This one seems like a no-brainer to me. Has it really taken them this long to figure that out?

The U.S. discriminates against blind people by printing paper money that makes it impossible for them to distinguish the bills’ value, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

– CNN: Court rules paper money unfair to blind

I’m more inclined to say “it’s about time” instead of “yay!” In our last building there was a legally blind woman working as the cashier in an all-cash shop. Even with her holding the bills very close to her eyes, it was pretty clear that had people been less scrupulous, she would have gotten cheated many times a day.

I’m no good at traveling, I rarely take vacations sometimes because I either don’t want to go on my own but mainly that I have no head for making the arrangements. Trying to wrangle good air deals and good hotel deals (in a good hotel no less) just drive me batty. I’ve been pretty consistent in the cities I fly to which are visiting parents, a friend in New England, a friend on the West Coast and the once in a blue moon trip to Vegas. I’ve only kinda noticed the airlines going through trouble lately, and since my flights are usually between large airports, I haven’t paid much attention to it.

For American travelers, the shift means that they can no longer bank on scheduling flights to reach their destination within a single day, said Robert W. Mann Jr., an industry consultant in Port Washington, N.Y.

– NY Times: Airlines’ Cuts Making Cities No-Fly Zones

The article is primarily about air service being discontinued in smaller cities’ airports, and many of those residents were already used to driving up to 2 hrs to get to the airport. I will never fly into Savannah again because the drive to get to either grandparents’ house felt almost as long as the flight would be from DC. And I read about airlines starting to act like banks, bilking you out of your money via micro-fees. It makes you wonder where the industry is headed.

My friend has been a little flaky regarding a trip to Barcelona. We’ll have a place to stay, and I’ve asked my father about buddy passes to make the flight. It all sounds good, in theory, but I doubt that he understands his flakiness means that the responsibility for planning our holiday is on my head and that’s just a big mistake. And the recent story about JetBlue making a passenger sit in the toilet makes me wonder if the buddy pass is such a good idea too since you’re technically considered “lower” than employees in the booking system.

Whatever happened to the glamour and fun of air travel? Your vacation used to start the moment you left the house, now it doesn’t seem to start until an hour after you’re back on the ground. Maybe I just need to find a job where some travel is involved and it’s all handled by my company!