Thoughts Archives - Page 14 of 16

Aug 23 2014

Trip Reports – Love them or hate them?

After finishing my latest trip report, I find myself pondering whether they are even worth writing. I kind of have an answer floating around in my head already, but I’m also curious as to what others think before I write about it myself. Coincidentally, my friend just let me try out his website Get Feedback for free – so I thought it might be a nice time to try out a survey. It’s short, sweet, and not nearly as meaningful as PF Digest’s cuddle poll, but I am genuinely curious as to how people feel about trip reports. Most importantly I’m wondering what aspect of trip reports is most interesting to everyone. Anyway, if you could leave some feedback it’d be most appreciated! I should have embedded the survey below but if it didn’t work you can get to it here.

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Aug 11 2014

Amenity Kit Repurposing for Parents

Lufthansa's current first class amenity kit bag can double as a tablet holder — Lufthansa’s current first class amenity kit bag can double as a tablet holder

Here’s something pretty clever my wife came up with that I’m sure others have thought of. Yesterday, we somehow left the house and drove half an hour before we realized we had completely forgotten our diaper bag. Oops. Luckily we were with friends who lent us some diapers, but that’s a situation we didn’t want to be caught in again.

The stuff inside doesn't really matter too much — The stuff inside doesn’t really matter too much

We decided to leave “emergency” diaper bags in our cars – but the question was what to put them in? Well, our recent trip to Europe has left us with four amenity kits and four sets of pajamas, each with bags. If you travel international business class a lot, these amenity kits start piling up. I’d turn them away but I find I always need one thing on them (usually that I forgot). Like this time, I forgot my toothbrush so the amenity kit came in handy.

Why not make the amenity kit useful? Diapers and wipes go in... — Why not make the amenity kit useful? Diapers and wipes go in…

Anyway, I guess even Lufthansa has figured out that these amenity kits can be wasteful. They told us our kit could double as a tablet case, which is true. More importantly, there was a smaller bag inside that is perfectly sized to be an emergency diaper bag. So we took one of the amenity kits, the bag that held Jess’ pajamas and the bag that held mine, and made three emergency diaper bags! One for each of our cars and a spare, two diapers and some wipes in each.

Pretty simple, but this is the most use we’ve gotten out of an amenity kit for a long time. Between this and letting Little M play with them (she likes to take everything out and put it back in), amenity kits are definitely on the upswing in this household!

Anyone else have alternate uses for amenity kits?

Jul 31 2014

Don’t let Credit Card Companies Cancel Your Accounts

Since I’m still getting back in the swing of things at home, I’ve been doing some housekeeping in regards to my credit card accounts. I figure the “clean up” mentality post vacation should help me alleviate some of the issues I’ve had staying on top of my game. One thing I’ve wanted to touch upon is something that has affected me personally three times in the last year – credit card companies proactively closing my accounts.

I know most readers are aware of this, but just in case, something we always need to remember is that the average age of accounts has an effect on our credit score. The longer the average age of our accounts is, the better. Moreover, the total amount of credit available has an effect on our score as well. Bottom line, you want lots of credit available and an older average age of accounts in general.

Kind of sad to lose one of my first cards ever

So what three cards have I gotten cancelled on me recently? Three no annual fee cards that I’ve just been holding on to to keep my average age older. The first card that was cancelled was half a year ago – Bank of America cancelled the credit card that I had had with them for almost ten years. That was fair since I hadn’t used it in like, eight years, but I wish it hadn’t happened. Then, my Discover Card was cancelled proactively and I was told there was no way to reinstate it except for to apply again. That one particularly hurt because I was thinking about starting to use it again due to the 5X bonuses and my renewed faith in cash back.

I found out about my third card cancellation the day I got back from my trip. I applied for a Delta Skymiles card with a 50K bonus after my buying and cancellation of tickets to Los Angeles. After the second purchase I received a special offer and pulled the trigger. American Express saw I hadn’t used my HHonors card in 13 months, proactively closed it and moved the line of credit over to my new card. This time, thankfully, they let me reopen the card with a simple call. Even if they hadn’t, at least they had preserved my credit line.

Anyway, you may have remembered me mentioning that to stay on top of annual fees I have started to set Google Calendar reminders for myself. I’ve decided I’m going to do the same thing with my no annual fee accounts so that I remember to make at least one purchase on them per year. The majority of my no annual fee cards are my oldest ones and I don’t want to risk losing them. If I’m gonna get shut down, it’s gonna be for shady spending not non spending! jk…sorta. Hopefully this post will help nobody else gets their no annual fee accounts shut down without their consent.

Anyone have similar experiences or any better ideas?

Jul 29 2014

The Most Annoying Things about Coming Home from Vacation

I bet M misses drinking in the First Class Terminal too

Vacations are great. Coming home, not so much. My friend asked me today if I’m going through vacation withdrawal, and while I honestly answered no (I’m glad to be back), there are still some issues that are annoying me in the 24 hours since we got back. Not including finishing the trip report. 😛 What really inspired me to write this post is my lost mail – so let me start my venting list with that.

Organizing Piles of Mail

Usually I really hate sorting through all my junk mail when I get home. Back in the day, it was pretty easy to throw out…well, basically everything. But these days I have to be on the lookout for special mailed credit card offers, or reimbursement checks, or various other things related to this hobby – so it takes some concentration. Not a ton of time, but time nonetheless.

I sure wish I had one of these right now

Well, what usually is a 3 on my annoyance scale got upgraded to like a 7 today when I realized I don’t even have any mail to sort. We generally have the US Postal Service hold our mail when we are gone and it always shows up the day we get back. Well, disconcerting sign #1 was the fact that when I got home last night there were like 5 or 6 pieces of mail in the mailbox (i.e., delivered before the end of the hold). Disconcerting sign #2 was the three pieces of mail I got today – as opposed to the fifty I was expecting, including some new credit cards (old accounts with card reissues).

So…that all kind of sucks. I didn’t check the mail until after 5 PM so I had nobody to call and I really hate waiting for this kind of stuff. I can’t even say my mail is lost in the cloud…

E-mail clean up

While on the subject of the cloud, another tedious task that needs to get done is cleaning my e-mail inbox. Again, this was easier when I didn’t have to keep an eye on various hobby related offers. It’s just something that takes time and energy and a reminder that you are no longer in Bavaria eating pretzels all day. Well, I guess I could still be eating pretzels all day. But yeah, first thing I do when I get back is clean out my inbox and make sure all my bills are paid (or that nothing went awry since they’re all on autopay).

Dishes

In terms of “things I like most about traveling”, not having to do the dishes is towards the top of the list. Sure, I had to do them a few times when we were staying in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, but when you’re in a hotel – no dishes! I’ve done the dishes about 5 times in the 30 hours we’ve been back, which is kind of ridiculous.

“But Joe, why don’t you use a dishwasher?” one might ask.

My response: Good question. As always, I’m kind of stupid about a lot of things

I should consider using these as more than just drying racks

Jetlag

Either I’ve been hit by reverse jetlag or I am fine considering I am up at 1 AM writing this and not tired at all. The new wrinkle though is dealing with M and jetlag. Really, readjusting her to “normal” sleep habits is going to be interesting overall since she was sleeping in the same room as us for the last week and a half (and even in our bed once or twice). She kicked things off by waking up at 2 AM ready for her day (8 AM in Europe). If anyone has tips for dealing with toddlers and jetlag, please share!

Unpacking

Our house is a disaster zone right now since we haven’t found the time to unpack or haven’t had the energy. To top it off, our dog just weaves in and out of suitcases and laundry baskets depositing her hair over all of them. So, I’d better get on that post haste. Jess would kill me if I showed a picture of our living room, but luckily USMNT Soccer player Alejandro Bedoya had a tweet about the same subject this morning.

Real Life

Of course, the worst and best part about coming home is real life. I don’t have to go to work yet so I don’t have much to complain about – but in general it’s so tough to adjust mentally and physically when you get back to your normal life and routine. I don’t envy people who travel for a living though. In the end, despite my complaining, I love home and don’t mind being back.

Final Thoughts

This is just a silly post I’m writing while frustrated about a specific situation. But it did get me curious – a lot of the times the talk is all about the destination (and how we get there) – what annoys people about coming back? I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts. Let me know in the comments!

Oh and if you were following along our trip to Germany and Austria and curious about what we ended up doing regarding souvenirs: three bottles of wine, a bunch of free ducks from Lufthansa, a couple of Christmas ornaments, and tons of Ritter and Haribo. Think that will do just nicely.

View from Neuschwanstein Castle — OK maybe seeing this view makes me wish I wasn’t back…

Jul 22 2014

Is it worth it to buy souvenirs?

I bought a much cheaper version of something like this last time I was in Vienna

Fancy hotels often make you pay for stuff since they think you can afford it. The upshot of that statement is that I’m currently at the Intercontinental Berchtesgaden with a 256 kbps connection; I’d have to pay for more. Since I don’t really have the bandwidth to upload the pictures I’d like to for the trip report, I thought I’d share some thoughts I’m playing around with in my head. I’ve been trying to answer this question for myself: Is it worth it to buy souvenirs?

I started pondering this as we wandered around Salzburg. There are tons of shops that sell souvenirs and take home things – not to mention the museums, street vendors, etc. At the Mozart museum, I was really tempted to buy a 10 Euro music box for M. But that got me to thinking – what is a souvenir worth?

The Christmas & Easter in Salzburg store (closed at the time) is full of....eggs — The Christmas & Easter in Salzburg store (closed at the time) is full of….eggs

If you think of a souvenir as a simple value proposition, it’s really a terrible one. The markup is crazy, but beyond that, most souvenirs don’t have much use. Take the “Christmas and Easter in Salzburg” store we walked by. Look at all those eggs! They are expensive but also essentially useless except for three weeks a year. Which, having typed that out, actually makes them more useful than most souvenirs.

There are plenty of souvenirs for sale at Salzburg's weekend market — There are plenty of souvenirs for sale at Salzburg’s weekend market

As I was pondering all this, with M in tow, I started to think of souvenirs a little bit differently. I’ve said it many times on this blog, we take these international trips to experience and enjoy different cultures. Souvenirs, while generally empirically useless, serve as physical reminders of those trips.

Jess and I bought a ceramic spatula holder from Amalfi on our honeymoon – every time I see that thing I remember our trip. We’ve bought little else on our many trips since. My parents still have a music box I bought them from Vienna over 15 years ago. Maybe that has value for them?

On our way down to Amalfi after hiking from Praiano - 5 (!) years ago — On our way down to Amalfi after hiking from Praiano – 5 (!) years ago

So I guess ultimately the tough thing with souvenirs is determining their sentimental value and then correlating that to their actual monetary value, or at least what I’d be willing to pay. I’d like some way or some thing that I can use to show M this trip we took. Or I’d like to have something that reminds me of what SHE was like when we took this trip. As a parent, every moment is precious, and I don’t want to chance forgetting unique ones. Having some token to remember this trip by might be worth more than the money it’d cost to purchase it.

I’m not sure I’m expressing myself well and if I’m being honest I don’t even know if I’ve fully formed my opinions on the matter. Eventually we’ll be in Vienna and I’ll be surrounded by souvenir buying opportunities – so I’m trying to figure it out for myself before then.

I’d love to hear people’s thoughts and ideas. Are souvenirs a complete waste of money, or do you find value in them? Do you buy them, or do you find other ways to remember your trips (we scrapbooked two or three trips back in the day, now: zero time)? Sound off!

Update: bought this bad boy for 7 Euros today. I’ve got a fever…and the only prescription…is more cowbell!

In case the SNL reference wasn't clear, that is a cowbell — In case the SNL reference wasn’t clear, that is a cowbell

Update 2: Totally forgot about our go to souvenir, wine! Three bottles bought and packed. Huzzah.