So in 2 days, this will happen:     That will be almost 16 hours of uninterrupted writing. Blog posts, my new book (due out in January, being published by Palgrave/MacMillan), emails for my newsletter… Heck, perhaps even a note to my future child (not that there’s anything in the works yet, calm down, mom…) But there will be writing. It seems that planes are the only place lately where I can write uninterrupted, without the real world, or the Internet, or my mobile phone, or my cat distracting me. (Squirrel!) Planes are my last bastion of creativity. I’ve got a handful of new blog posts to write, including… A true story of how a six year relationship with a [...]

While I’m sitting in my room at the W London, looking out the windows and also zoning out to CNN, it occurs to me – Why don’t hotels simply install flat windows that also have TVs in them – They use illumination-blocking technology that came out ten years ago and is hella cheap now to darken the window a bit the moment the TV is turned on. They save on precious room space, and it looks super-cool. Allows for much, much bigger screens, and when people want to go to sleep, they just shut off the tv, and the curtains come down and darken the room. Am I the only weirdo who thinks this way? What “weird” things can you [...]

Instead of resolutions, I’m creating a list of things I’d like to see happen in 2012. Some are industry in nature, some professional, some personal. I encourage you to add yours in the comments, and check back occasionally throughout the year to see how we’re doing. 1) May 2012 be the year that passive aggressive status updates cease. It’d be so nice to see a status update from someone that simply says “I’m pissed off, I need to blow off some steam,” as opposed to “I wish that I lived in a world where people kept their promises and didn’t lie to get what they wanted while other people were left hoping that happens.” Passive-agressiveness helps no one. Don’t be [...]

Welcome to December, where the majority of us don’t do anything productive. Instead, we half-ass through the month, with the self-fulfilling assumption that “everyone else is out of the office.” Turns out, we’re all still in the office. We don’t actually leave the office until around December 20th, and we all do it at the same time, headed to the same airports, on the same flights, and wonder why it’s so damn crowded! With that, I offer these ten tips as a way to get out of town painlessly this holiday, whether you’re going to Grandma’s, back home, or to an island off the coast of Portugal. These tips work. Trust me. I travel close to 250,000 miles per year [...]

What the end-result of the CO99 EWR-HKK flight looks like: How to tell I crossed the date line: 1) Scruffy beard 2) Flock of Seagulls hair 3) more bags under eyes than normal. Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there. I’m off to make my connection to Bangkok. Hopefully I can catch a few hours of sleep on the flight.