As I have said before I fly about 100K miles a year and I have learned some things along the way. On Travel Tech I discuss technology that can help you with your traveling. In this week’s post I want to talk to you about delays. I don’t know if you have ever heard this joke but it goes like this.

How do you know a gate agent is lying to you? Whenever they clickity clack on the keyboard at the podium and then speak into the intercom and say these loud muffled words, “It will only be…”. Lies, lying like Michael Vick and his love of dogs. “There is currently a ground stop in La Guardia and it will only be a 35 min delay…” Lie. “There is a pneumatic distillery decongestant unit that is malfunctioning and we are going to be delayed.” “The captain said it will only be 90 min.” Or how about this. You hear the announcement that there is going to be a delay. You get on the line and when you get to the podium you ask “I have a connecting flight at Chicago to Seattle. Am I going to make it?” The gate agent’s reply is to clicky to clack clickty clack on the keyboard and then pick up a black phone from the 70s and dial a mysterious number meanwhile avoiding all eye contact. She gets of the phone and then clickyti clacks and then answers you “It will only be a 45 min delay so you will make it.” Lies. Or the biggest lie of all when you are delayed and nervous about your connecting flight is “Oh Yeah they will hold the plane for you.” Hahaha Lies Lies Lies. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice and make me run from one concourse to the other in Chicago Ohare and suffering an asthma attack on the way and only find out that they did not hold the plane – shame on me.

The truth of the matter is that most agents are as clueless as you are. Since they have been doing this a while they can make educated guesses. Which is usually going to be closer to the truth but when you have oversold planes, irrate passengers, and cutbacks and that agents has to deal with 200 customers all asking the same stupid questions that agent will do or say anything to get rid of you.

In case of delays – information is your friend. Today I’m going to review a website called flightaware.com. This is a great site to get real updates on your flight status. It works well on iphones and blackberries and it is pretty reliable. It will actually give you quicker information than the airline’s website. Here are 4 scenarios in how I use it.

These are just some of the ways that you can use FlightAware. A great indispensable tool when traveling.

As I was writing this I checked FlightAware and they just announced an iphone app. Check it out here.

What are some of the things you use to see airport delays?

This is part deux of my Why and How to Twitter. You can catch part one here.

One of the main reasons I twitter is that I realized that we live in a large world and there are so many ideas out there that we can learn from. I twitter because I am essentially first a learner and then a teacher. Twitter is one of the best ways to learn new ideas but also connect with the people behind the ideas. So let me give you 5 more ways to use twitter.

6. Use the Hashtag. What is a hashtag? A hashtag is a phrase preceeded by a “#” so #yankees or #redsoxsux or #unitedairlines. This is used so that in the multiple volumes of streams of tweets you can assign it a classification. Last week, there was conference that I was interested in. The hashtag was #cat09 so when I wanted to look up to see what is happening I would type in #cat09. Also I’m a huge Yankee fan so I want to interact with other Yankees fans while we are watching the game. I went to my twitter program Tweetie and did a search for #yankees. I could see what everyone was saying and interact with them. If I wanted to add something to the stream of conversation I could add my tweet followed by #yankees.

7. Remember social media is a symbiotic relationship. To really learn and connect you need to have a give and take. Take as much of the information and resources that are available on twitter but also give back by Retweeting (I’ll explain that later), replying to twittered thoughts, and finally commenting on blogs. Tell the twitterer that you appreciate their thoughts. If you can help them in some way then try to help them. I recently had the privilege of helping someone who I have never met other than through twitter by helping them with their airline problems. It was rewarding for me to help someone who I have learned from – to give back to them.

8. Twitter is not about the number of followers but about the interaction. One of the biggest problems of social media is that we have made it a contest instead about content. Twitter is not about how many followers but about how much you can connect with people that have the same interest as you. If you are interested in being a dog whisperer than on twitter you will find others that are interested in dog whispering and you will connect with them.

9. Twitter is not texting. I am guilty of this but remember twitter is not texting between friends. You should text instead of twitter. The point of twitter is not to hold conversations between friends as to what time they are getting off work but to learn or to teach someone.

10. Use the 3 Rs.
R- Retweet – this is putting a RT in front of the tweet of someone else you liked and then adding their name twitter name on it @twittername. For example my friend Steve Patton a youth pastor and rapper impresario from RI who I met once tweeted this morning,

“Make the distinction btwn what you CAN’T do and what you WON’T do. Change is not about can & can’t, its about will & won’t”.

I thought it was a great thought so I Retweet by doing this:

RT @StevenPatton Make the distinction btwn what you CAN’T do and what you WON’T do. Change is not about can & can’t, its about will & won’t

This makes this tweet available to my followers and introduces Steve Patton to my followers.

R- Reply. When you are interested in someone who is teaching you something. Reply back to them and thank them for their thought of ask a thoughtful question. You may get a reply back.

R- Resource. Every one has something to offer. Offer it up if you are good at something. If you make the best brownies in the world. Share your recipe. If you have something funny – share it and it might make someone chuckle. Be a resource to others. Learn and Teach – twitter.

If you have anything else please comment and add your thoughts.

I recently posted up on Facebook that “I love twitter”. One of our parishoners replied that they did not know what to do with it and that they needed “Twitter for Dummies. LOL.” So I thought that I would post here why I twitter and how you can get the most from your twitter experience.

Here we go. If I missed something than please comment and add.

1. Twitter is not Facebook. This is essential. For many, Facebook is the gateway drug to your social media experience. If you were born after 1980 then Myspace was your gateway drug. So you judge all social media through the filter of Facebook or Myspace. But Facebook is not Twitter. As much as Facebook wants to be twitter. It will never be and I hope that Twitter is careful to keep what is twitter to be twitter. I have heard it explained this way. Facebook is for connecting with old friends. Twitter is for connecting with new friends.

2. Sign up with your name and a picture. Since twitter does not have authetication like Facebook where you have to be approved to be a friend. To get real people to interact with you I recommend being you. Twitterers usually do not interact with people who do not have a real name and a real picture.

3. Fill out the bio on the twitter profile. List it with things that interest you and don’t make up stuff. This is how people start following you and start interacting with you. Also when you are making a new follower they will be looking at your twitter profile to see if you are worthy.

4. Use the search feature in twitter. Click here. Type in an interest that you have. I’m interested in church planting, air miles, United, leadership. So what I do is type in and watch what is being said about these topics. Then if there is someone who is saying something interesting I will check out their bio. Check out some of their recents postings and make a decision to follow them. In the twitter search there is something even better which is the advance section. This is really where the power of twitter is. It can narrow down the results – check it out here.

5. If you like someone and think that the people that are following you will also like them then use the #followfriday. On Fridays, it is customary to recommend those that you are following and interacting with to your followers. At the beginning of twitter this was much more common but I think it being less used. Up to you.

Okay that is the start I will finish up the list in a couple of days. To read on further on why twitter. Check out my friend Sam Luce’s post here.

I was recently in NYC and I had a chance to walk around my old neighborhood. For some reason I felt a bit choked up as I walked the cobble stone streets of Soho. For me one of the signs that the NYC I grew up in was not the same was that I went to the old CBGBs. I wanted to get a CBGB shirt for my son who is a moody musician. The old place is gone replaced by a John Varvatos store which I must give credit for keeping the graffitti walls the way they were in the days of David Byrne, Patti Smith, and of course the Ramones. What happened to all of the old stores? Where did they go? All replaced by Banana Republic, Verizon and Victoria Secrets. Where did Canal Jean go? Alas, the city that I knew was no longer. I recently found a slideshow done by Newsweek and it really captures for me the sense of what I feel. Check it out here.

One of the questions that I get asked all the time is “How do you get upgraded on a flight?” Well that is not a simple question. There are many factors that go into that equation. Things have changed alot in the last couple of years in regards to the upgrade process due to the use of computers. In the past, grooming and a nice suit and asking nicely may have gotten you an upgrade but those days are long gone. Today, most upgrades are predetermined before you get to the gate and any other left over upgrades are determined by the computer. There are some upgrades that are called “Operational Upgrades” which are last minute decisions to move people due to an oversell situation in economy. But these are elusive and the agent is most likely going to move an elite into that seat. The Wall Street Journal just did an article. I don’t agree with the whole article but it does give you a simple layout for understanding the upgrade process by airline.

You want a first-class upgrade on your next trip—who doesn’t? But airlines have made it more expensive—and more confusing—to snare one.

In recent months, many big carriers have changed their upgrade rules, adding more restrictions and upping fees. More changes have already been announced for next year. So now is a great time to take a close look and compare airlines’ programs.

Continental Airlines Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. fliers should pay particular attention because Continental is leaving its SkyTeam partnership with Delta this month and joining the Star Alliance with UAL Corp.’s United Airlines and US Airways Group Inc. That means customers of Delta and Northwest will lose some opportunities to earn miles and will see their reward trip options shrink. United and US Airways partisans, however, stand to gain. New York will be a prime battleground since Continental and Delta customers will likely want to choose one or the other, but the changes may lead to frequent-flier program jockeying across the country.

Read the rest of the article here.

If you have read the article you realize there is method to their madness but just because there is a system does not mean it cannot happen. Keep tuned in and I will share with you the art and science to get upgraded and working the system.

Rodney King once said “Can’t well all just get along”. His statement was about the racial tensions in LA but I think the same thing could be said about different technologies. As technology continues to advance I hope that they make newer cooler things but to always remember to make them so that they can play with the stuff we already have. I think one of Vista’s downfall was the fact that when they released it they had no drivers for the printers and cameras and other peripherals that we all use. People and especially businesses were really frustrated. I truly believe that the greatest salesman of Mac products was Vista. Anyway I digress. One of the different technologies that I love is macs and I love blackberries. But the problem has been that RIM the parent company never released a product that can communicate or synch between blackberries and macs. There were developers that had made their own version and some were adequate but they were clunky. Well I’m happy to tell you that RIM will be releasing their desktop software for mac on Friday October 2, 2009. Here is the link to where you can download the free software. Personally I will wait until Monday when the initial rush will be over but if you download it on Friday please write here what your impressions are.

This week, we start our fall series titled The Prodigal God at our church Mt Zion Ministries in Utica and Cornerstone our Albany campus. The series is based on a book by Timothy Keller the well known author of the book Reason for God and the senior pastor of Redeemer church in NYC. Newsweek, has heralded Tim Keller as, “a C. S. Lewis for the 21st century, a high-profile Christian apologist who can make orthodox belief not just palatable but necessary.” I am personally excited to be doing this series in our church and if you are unfamiliar with Tim Keller I would highly recommend you pick up a copy of the book.

Along with my recommendation of Tim Keller I would also like to give Matt Daughtry a shout out. He is a creative ninja. The video that you see was done by him in 4 days and 3 nights. If anyone knows Tim Keller’s publisher they should use this video cause it just rocks.

Finally MMS has been released for the Iphone. If you are a iphone user you know it has been such a headache trying to get pics from your friends that are on other carriers. You get this lame message that would say:

I sent you a multimedia message. You can view my message w/in the next 7 days via the web at www.viewmymessage.com/1 using MSG ID: blah blah blah. What was frustrating was that prior to this summer you could not cut and paste so you had to stand there and try to memorize the user and password. As revolutionary as the iphone is suppose to be it was lame that my son’s $29 dollar Samsung phone could send MMS and the iphone could not. Well, I just tested it and it looks like it works. But you have to get the upgrade to do this. Here is the support article that will show you how to do this. Here is the link.

Enjoy

To all my loyal readers. Sorry to have pulled an Eddie And The Cruisers and just disappeared. It has been pretty hectic the last couple of months but I promise to make it up.

I have a couple of changes I’m going to be making. I will be splitting my blog into three different endeavors. First, I am in the midst of creating another blog for just travel and that is due to the fact that I am currently working on a book just about travel. Second, as many of you know I am going to be moving to Irvine CA to plant a church so I want to devout a seperate blog to church planting. In the midst of looking for church planting information I started working on a church planting initiative that will be a great resource for church planters. So I decided to split the church planting stuff to a seperate website and blog. Third, I will continue to put my irreverent reverend thoughts on this blog. Thanks for staying with me.

This is part two of Parents That Frustrate Youth Pastors.  I am writing this post reflecting on the fact that I am now the father of two teenagers. I am not just any father, but a former youth pastor. The reason I am writing is because I was recently in a circumstance where I caught myself being “that parent”. You are probably asking what I mean about “that parent”. Let me explain. When I was a youth pastor, most of the parents of the young people I pastored were wonderful, but there were a few parents who were well intentioned but a bit challenging. At the time I told myself I would never be “that parent”, but now that I am the parent of teens I have realized that the pull to be “that parent” is strong. So I post this not as judgment (because I am finding myself there) but just a reminder to myself not to be “that parent.” This is part 2.  Please read part 1 here.

The Paula Deen Parent

Nothing wrong with this parent. This parent is the parent that is not only a great cook but blesses us with cookies, cakes, pies, meals. I could be grossly out of shape and you still tell me that I’m looking gaunt and offer me dinner. Thank you Paula Deen Parent.

The Shawshank Redemption Parent.

In the movie Shawshank Redemption the main character is in jail for murder. His fellow inmates ask what he is in here for and the main character replies he is innocent and that he did not do it. The other inmate replies. “ You’re gonna fit right in. Everyone in here is innocent, you know that?” You are the parent that no matter what your child has done, he or she is innocent.

The Sam Malone Parent.

No you are not the parent that serves alcohol to minors. If you have ever been in the restaurant business you know that anybody can make a drink. Anybody can pour a drink. But a bartender is someone who knows how to water down a drink. Strong enough to get someone inebriated but watered down enough to stretch the bottle. Well, there are parents that like to water down everything the youth pastor says.

The Career Counselor Parent

This one is specifically for Asian parents. This parent is solely focused on the post -masters from an Ivy League school career. Which boils down to two things: Doctor or Lawyer. Technology is becoming a strong contender, but with a Career Counselor Asian Parent, you say you want to go into technology. They say, okay, great, why don’t you become a doctor and help people who have carpal tunnel from too much programming?

The Sports Agent Parent.

You are the parent that goes to every game but can’t pray with your child or discuss anything spiritual. You bought and memorized all the rookie cards for your child, but have not memorized any scriptures.

The Doctor Dobson Parent

You are the parent that is enamored with Doctor Dobson. He is God’s gift to humanity and to child rearing. In regards to your children, every sentence starts with, “Doctor Dobson says”… I don’t mean to take anything away from Doctor Dobson, and he is a great guy, but Doctor Dobson is not your child’s youth Pastor. I am. I am the one who buys the $10 cokes, I am the one who drives your child, I am the one who prays for your child. How about giving me some that love you give to Doctor Dobson?

The Ghost of Revival Past Parent.

You are the parent that longingly talks about the past camps, conferences, and lock-ins when God moved when you were in youth group. No matter how great it is today, yesterday when you were the teen in youth group it was even better. One thing that I have noticed is that the further you get removed from an event the more we tend to glorify it.

The Doctor House Parent.

This is the parent that enables the chronic hypochondriac child. I am not talking about parents with children who have legitimate illnesses. This parent takes their child to the doctors more than church, and when their child has a cold, it’s not just any cold, it has to be some deadly virus pandemic.

Please comment and add your own experiences .