One of the restaurants in my regular rotation the past several years has been The Habit. It's a hamburger chain that grew out of a few successful family-run burger shops in Santa Barbara. Some number of years ago... maybe 10?... they started franchising across California. Having actually been to the original stores before they started franchising I ( Read more... )

Right after I posted my almost-leaving-for-Mexico blog from the United Club Lounge yesterday morning I saw this little number: a robot busing dishes.

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The first thing that struck me was, "Yeah, this is the kind of thing that happens when we raise the minimum wage." I'm not anti-labor or anti-paying people living wages. It's just the reality of ( Read more... )

New Zealand Travelog #13
Te Anau, NZ - Thu, 11 Apr 2024, 7pm

It's a well known fact for Americans (well, some Americans) that when we travel pretty much anywhere else in the world we have to convert distance measurements to/from kilometers. New Zealand is no exception to that ( Read more... )

Australia Travelog #24
Leura, NSW - Thu, 28 Dec 2023, 8pm

Hawk and I are back at the hotel now after a long day of hiking. First we hiked the Three Sisters then a big loop down into the canyon and back up at Wentworth Falls. We worked up a pretty good appetite from all that. We drove next door to Katoomba for supper, as that's the town with the ( Read more... )

A few days ago I posted " Tipping is Getting Ridiculous", a blog entry about some of the recent excesses of the growing custom of tipping in the US. The thing is, tipping is not just getting ridiculous, it already is ridiculous ( Read more... )

Tipping is getting ridiculous ( Read more... )

Marriott International launched a program this week called "The Envelope Please". It will begin placing envelopes in its guest rooms in up to 1,000 hotels reminding guests to tip their housekeeper. The program has been developed in conjunction with women's charity A Woman's Nation and spokesperson Maria Shriver. Example news coverage: at CNN.com, ( Read more... )