Amen!!

That may be true to an extent, but I have to say I laughed out loud when I read about Henry Winkler re-jumping the shark for the kids. :D

FWIW - there's an article in the WSJ today about how old folk like me (I'm 62 - but the person who wrote the article - and was feeling old - is 33!) dislike new technology because it makes us feel old. I don't buy the premise. In terms of what I do to make a living - investments - I am big ^^^ in terms of using a lot of new technology. Like websites that cater to people who buy/sell bonds. I use a GPS in my car - and to play golf. I like XM radio too. We read on a Kindle - and use iTunes for music. All these things may seem pretty primitive - but they give us useful information - entertainment too.

OTOH - Twitter - Facebook? Does anyone really want to know that I'm at Whole Foods - and the chorizo sausage looks great today? I sure don't need that info from anyone I know. As for Facebook - my favorite thing about that is the South Park episode - the one where Kyle (?) goes from 0 to like 400k friends. If you haven't seen it - see it. Note that my 92 year old father is on Facebook - because a lot of people he meets want to have a 92 year old friend on Facebook. Not that any of these "friends" would ever meet him for lunch or dinner :rolleyes:. IOW - be a real friend.

Concerning the cloud - as people who have tons of sensitive and/or hard to get financial records/data on computers - not to mention thousands of pictures and tons of music - well I don't think "the cloud" will take better care of my stuff than I do. I back up every day. Does the cloud? And where does it back up? And what do you do when it gets hacked?

As for the phrase "hard pull" - when I first saw it - it sounded somewhat intriguing and dirty :). But when I found out it had to do with credit card applications <snooze>. Robyn

Got any good (read: low mark-up) sites for bonds?

"Top status" is also deteriorating, koko.

When I started with "our" program, we were all pretty equal at the bottom, which was also the top. Then they added "Premier". Then they started making you re-earn it each year. Then they created "Premier Executive". Then 1K (as you say, with special rooms, special luggage tags each year and each airport, and really special treatment). Now "top status" is UGS, and friends of mine who have it say it's "really something special". Lots of ups to the pointy end of the plane on International, etc. I never made it to UGS, though.

Is top status really deteriorating, or are so many people getting to "top status" that they periodically have to make a new, higher "top status" that's really, really hard to get to (a la HON on Lufthansa) and that now gets the perks we were used to?

feels like Delta. They started the inability to use miles at low awards.

I'm not interested in first class or business class air travel. I just want to get there. This year I've redeemed SMF-Duluth in July (United; 25K); SMF-Brussels, return from Rome in October (American; 40K); and SMF-Washington in November (Continental; 2 persons, 50K). I've paid for SMF-PHL (UA, in April, $297) and SMF-LAX (SWA, in March). That's my entire flight activity for the year, other than the floatplane to Isle Royale, MI. The last two awards were from credit card bonuses. I have banked for future use 35K on US Air and likely 50K from Sapphire.

Most of our domestic and NA travel is "back of the plane". Simply because a lot of our flights out of JAX are on small Embraers - only the pilot is in the front of the plane :). But - for long haul flights - we like the front. I think we're getting too old to be comfy in the back of the plane on a trip like EWR to Tokyo (12-13 hours).

In terms of NA flights - since our dates are usually flexible - we can often get pretty good fares to large cities. I would guess however that a trip to Duluth from anywhere would be pretty expensive (did a quick fare check for a trip in October - JAX/LAX is $370 - JAX/Chicago is $290 - JAX/Duluth is $500). Doesn't make sense to use miles for relatively cheap flights IMO. OTOH - miles might make sense for Duluth. Robyn

OT: Keeping in mind that about the only fixed income I do is callable CDs - treasuries (both coupon and STRIPS) - and munis - and that most is buy and hold - I recommend Zionsdirect ("Bonds for Less") - E*Trade - and Fidelity - in that order. I actually suggest having accounts at all 3 to cross-check prices and inventory. A lot of the prices are the same - and a fair amount of inventory overlaps - because all 3 firms are members of Bonddesk and get most of their offerings from Bonddesk:

http://www.bonddeskgroup.com/

Still - it's good to cross-check. Also to check bond trading histories (easy to do on certain websites these days - to see if the offering price makes any sense). There are pretty much no mark-ups on these bonds - you pay commissions based on what you buy (flat $10.95 per trade at Zionsdirect - which is why I like it the best). Still - the ask price from the seller may be good - bad or indifferent. That's where looking at the trading histories comes into play.

I do trade a bit - longer term position trading - mostly in JNK and STRIPS. The commissions on JNK are pretty much the same at all 3 places. Robyn

The odd thing about Delta is that when it had an "alliance" (or whatever it was) with CO - you could often get Delta reward flights on the CO website cheaper than you could get them on the Delta website. That is still true of the CO website - and some of the flights it offers on other carriers (like Air Canada if I recall correctly). You have to be a little careful though - because some flights that would be front of plane BF on CO in 2 class planes are middle of plane business-class on flights that have 3 classes of service. That isn't always true though. We once got a CO reward ticket on Virgin Atlantic "Upper Class" (MCO to London). I think that may be the only time I've ever been in the front of a plane that had 3 classes of service.

I don't purport to understand the logic behind any of this - because there doesn't seem to be any! Robyn