Chinese imperial titles, though I guess there's dispute about translations. "Investigator of Transgressions," "Libationer."
Make America great again is all I'm really saying here.
Aagh. Now Amazon is going to think I'm an asshole.
Seattle was a really nice place. Except for the fact that it's apparently going to fall into the ocean.
18: I'm intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Also I am totally putting "Gentleman of the Left" on my business cards.
That sounds like something to keep between you and your tailor.
I still have my doubts about leadership being an actual thing. I have this internet friend-ish person* who is like....Deputy Vice Dean of Good Vibes or something at the big school up the road and he's constantly going to week-long conferences on leadership and says they're really great but like he's kind of just this bureaucrat as far as I can tell. Maybe it's my authority issues but the whole concept of leadership seems cooked up to make people feel important, in my crabby reckoning.
*I dunno, we've talked for years and years but I have no great fondness for the guy. We have some old in-jokes and are pissed off by some of the same things. I don't understand this modern life.
If you want to lead a bunch of people over the top of a trench into gunfire, maybe attitude is the thing? I don't know.
But, that's probably not what we want in a provost in these fallen times.
24: True leaders don't attend conferences on leadership.
Upper-level academic administrators do.
17: I'm reading up on Polarity Management and I've learned something very important -- the importance of "AND"! For example you shouldn't try to choose between inhaling and exhaling. You will be most successful if you do BOTH!
If you install a new value, you can do both at the same time.
My sister just got back from three weeks of providing of leadership training to sweet potato farmers in rural Uganda. I'm sure that's exactly what they need to lift themselves out of poverty.
The Ugandan potato farmers who are nasty already have leadership skills.
AFAIK when I worked for a corporate consultant is that leadership consulting involves telling people to be assholes in new innovative ways instead of old established ways. Also national stereotypes.
The key is to empower the potatoes to grow, instead of just telling them to grow.
32
Imagine how successful they would be if they exploited the synergies and then disrupted SOP to eliminate the redundancies.
You know you're a good leader when your surviving followers bother to come back and tell you that it's safe to stick your head out now.
If you give a man a sweet potato plot, he is a sweet potato farmer. If you teach a man to lead, he..... um nevermind.
My current boss got promoted very quickly to running a pretty big and complex academic-ish operation. I certainly wish the powers that be had mandated this person attend some sort of management boot camp early on. A nice guy, but has absolutely no grasp of some basic management processes, like hiring people and having meetings.
Would a leadership conference be the place where people learn this kind of thing, if they somehow managed to bypass all lower-level opportunities to be involved in it? Or are they just opportunities for high-ranking to be assured that they already know how to do their jobs?
ISTM that the ability to get a diverse group of people to do the things you say without questioning/grumbling/malingering is absolutely an independent skill. Sometimes the expression of that skill is charisma, sometimes it's building consensus, sometimes it's projecting authority, but leaderless groups, even those with shared goals and values, tend not to be that effective.
Most of the time it's the organizational framework that guides people to do whatever the boss says, but that doesn't mean that a boss who's also an effective leader won't do a better job.
That said, I read something the other day that people tend to select leaders based not on actual leadership abilities, but on "leadership qualities", which tends to mean "being a certain kind of dickish guy." So the sense that leadership is BS is based on lived experience, but I don't think it's actually true.
The key to leadership is capricious, harsh rule and an effective secret police.
40: The best way is to get the guy a program manager with experience to actually do stuff.
ISTM
For a second, I thought that you were giving your Myers-Briggs type.
40: I'm being sent to some kind of generalized "So You Seem To Be A Manager Now" training in the woods outside of Albany next week. I've been told to wear comfortable shoes, so I think it may be more about falling on people or something than how to hire, but I'll tell everyone how it went after the fact.
45:
Sounds either nice or horrible! Either way, definitely report back.
If an attorney falls in the forest and nobody catches her, does she make a sound other than "splat"?
45: Remember to fill your pockets with little pebbles, so you can leave yourself a trail, and find your way back.
If is about falling on people, I'm good at that.
Right, the breadcrumbs won't work, because birds.
Pebbles or bread so bad even birds won't eat it.
50: Excellent! Well on your way to becoming a first-class manager!
Always use either polaroid sunglasses or exposed photographic film, to avoid damage to your eyesight.
You're supposed to hand your food from a tree to keep bears from it.
Hand my food to the bears from a tree is exactly my strategy. For Leadership.
Any true leader is able to lead war-bears.
Stash a cigarette lighter in a hidden pocket. The rubbing sticks together thing never works.
I tried hanging food from a tree once. And woke up with a mother bear having broken the tree so that her cubs could get to the bag and eat the babka Buck and I had brought for breakfast.
Haven't gone camping since. But the food-hanging thing is overrated.
I hope you took the opportunity to say, "We're going to need a bigger tree."
Anyway, apparently so many people were doing the hanging stuff wrong that they now require bear canisters.
61: The inconspicuously self-controlled but also panic-stricken flight back down the trail to the parking lot took up all the attention I should have used for sardonic quipping. Bears are really big when they're standing right next to you.
How are you supposed to get the bears in the canisters?
You use a coin or a screwdriver to open them.
29 Reminds me that Natilo Paennim recently suggested that cops need to attend more webinars and skip-level meetings with upper management. That still cracks me up.
Anyway, the small bear canister weight 2 pounds, which is a lot if you have to carry it but not very much if it saves you from being eaten by a bear.
This thing is much lighter. Your food will get smashed, but the bear is supposed to give up on trying to steal food, take a webinar on Python, and get a programming job. You aren't supposed to hang it, but to tie it to a tree big enough that a bear can rip it down.
Did someone post here the thing about bears constantly outwitting the bear canisters? Apparently they have figured out the standard canisters and they're teaching it to each other.
I remember reading about a US Park Service program to develop bear-proof trash cans which quoted the program lead as saying roughly "It's near impossible because there's considerable overlap between the smartest bears and the stupidest campers."
The ones I've seen that looked like this one seemed pretty secure. But it's not going to work for residential trash or anything. You can't move it and you can't easily unload it with lift from the truck.
Scroll down on that page for vivid pictures of bear shit.
One of them looks like bear vomit and they don't really explain how they are so sure it isn't.
71 is just about the truest thing I ever heard.
Isn't the right answer (about leadership) that there's definitely a kind of charisma that gets people to want to follow you, but leadership, as thing to be done, is very different in different circumstances? I can totally see how HG's provost is successful, and I can also imagine that precise description in a history book about an ineffective, dithering Civil War general.
I'm impressed how the practices of HG's provost are completely alien to my current office. Decisions in a timely manner? WTF is that?
76: you try leading a huge army of Yankees through the Virginia countryside while crackers take potshots at you, you fucking layabout.
I can make timely decisions if you can do the parts of leadership that require opposable thumbs.
41.3: Whatever leadership is, "Leadership" as sold is a sturdy indefensible used to put the gentry above the meritocracy. We tried literature and well-roundedness and extracurriculars, and the Jews/Asians/women/blacks/etc just keep refusing to take the hint and give up.
Can I interrupt this leadershippy thread to celebrate the fact that Scott Walker is apparently officially dropping out of the race? He always struck me as the most loathsome of a bad lot. If it had come down to Walker vs Trump, I would have gone door to door for Trump.
I liked the line in the latest Laundry novel, "Being management means having to hold your hands behind your back while your inexperienced junior staff crap all over a job you could have done in five seconds." Not that that's typically applicable, but it is in better cases.
There's an big organization I work with where the head is extremely smart and capable, but she has apparently allowed a system to evolve where her (huge) staff rely on her to make pretty much every decision, and she never has the time.
They have a free webinar, sponsored by SAS. Maybe only I got that ad?
On leadership, I don't know if I've ever worked for someone genuinely charismatic. But my previous boss, the one whose job I basically now have, was someone I respected a great deal, and who was very good at her job. Organised, well-informed, pragmatic, and good at insulating her staff from the shit dispensed from on-high. Now that she's gone, I'm seeing some of the cracks that she was only just papering over, and maybe some of the gloss is off, but still, I don't think the really higher ups appreciate just quite how good she was.
re: management experience, and knowing how to do things, etc.
I feel like an imposter at work on that kind of thing. I do quite a lot of hiring -- I've probably been on three or four recruiting panels in the past couple of weeks, and I have processes running for another two or three people -- and directly line manage maybe half a dozen people, and one of those in turn manages some more. But I've not attended much/most of the training that our staff development or HR teams provide. For someone who has other demands on their time, i.e. where managing people is only part of their job, it's pretty hard to take time out to sit in courses.
Some of these are bullshit courses, but quite a few are practical things that help you stay within the law, or good practice, or ensure that you know what paperwork needs to be done when, in order that people get paid, contractors get hired, public tenders are run properly, etc.
bwahahaha ... Sigh.
Very good. It would be completely unremarkable as a rant on a random blog, but kudos to him for getting it published on HBR.
re: 82.1
That's something that drives me crazy at work. I'm not really better than the best of our (slightly) more junior than me staff. Definitely worse, even, as a coder, than the better ones. But I am so much faster, and so much more focused* than most it drives me nuts.
'Can you do X? Here's how I'd maybe approach it, here's some docs you can look at, and here's some really shitty code I wrote last year that sort of mostly does it.'
Aeons pass.
'How are you getting on with X?'
More aeons pass.
'Are you actually fucking kidding me? I couldn't wait, and did it myself, yesterday, in the 2 hours between lunch and a meeting.'
* I suspect sometimes that's a result of hardcore philosophy graduate school, and not a result of any work experience. And a quasi- structured procrastination method.
Pretty much the only thing I can remember about HBR is that they fired an editor for sleeping with Jack Welch.
And I'm still fucking about on Facebook and reading Unfogged, so Christ knows what other people do with their time.
I've wondered that myself, but I decided I really did not want to know.
89: Jack and Suzy have a podcast now!
My guess is that much of it involves the non-culinary use of dead pigs.
88 sounds humblebraggy. Not meant that way. More, 'if someone who is doing this in the cracks between other things takes N hours, why are you taking N x 10 hours?'
||
When your kid adamantly says that they do NOT want your help on the homework, and you can see they're doing it wrong, do you let the natural consequences happen and butt out, or do you butt in and keep them from practicing it wrong? It will lead to a fight if I intervene.
|>
I like to butt in but tell them a way that is still incorrect. That way you get a huge fight and the consequences of doing it wrong.
95: I've managed that one by slipping in an explanation of what the problem is into the sentence where I'm telling them that it's their homework, and if they don't want help with it, it's their prerogative. Not that they'll necessarily listen, but there's a chance it'll sink in.
"Look, I can't red tell you what red color is the red complement of green on your red color red wheel. Just think red carefully about red, and red will be your answer."
Yeah, about like that. Honestly, it's mostly for my own peace of mind. The children are contrary enough not to absorb any help they didn't ask for. But as long as I feel better about it, that's the important thing.
The color wheel is bullshit. Just made up nonsense like Young Earth Creationism or sociology.
Just do all their homework for them. That way, they're grateful to have time to play, and they get excellent grades.
Hawaii does NOT like it when I answer a question with a question. Duly noted.
Or, if you can, hire someone to do their homework for them, but I don't want to be classist.
I am so grateful for the after school program where they usually get this done so that, in general, homework is happening far away from me.
41.3 was, indeed, referring to the article linked in 83.
And you can see that 80 is true largely because of a vicious cycle springing from the facts described in 83. For contingent historic reasons, and (probably) for ape reasons, humans tend, in absence of clear talent, to choose assholes to be leaders. This leads to A. assholes who assume they're doing it right, and B. sycophants who want to suck up to A., and therefore tell everybody that Leadership is assholery*. Actually talented leaders who get to lead are too few and far between to become widely emulated models.
Who'll buy my new book, "The Leadership Secrets Of The Executive Assistant Who Keeps The Department From Collapsing"?
*and associated, non-assholish behavior. I mean, I don't think most Leadership training literally teaches people to be bigger assholes. MBA programs, sure, but probably not LB's Does A Middle Manager Shit In The Woods? thing.
So, apparently my wife is very direct in that type of homework issue.
Some old Bill Kristol tweets on Scott Walker.
7/18/15
Next? @JebBush, @ScottWalker & @marcorubio say they won't appear on stage at 1st debate w/ @realDonaldTrump unless he apologizes to McCain.
7/19/15
Impressive performance by Walker.
"Scott Walker tells undocumented worker that immigrants must follow the law"
7/31/15
No Republican "insiders" pick Walker or Kasich to win first debate.
Pretty safe bet: Walker or Kasich will win it.
8/18/15
Scott Walker's plan to repeal and replace Obamacare offers the prospect of a huge conservative domestic policy win.
Possibly there was subtext that I missed.
Wasn't there just some study about the uselessness of helping kids with (math) homework?
At this age I'd recommend letting them di it wrongitty-wrong.
In other news viral video of Scott Walker rassling a slice of pizza down the stairs into the subway.
At this age
When I was younger I might have thought differently...
That drove me over to Kristol's twitter page and it really is kind of an amazing thing. I really had trouble stopping once I got started.
This has got to be one an achievement of some kind, though. I just kind of sat there appreciating it for a few minutes when I saw it.
On the other hand I don't entirely disagree with him when he says that a Dick Cheney/Tom Cotton ticket would be a good thing for America.
95: I had a similar experience with my daughter recently. Her school asked her to fill out a form with ten of her favorite things (favorite color, favorite movie, etc.). Then, without looking, I was supposed to fill out the same list, identifying her favorites.
After checking her list, I was compelled to inform her that she got half of them wrong. This led to an argument.
Is that a good "My God, this is a thing" or a bad "My God, this is a thing?"
I don't see why anyone would object to luscious lemons, sweet strawberries, mouth watering melon and great tasting guava. (And also, I assume, lousy liquor.)
More, 'if someone who is doing this in the cracks between other things takes N hours, why are you taking N x 10 hours?'
I've been on the verge of asking this question of my students a few times, although for them it's more like N x 50, and even then the result might not be right.
I feel as though I have ranted about this before, but I spent the first 30+ years of my life utterly convinced that "leadership" was a totally useless concept that was only useful as a proxy for identifying gullible people with no common sense. (Are you posting leadership platitudes? Good, I can now ignore everything you have to say.)
Then I encountered a couple of actual situations in which an effective leader was able to meaningfully make things happen in a way that was useful and semi-permanent. I started to think that maaaaaaaybe there was a set of useful skills that were hiding under the mountain of horse manure known as leadership/management.
These days I remain firmly convinced that most of what you hear about leadership is baloney. Either it's not true,* or it requires good judgment to execute.
My current employer sent me to a training course that was actually basically fine in its content, but led by a facilitator who had extremely shallow skills. It was a perfect example of how memorizing a bunch of phrases and ideas doesn't get you anywhere toward being able to understand leadership, much less model it, much LESS teach it.
*I will never forget the umpteen episodes of The West Wing in which Aaron Sorkin had the President enter, shouting loudly, because He Was the Leader and how else could you display Leadership?
I have come to believe that the only possible way that most human beings can learn the bones of effective leadership is if they have the ability to engage in independent (or WELL-FACILITATED small-group) reflection about an incident, in which they can analyze the example of leadership they are observing and draw conclusions based on it.
Pretty much everyone has the capacity to suss out crappy leaders, though. The binary good/bad is reasonably easy to do even if you don't understand HOW the good readers are doing what they're doing.
106.3: is it Judaism that posits hidden, unsung saints who keep everything working?
110: iff the adult is anxious about the subject, IIRC.
124.1: No, you're thinking of those "Pass It On" ads on the bus stops.
People on the bus sometimes ask me if I'm Jewish. I'm waiting for somebody to ask me if I want to do a mitzvah so I can ask what kind of drugs that is.
|| So, my plane is 3 hrs late; some defeatist mechanics don't think it's safe to fly without some part that has to be brought cross country. Neither attitude nor leadership anywhere in evidence. |>
127: You need that peanut guy in charge--he'd tell 'em to fly.
124.1 Islam too. It's a major theme in the Sufism of Ibn al-`Arabi and his school which once imbued almost all of Islamic civilization for several centuries. There's a whole typology, nomenclature, and hierarchy, and then there's the ones who stand outside it any hierarchy. Inside the hierarchy you have positions like the "pole", then the 4 "tent pegs" and so on radiating outward to some number in the hundred thousands. You can't ever tell who might be part of this secret cosmological cabal, it could be someone who by all appearances is a beggar, and quite likely is.
124.1 Islam too. It's a major theme in the Sufism of Ibn al-`Arabi and his school which once imbued almost all of Islamic civilization for several centuries. There's a whole typology, nomenclature, and hierarchy, and then there's the ones who stand outside it any hierarchy. Inside the hierarchy you have positions like the "pole", then the 4 "tent pegs" and so on radiating outward to some number in the hundred thousands. You can't ever tell who might be part of this secret cosmological cabal, it could be someone who by all appearances is a beggar, and quite likely is.
Clearly I'm not one of them or I wouldn't have double posted. Also I'd make sure we got a lot more of the likes of 120.
Insofar as he expresses a policy position in 14 seconds of video, I think he's claiming that he'll restructure the federal student loan system to be less profitable for the feds.
I'm mostly just amazed the student debt, which used to be something that earned me "Crazy Lady" looks from acquaintances, is now a a mainstream issue that both parties feel obligated to pay lip service to.
Ugh, leadership. I'm going up for promotion (from medium-level, one grade above a new hire, to "senior"-but-not-management) at my large company, which is a process vaguely like tenure - you have to put together a thoroughly documented case for why you're already performing at the level you're trying to be promoted to, arrange for peers to sing your praises, and so forth. The final chunk of text they want is the "promotion rationale" - a condensed version of the entire case - and "leadership", vaguely defined, is one of the key pillars that I'm supposed to be demonstrating and documenting somehow. It's all terribly vague and I'd rather be pulling my own teeth out with rusty pliers.
My sympathies, Mr. Carp.
Airport delays are the worst: the time spent waiting on a plane or in a lounge is just dead time; and there's always that nagging sense that the airline is deliberately withholding vital information about the actual ETD.
Who could have known five hours ago that the current crew was in danger of timing out, and that they should take steps to get an alternate crew ready? Everyone.
Official line is still that the plane will be fixed in an hour or so, and will take off. Either they'll get us a new crew, or our old crew will fly us to Atlanta, and a new crew will take us the rest of the way to Paris. When will they know? When will they admit it's all a fiction? Guesses, anyone?
I don't actually think they're withholding information. They're not making decisions until they are forced to do so. (The captain told me that they're not actually using the part flown here from Atlanta, but are fixing the old part somehow. They didn't make that decision until we'd already waited 4 hours for the new part.)
My sympathies as well, Charlie. I'm at the airport myself, preparing to depart on a trip Outside (as they say). I hope it goes smoothly.
New story seems to be that we'll be going with the Atlanta option. Leaving SLC at 1:30 am. Is this still fiction? Probably.
One thing I've never seen is that the head pilot has been basically hanging around the gate talking with everyone, showing photographs of the bad part on his cell, explaining why it has to be replaced, telling us all why it's taking so long, arguing with whiners, for hours now. He disappears to talk to the mechanics every half hour or so, checks his emails with the operations center, but is generally very engaged with people. It's pretty effective.
And now he's suddenly disappeared. Not a good sign?
Huh. Pilots doing hands-on customer service. That is unusual. I think that I'd want to hide in a ready room.
From mention of Atlanta, I'm guessing Delta. And checking shows that flight 89 is it. Now listed as redirected, presumably to Atlanta. And it hasn't even left yet.
I guess I should have been able to guess that from SLC too.
146 Not for a couple hours yet. It's beyond bullshit. They can't get a crew here in the 2 hours we're still sitting here? They couldn't have started thinking about that 5 hours ago?
And you get into CDG at 22:35 tomorrow night! So a red eye to CDG turns into one to ATL. Then you get another night wasted in Paris. Which I think isn't your final destination either. Ugh.
I wonder if they'll have you change aircraft in ATL. That would be a cherry on it all. Right now it shows the same aircraft type (767-300) as you have in SLC.
It isn't our final final destination. But we're in better shape than many of the people on the plane because we were planning to spend the night in Paris, and drive to Saarland on Wednesday morning. That's still viable, depending on how wrecked we all get. And whether the current schedule holds . . .
The're saying it's the same plane. It's an engine faring of some kind, that has to be hand-drilled and -screwed on. More repairs in Atlanta? Who can guess.
At least you're getting the finest handmade artisanal aircraft maintenance available.
I hope the cabin crew on both legs will be directed to be liberal with refreshments.
I once had the exact same thing happen to me. I got stuck in Europe for an extra day because the plane was delayed, and then the crew timed out. The flight was rescheduled for 20 hours later. It really sucked for the people who were only transferring through that airport and needed visas to enter the country, because they had to spend the night in the airport.
Lets all post our delays and flight numbers.
Who could have known five hours ago that the current crew was in danger of timing out, and that they should take steps to get an alternate crew ready? Everyone.
This is a big pet peeve of mine. One time we were on our way to make a connection in ohare. No posted delays, everything seemed fine. We passed a bunch of cots being set up and commented on the poor saps destined for them.
Exactly when we should have begun to board, we were informed that the crew had exceeded their limits, and would we like a cot? Also the wake up time was 4 am so that the cots could be put away by 4:30 am so that we wouldn't be eyesores the next morning, although our flight didn't leave until 9.
"I assure you, if you wake me up at four in the morning I will be an eyesore regardless of whether I am in a cot."
is it Judaism that posits hidden, unsung saints who keep everything working?
I think the Righteous People (Tzakidim Nistarim, wiki assures me, though that does have a rather delicatessen sound to it) just sort of sit there, don't they? If there are fewer than 36 of them then the world ends, but I don't think they do much themselves. In fact they aren't supposed to know they are one, even.
Kipling's "Sons of Martha" has the right sound to it...
One time we were on our way to make a connection in ohare.
Well, that was your first problem. The suckiness of O'Hare fully drags down Chicago's city ranking for me, provided you have to fly on any regular basis.
And delayed international flights suck. I've had two really memorable ones where it threw my travel schedule off a whole day.
Midway isn't bad. They have really good popcorn.
The problem with O'Hare is that you* always have to go from the F or the E concourse to the B or C concourse and that's 25 minutes moving as fast as I can with carry-on luggage. For somebody with more stuff or small children, it's just impossible to make a connection without like 40 minutes.
* Or starting at B/C and going to E/F is you are going to Nebraska instead of leaving it.
LAX continues to suck, in part for reasons like in 166, but at least the Korean tacos are good.
162: "Try not O'Hare!" the old man said;
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The connection dash takes frantic stride!"
And loud that clarion voice replied,
Excelsior!
The problem with O'Hare...
That is but one of many, many problems with O'Hare. The international terminal is probably the worst designed and operated of any I've ever been to.
That really doesn't affect normal people flying to and from Nebraska.
As if anyone traveling to Nebraska can truly be considered normal.
167: Nah, LAX sucks because they routinely cancel the last flight of the day, fail to provide the connecting plane, etc.
One time the airline failed to provide the final connecting LAX-FAT flight, about an hour in the air. Their sole offer was to pack the passengers into shuttle-buses and drive them for 5 hours to their destination. They claimed that as that was their provided transportation to the destination, they wouldn't provide tickets for a morning flight--take it or leave it.
CNN talking head just now: "The role of leadership is to show leadership." Glad we got that cleared up.
173: The role of a talking head is to speak words.
It's been a long time since I've been through O'Hare. Does it still have that scifi tunnel thing that looks like it was imported from 1970s era Disneyland?
The most memorable airport I've been in lately was in Des Moines, Iowa. The entire terminal was one gigantic advertisement for Templeton Rye.
Is LAX worse for connecting flights than for departures/arrivals? For years I only started/ended at LAX and it was ok, but last year I flew through on the way elsewhere and ended up walking long distances through areas I'd never seen.
177: Journalists and political operatives are the target, I assume.
178: If you end up by the Watts towers you'll know you've taken a wrong turn.
The role of a talking head is to speak words.
"Time is... Time was... Time is past."
The natives drink Old Milwaukee and are afraid of the big metal bird.
People who talk a lot about leadership must be eager to speak on matters of the leader principle and solutions.
I GET MY MONTHLY SUPPLY OF THIRTY TONS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY GERMAN PASTORAL MUSIC DELIVERED BY CONTAINER VESSEL. I CALL IT MY LIEDER SHIP.
177 -- My plan for retirement is to become a walking billboard for Templeton Rye, possibly with a scratch-n-sniff aroma feature.
178 -- LAX is under construction so is currently even worse than the very bad standard it has already set. The only good thing about LAX is that it's not far from my house, which doesn't do much for the rest of humanity.
Actually, the mid-century elevated Encounter Bar in the middle was pretty damn awesome, and I had good times meeting people there who were changing flights, mostly to Asia. But now it's closed with no plans to reopen. You're not very far from Magic Johnson's TGI Friday's, the only specifically Magic Johnson owned and themed TGI Friday's in the world.
You're not very far from Magic Johnson's TGI Friday's, the only specifically Magic Johnson owned and themed TGI Friday's in the world.
Whatever floats your boat, bro.
My plan for retirement is to become a walking billboard for Templeton Rye
You must be aware of the lawsuit and resulting scandalous revelation that Templeton Rye isn't made from an old family recipe at all, but is a standard recipe from Midwest Grain Products.
Don't care how the sausage gets made as long as it tastes like sausage.
You might want to give The Jungle a quick read.
Anyway, I'm sure Aristocrat rye is perfectly fine.
Munich is currently my favorite airport. Quiet and functional and not a lot of delays. Expensive, though. The last time I was there I managed to rack up a hundred-euro nap in one of the "Nap Cabins" after an especially crappy transatlantic flight. It was the BEST nap ever though (or possibly I am just telling myself this because it cost so much).
On the other hand, copies of the Financial Times in Munich Airport are free! Also, there is a kind of good novel called Munich Airport, which is about people in the Munich airport.
I love airports, and have lots of opinions about them, so I really like where this comment thread has gone. I even wrote a book of poems about airports. Helpy-Chalk has a copy.
I think the lesson of the MGP scandal (for a bunch of brands) is that you can save money by buying one of the less expensive ones on the list instead of the really high end stuff.
Also you can have a lot of fun comparing different bottles to see how an extra year, or an additional twenty proof, or the Lincoln County Process affects what is essentially the same spirit.
Dulles is in the process of getting rid of its Star-Wars-y mobile lounges, which I always had a soft spot for.
194. You couldn't be more wrong on this point and indeed, you have by writing this become the target of my withering scorn, to include insult as well should your errors continue or multiply.
Those things are a shitty imitation of buses staffed by troflodytes temporarily allowed to breathe air instead of their native sulphur. I fly shitty airlines out of other airports so as not to get crammed into one of those for a surly 10 minute wait staring at the rumpled shoulder blades of the rudest other passenger on the plane, this to lurch and heave from the airplane to the Dulles zone of extreme patience and immigration stamping.
The Dulles mobile lounges (or something like them) will be around. They are the only way to segregate incoming international arrivals as ICE requires. Maybe some day they'll build an international terminal like LAX (spit!), but I doubt it. Still, aside from international arrivals, the lounges can now be avoided.
Me, I like the mobile lounges. I just imagine I am in the movie 2001. I once had the lounges meet a very late arriving plane. Front and back doors and the plane emptied very quickly.
Oh,and Charley's plane has just made it to Paris.
Dulles is beautiful! One of Saarinen's best, a totally individual design. It must be the only airport to have have inspired a font.
National is on the Metro which means Dulles automatically sucks by comparison.
I disagree with the font assertion.
Here is pre-expansion Ruzyně and Here is Newark on any Friday.
Dulles is the worst airport I've ever flown through.
Genuinely horrible. Hours and hours of stupid, pointless waiting, and then the only public transport link is a fucking pathetic bus, that you have to wait half an hour for, in a shitty vestibule, which will spend ages getting you to a shitty metro, that you then sit on for fucking hours. Hateful shithole of a place.
Just a few more years and Dulles will be on the Metro too.
Now there is something that isn't working right. Pretty much every weekend Metro's trains are running with 25 minute headways. Useless for weekends and often difficult for weekdays.
200: You've never flown into JFK?
201.1: That's what they said a few years ago.
Yeah, I have to endorse ttaM's 200.2. Until I got Global Entry, I dreaded international arrivals there (or anywhere in the US).
My last trip overseas was from Dulles but I made sure to depart and return on weekdays so I could use the shuttles and Metro when they were at their best. They were OK, except for the moldy carpet on Metro.
Oh, the typeface is also way cool. More praise for the Finn.
When I flew in there last time, there was a queue 10 people wide, stretching the best part of 800 metres, that took a couple of hours to get to the front of. Not for the passport entry, or the second passport entry. No, this was the third one.
Where some security theatre officious moustache checked my passport, for the third time.
The idea that those things are "mobile lounges" is some weird design mistake that wouldn't die. Did someone think they would be something other than a bus? Did they imagine people hanging out, relaxing, maybe having a few drinks?
The whole airport seems like something that looked so incredibly nice as a model in some conference room that no one bothered to figure out if it would work as an actual building for actual people. They just went ahead and built it.
If I were going somewhere in DC, and arriving domestically, I'd want to use National too. Much, much easier. (Mind you, for me, I can walk to that airport so that biases me even more.) This would be true even after Dulles gets Metro.
The worst airport is the last American airport you were in.
No, this was the third one.
Right, the customs one after you claim your baggage. The US loves to make everyone go through that. Enlightened Topless Europe sometimes has a sign for declaring stuff, but otherwise it is almost invisible.
re: 209
Right, and OK, if it's the law, then staff it with enough people. I swear there are more staff on the customs channels that you just waft through unmolested in most European airports than there are on the massive line at Dulles.
The Omaha airport is pretty great. Close to downtown, only about 200 yards from parking to the security line, and a Taco Bell (even if the Taco Bell isn't behind security).
211: I would have appreciated the Omaha airport more if it had been closer to Lincoln.
The drive from Omaha to Lincoln in a blinding snowstorm remains one of my least pleasant driving experiences of all time.
The really mean bit about US customs is that after you put up with the endless hassle required to get all the way through them you just end up in a country where massive amounts of really important things are falling apart from sheer neglect and Donald Trump is a leading candidate for high office. I'm not sure why people bother, honestly.
then staff it with enough people
Absofuckinglutley! Biggest issue and Dulles is unfortunately not an outlier on this. It is as if they want people to have a very bad first impression.
Having been to the Minnesota State Fair, I assume it must be the deep fried food on sticks. But surely people could just make their own at home if they really wanted to.
The Lincoln Airport is great except for the fact that there are hardly any flights.
You can stop at the SAC museum halfway to Lincoln.
It was better when it was in Bellevue.
Actually, I've never been to the new one.
Dulles, like the TWA & Pan Am terminals at JFK, was designed very early in the jet age. The terminal was designed for expansion on its long axis, and it has been. But its function has changed a lot. Now it mainly is the ticket counters, baggage, security, and a station for the train to the actual terminals.
Here are two cool videos from the late 50s / early 60s that cover the concept.
Dulles International Airport - DC's NEW Airport
Washington Dulles Mobile Lounge Concept Video
The Lincoln Airport has a HUGE field and barely any traffic. Must have been designed to B-52 specs.
Possibly. The airport in my home town (with no commercial service at all) had a huge runway paid for by the feds. Everybody said it was for if the bombers had trouble.
220: The old Pan Am terminal was awesome. It's kind of sad that it's gone.
The 2nd video (a cartoon) notes that IAD will address the issue of multiplying piers and long, long walks that may come with modern airports. Departure lounges being added on to the piers is also presented as a space-eater.
One of the many amusing things in the cartoon is the reference to the large number of gates at other airports. 17 in Philadelphia! 25 at National! 25!
Still some drama getting the rental car, getting out of the airp, and finding the hotel (near Chantilly) in the paperless map era (but if your phone doesn't work, the brave new world is just a house of pain). Anti-climactic. Glass of St Emilion, and a much delayed night's sleep.
The Omaha airport is pretty great.
Also: Cleverly situated so that most of the attendant noise only bothers people in Iowa. If you can even call them "people"
If you haven't been back in a while, it's now easier to get there from downtown.
Oh hey, I noticed something in my recent intra-national travel: There's a little restaurant in one of the terminals in the Charleston airport that's called "Phillips" and uses the same Olde Englyshy font that the Phillips liquor company uses on some of it's self-branded products. Do they not distribute Phillips liquor as far south and east as NC? It seemed an awfully strange choice to align one's (presumably at least somewhat ) aspirational airport cash sieve with the image of grubby plastic pint flasks of rotgut sticking out of a yellowed snowbank in March.
228: Do you still have to wait for trains sometimes? That was always the chief hassle.
If you want to take a train out of the Omaha airport, you have to wait a very long time.
Thanks but that's too far. I'm going to finish this and then have dinner at the bar.
232: Yeah, that's the one. So they don't have Phillips back East? Or everybody just pretends not to notice? Denial ain't just a river in New Jersey, I guess.
There's one of those Phillips restaurants in the Harrisburg airport. In fact, it's one of a total of two restaurants in the Harrisburg airport, the other being Subway.
I've never heard of Phillips liquor before. They are apparently based in Minneapolis. Some of the brands look familiar, I guess the "Phillips" branded stuff doesn't get distributed outside the area where it's been traditionally distributed for 80 years.
There's lots of tradition bound up in drinking culture. Like that and looking like a tool while drinking absinthe.
Huh. I was under the impression that some of their stuff was pretty widely distributed nationally, but perhaps that's old information.
I didn't say I thought mobile lounges were wonderful / better than alternatives, but now out of contrariness they will be the great cause of my life.
Likewise, I was surprised when leaving the mid-Atlantic region and seeing that not every liquor store had the entire line of "Jacquin's" bottom-shelf disgusting cordials ($11.99 for Creme de Menthe, Amaretto, Sloe Gin, Ginger Brandy, whatever you want) in bottles that all look the same haven't been redesigned for 50 years.
I remain surprised about the schnapps with floating bits of gold in it.
I also did not realize that Phillips wasn't a generally distributed very inexpensive liquor. Is it any good, though? I've been generally trying the low shelf gins and bourbons and a lot of them really are pretty good. I haven't worked up the courage to try Phillips Gin though.
I pretty much only drink Beefeater when it comes to gin. And I proudly serve Old Crow at home.
Old Crow IS good. I tried a bunch of those cheap ones and some were terrible. Heaven Hill is terrible. Old Crow is literally the cheapest you can get in PA, and it's fine.
I like Ezra Brooks but not Evan Williams. Fortunately, I don't really dislike Evan Williams because I can't remember which one I like most of the time.
244.last is wrong. Banker's Club is $9.99 for a liter. I looked it up because I thought Banker's club was the cheapest as they serve it in the Cage. It isn't bad.
A banker's club has a knob on the end
I like Evan Williams way more than Old Crow. For scotch, if you can find Bank Note it's a pretty decent blend for $18/bottle.
I like Evan Williams way more than Old Crow. For scotch, if you can find Bank Note it's a pretty decent blend for $18/bottle.
It's not on the PA list. There is a Banker's Club gin. You can get a handle for $13.
Old Crow is a bit rough on the end for me. Ancient Age is lighter but smoother as well and doesn't have that subtle hint of being poisoned. Evan Williams is a genuinely solid (not great, but good) bourbon that lives on the bottom shelf for no reason other than that they decided not to raise its price five or six dollars. Old Overholt gets a little more expensive each year but it definitely has a few more years in it before it's remotely fairly priced.
Beefeaters isn't really very cheap though. Gordon's mixes beautifully; Gilbey's is fine but tastes mostly like watered down Gordon's; Burnett's is a decent standby and usually what I get when they don't have Gordon's, but doesn't have enough sharpness for some cocktails; and Seagrams is actually a surprisingly good but deeply weird gin which still works in the same set of drinks but makes them taste different.
I sometimes miss the time before people realized that Elijah Craig and Jim Beam Rye were really great.
I think cheap cordials/rotgut is highly regional. The brand around here (New England) is "Allen's", including Allen's Coffee Brandy, aka the scourge of Maine.
My favorite cheap whiskey is Early Times, and it comes in a handy plastic 1.75 ml bottle so you don't have to worry about breaking it or running out too quickly.
My favorite cheap whiskey is Early Times, and it comes in a handy plastic 1.75 ml bottle
Buttercup is so desperate for liquor that she has started drinking the free samples of perfume that you get on the covers of glossy magazines. Scandinavian stereotype CONFIRMED.
and it comes in a handy plastic 1.75 ml bottle
Decimal point gone walkies? 1,75 ml would be about 0.06 fl oz - scarcely even a dirty glass.
I visited a vineyard in Margaux, where they sold the product in (I think) 100 ml phials on the grounds that you could take one on board an aircraft in most jurisdictions. People in the party were buying them for Christmas stockings.
I remain surprised about the schnapps with floating bits of gold in it.
Surprised how?
I guess putting bits of gold in stuff is a thing. But it's not a thing I ever encountered personally in another way.
Well, no, but you're not the target market for it, are you? It's tacky liquor for idiots.
It's not really visibly tacky. You can't really tell that it's anything but clear liquid unless you squint at it.
I actually had toast with jam with bits of gold in it for breakfast this morning. I won a pot of the stuff in a raffle. It's from Fortnum's.
hahaha my bad. I meant 1.75 L bottle.
I always call that two and a half fifths.
It's from Fortnum's.
Just like in the Sayers books.
There is a funny smell in my basement. Probably just the drains.
I once went to an Eid party thrown by a crooked Brigadier in the Pakistani army, where the sweet rice came covered by a thin sheet of gold. I wasn't at all surprised: it was totally in character.
Is there a not-crooked Brigadier in the Pakistani army?
Probably just the drains.
My French drains are clogged again. Probably tree roots, but I won't know until I look.
Do you have several drainage systems of different nationalities? A veritable United Nations of waste pipes?
I think it's named after a guy named "French." It's just the perforated pipe that drains below the house.
Clan MacGregor's scotch is one people overlook too because it comes in large plastic bottles and you can find liter bottles of it for less than ten dollars. But it's weirdly good.
"Weirdly" in this case means "doesn't really taste like scotch so don't try to replace other scotch with it". It's a lot more like some odd cross between scotch and irish whiskey, but if you like that grainy/citrusy/coppery flavor in whiskey, or like to drink toddies in winter it's definitely worth a try.