News: Free WiFi with coupon codes

Use these codes for free WiFi on the three U.S. airlines using GoGo’s service

• Delta: DELTATRYGOGO
• AirTran: AIRTRANTRYGOGO
• American Airlines: AATRYGOGO

Check out these links for more coupon codes:

Gogo Inflight Free WiFi Coupon Codes [My Money Blog via Gizmodo]
Free Gogo Internet. Pass It On [FlyerTalk Forums]

Hope your holiday flights go smoothly and without delay!

Source: LifeHacker

News: Fly me to the moon

Virgin Galactic plans to provide sub-orbital spaceflights to the paying public, and it looks like this may become a reality in the very near future.  The plan is that the first commercial spaceport will open in New Mexico just next year!  “[F]or $200,000, … people [will fly] 60 to 100 miles over the Earth’s surface to experience around 20 minutes of weightlessness. Most planes fly about seven miles above the Earth. Sixty miles is high enough to see the curvature of the Earth. Flights are expected to start leaving the atmosphere next year.” (-Broomfield)

Further in the future Virgin Galactic plans to offer orbital spaceflights as well.  Maybe someday there really will be flights to the moon.

TTT: Restaurant Week

Triangle Restaurant Week is coming soon, so mark your calendars.  This year it’s May 11-17.  Several of my favorites and a few I want to try are on the list.  $15 for lunch and $20 for dinner = 1 app, 1 entree, 1 dessert.  Make reservations to guarantee your spot and don’t assume all the restaurants serve both lunch and dinner.

Check out info on restaurant week in other places at National Geographic’s Intelligent Travel blog.

TTT: Travel Tip Tuesday

TTT: Swine flu

As someone who’s supposed to be heading to Mexico within the next couple of weeks, this swine flu thing is at the forefront of my mind right now.  I’ve been reading a lot about it, so I’ll share with you what I’ve found so far in the hopes that this might be useful to someone.

Triangle’s first Anthropologie now open!

Spouses of Triangle shoppers, BEWARE!  The Triangle’s first Anthropologie opened yesterday at the Streets at Southpoint in Durham.  I love their dresses and tops and jackets and knick-knacks and curtains and… okay, everything.

Image from A Design Affair.

News: Save broadband competition in NC

A friend recently let me know about this news about NC broadband on Slashdot:

The good people of Wilson, NC pay $99/month for 10/10 Mbps internet service, 81 TV channels and telephone service. How’d they manage that, you ask? Well, the city-owned and operated cable service called Greenlight came into being when the City of Wilson approached TWC and local DSL provider Embarq and requested faster service for the area. “TWC refused the request. And so Greenlight was born,” says blogger Peter Smith. “Now Time Warner Cable and Embarq are upset that they’ve got competition, and rather than try to go head to head with Greenlight on price and service, they’ve instead been lobbying the state government of NC to pass laws to put Greenlight out of business. Apparently they’re having some success, as the NC State Senate has proposed bills that would do TWC’s bidding.”

This is terrible news for consumers of high speed internet services like myself.  Read more about the bills at Brian Bowman’s WordPress blog about the bills.  If you’re as fired up as I am, write to your North Carolina legislators.  Look them up here.  If you don’t remember their names, find them here.

Earthquake in Italy

The earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy earlier today has killed nearly 100, left thousands homeless, and ruined much of the city’s treasured Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance architecture.  (Sources: CNN,  National Geographic’s Intelligent Travel blog.)  Keep those people in your thoughts and prayers.

News: Ryanair to charge for the BATHROOM?!

I understand times are tough. I understand the airlines are feeling it. AND I understand that Ryanair offers ridiculously cheap flights. The fact that they’re considering putting coin slots in the wc doors, however, is ridiculous. *sigh* Read more at Yahoo.

Amsterdam crackdown on brothels, marijuana cafes, etc.

Back in December, I read this article on Tripso about Amsterdam’s plans to crack down on brothels, marijuana cafes, and sex shops. Specifically:

They plan to close more than half the city’s brothels, sex shops, peep shows, and marijuana cafes, in order to drive organized crime from the city.

A friend of mine is heading there in about a month, and I was wondering if there had been any progress with this.  I found this clip from Attack of the Show, and I learned a little more.  They closed about 1/5 of the the marijuana cafes because of their proximity to schools.  Plans are to shut down more cafes and brothels over the next 10 years.

Oops!  You figured me out.  I mainly was thinking about this as a way to torture you with more of my Amsterdam pictures.    What do you think – is the pic of the bikes better in black and white or color?

News: Another plane crash

Very sad news:

A Continental Airlines plane crashed into a home near Buffalo, New York, late Thursday, killing all 49 passengers and crew members and a person in the home, authorities said. CNN