Doctor Says "Avoid TSA Body Scans"

The doctor for Neil Young, Steve Jobs, and others has recommended to opt-out of full body scans:

RULE 56 Avoid airport backscatter x-ray scanners. Until science can prove the safety of such machines, he explains in his new book, “I’ll be requesting the manual pat-down massage when I go through the TSA’s gateway at airports. You should too.”

There have been no long-term medical studies of the dangers of this new technology.  As the Doctor says, those who want to live a long life will opt-out of the scanners.

 

The lunch meal was the typical choice of chicken in bread pocket or shrimp salad with soup.

Boeing 787 Dreamliner Battery Problems

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner problems resurfaced in Japan.  Until the battery issues are fully resolved or old-style batteries are used, I will not be booking on this technological marvel of a flying time bomb.  It's not worth the excitement risk of an in-flight fire.

Dreamliner battery overheats:

A Japan Airlines 787 Dreamliner remains grounded at the Narita airport in Tokyo a day after white smoke was seen billowing out of a battery compartment. And Boeing has confirmed that one of the lithium-ion battery cells onboard overheated while the plane was parked on the tarmac.
The news of the battery failure comes just over a year after another 787, also owned by Japan Airlines, parked at the Boston Logan airport suffered a similar battery overheating issue that eventually caused the grounding of all 50 Dreamliners for more than three months as Boeing fought to find a fix.

Did maintenance or airport mains power contribute to the problem?

This latest incident took place while the 787 was undergoing maintenance ...

Book "War Beneath The Waves"

Read War Beneath the Waves, by Don Keith.  I was excited to read this World War II story of near-mutiny, commander failure, bravery, and heroism under the sea.  The writing was sloppy - several repeated phrases and sentences.  More glaringly, much of the writing was done in modern newspaper story - every sentence is a paragraph.  This is a great story of submariners, grit, and heroism.

Pitfalls of splitting reservations for CPU upgrades

Assume their are two tickets in a reservation.  Booked and flown by person with status who is eligible for Complimentary Premier Upgrades (CPU) and the other person has no status.

Upon checking in electronically, it will ask if you want to split the reservations for CPU purposes.  If you choose to do so, there are several downsides:

• $5 credit for united.com TravelBank club (requires yearly one-time payment to enroll) will be applied for one ticket, not both.  It is possible to request the other ticket be credited.
• If a flight is delayed/cancelled, the systems will automatically rebook for the person with status - even putting you on a codeshare flight.  If the goal is to get to the destination within a few hours of the originally scheduled time, this is beneficial.  Unfortunately, the system will not prioritize the person without status, and they will be on their own.  On a heavy weather day, this could be a big problem because the two fliers have a good chance of being split-up, with one suffering an overnight stay.  This is obviously not acceptable for most couples or parents flying with children.

If you are flying into weather problems (winter east coast storms can cause significant ripple effects with planes and crews), consider carefully if you should not split the records for CPU purposes.  While you may forgo an upgrade, you will have a better chance of arriving on time.