On the scale of how much I fly, I am a lightweight compared to some of the people in the movie (and know a few of them). Just like the video says, there is a whole community devoted to mileage running and travel. Watch and enjoy, maybe you’ll learn a little about my obsessive compulsive desire to travel.

I am actually starting out 2010 with a couple of mileage runs, most notably a mistake fare that Continental filed between Washington D.C. and San Francisco for $78 one-way.

It is a great site with a great team behind it and allows users to look at their local communities from a granular level. Users can see crime statistics, restaurants, businesses, food inspections, and tons of other useful information.

• Captain’s Training Blamed in Crash of Flight 3407 – The pilot had never done any simulation training of the kind of icing he experienced the night of the crash. Worse than that is the fact that Colgan allowed him to fly after failing multiple check-rides.
• Pelosi: C.I.A. Misled Congress Over Waterboarding – Pelosi strikes me as someone who only her immediate constituents can stand. She cannot get her story straight and when she tries, it sounds worse than the time before. Their plan of making people think that waterboarding is awful and not worth the lives it saved has somewhat failed, so they fall back on this scheme.
• Maine Bill Targets Parking By RVs at Commercial Lots – Wow, what a surprise, a state government steps in to try and combat a “problem”. If they think that charging RV drivers to park in their state is going to help the economy, they need a basic course in economics. Wal-Mart had no problem with the RVs parking in their lots, but the RV campsites did, they claim they’re struggling, so the state comes to the rescue.

I will be at Wordcamp MidAtlantic in Baltimore this weekend. If you will be there, leave a comment or find me at the conference.

Let me know what you think, leave a comment!

• Marine F/A-18 Pilot Had Chance to Land Before Crash – A disturbing article on the F/A-18 that crashed near San Diego, California and killed four members of a family. The investigation has revealed that the pilot had a chance to land the aircraft before the crash but continued on to Miramar. There is no reason he should not have landed.
• Hot Doug’s in Chicago, IL – I bookmarked this so I would remember to visit when we are there in April. The Duck Fat Fries sound amazing.
• Why the Kiddie Food Movement has got to go – I think it is great that kids are involved in cooking and reviewing food but the author is spot on in noting that children do not have refined palettes. The appreciation of food flavors can take place when one is young but the body has not fully developed taste buds or the brain power to understand depth in food.
• Let’s Get Real About Renewable Energy – Robert Bryce takes a closer look at hydrocarbons and energy consumption in the U.S. He comes to the conclusion that simply moving to renewable energy is not something that is attainable in the short term.
• Burying Power Lines Proves Costly as Hurricane Protection – This has been a heavily debated topic in Houston and other Gulf Coast areas. I knew that burying power lines was expensive but I did not realize it was this expensive. To bury the lines in Houston, it would cost $28 billion. The damage caused to the grid in the last ten years by tropical weather has only been $1.8 billion. Sure, they should bury some lines that are necessary to keep large portions of the city with power, but overall, leave them overhead, I’ve dealt with no power for two weeks, I can do it again.

• At NBC, Conan O’Brien Is Building a Home in Late Night’s Shifting Sand – NYTimes.com – I am interested to see what happens with Conan taking over the “Tonight Show”. He seems like a successful guy and that he will excel in Jay Leno’s spot.
• Gmail Gets Multi-Attachment Uploading – Great news for those who are heavy Gmail users!
• Evacuees: Oprah’s Houston homes grow less safe – Helping people out is great, coddling them is another story.
• Fight Grows in Europe for a Secular Sabbath – Stores being closed on Sunday here in the States was common when I was growing up. Maybe it was a Texas thing. Chick-fil-a is the only place I know of now that is unapologetically closed on Sundays.

• Single Google Query Uses 1,000 Machines in 0.2 Seconds – A neat look inside of Google search. To use that much processing power in such a short time span is unbelievable.
• Yelp and the Business of Extortion 2.0 – If the allegations of Yelp using its ability to change results for reviews to sell services are true, shame on them.
• Delta to Close 170 Gates – As a side product of the merger with Northwest, Delta will be closing 170 gates across the country. The airline landscape in the U.S. is about to look a lot different.
• Easy Poached Eggs – This one is random. We have fallen in love with Eggs Benedict, which requires poached eggs. We’ll be experimenting with them tonight.
• Slice of Stimulus Will Go to Faster Trains – Not enough money to buy a high-speed train though. So we continue down the same path we’ve been on before, one that is plagued with a nonchalant attitude toward the power of rail.
• A Prayer for Archimedes – A long lost text shows that the mathematician had begun to discover the principles of calculus; Long before Newton and Leibniz.