Jeremy Johnstone

This week is a mildly complicated travel week for me (or was going to be). With the original flight plan, I would leave Washington, D.C. at 7am on Wednesday and arrive in San Francisco at 9:30am. I would then have to grab my luggage and get from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1 to then board an Alaskan Airlines flight to Portland at 11:20am. Yes, this is extremely mild in the scheme of things, but I hate having to go to baggage claim, walk a long ways, recheck luggage on a different airline, then get re-screened by security in less than 2 hours. Doable, yes, fun, no.

Thinking more about that travel schedule more this weekend, I felt there had to be a better way. The problem is, that is the best route I could come up with because two different parties were paying for my travels (FEMA/DHS on the first part, and Yahoo! on the second part). I decided to call FEMA travel back and see if they were willing to just fly me direct from Dulles to Portland as it would save me a lot of trouble. As it turns out, they have a 5:47pm flight out on Tuesday night which would get me direct to Portland. Not only is this much more convenient (no airline change), it also ended up saving almost $230 on airfare (I will never understand how flights are priced). Add in the savings on rental car and the elimination of a night stay in DC and you come up with almost $500 in savings (hooray tax payers!).

Now for the harder part, this means I would need an extra night in Portland (a city which is already packed with OSCON folks). After extensive digging, I finally found a hotel which had availability and wasn’t in Vancouver/Hillsborough. The new Shilo Inn Rose Garden had a room for all three nights (and is only several blocks away surprisingly enough, would think it would be booked). As it turns out, Yahoo! Corp Travel had a nice discount rate with them (~40%) and my room rate would be only $79.95 a night. This is a $70 a night savings from what I was going to pay before (Holiday Inn), so even with the additional day, Yahoo! is saving money. Then I needed to find a one way flight back to San Francisco, which I did, on United (my preferred airline for mileage purposes) for a meager $182. This again is a savings from before (roundtrip was $330 on Alaskan Airlines), so now Yahoo! is saving about $200 (hooray stock holders!).

So, after spending about an hour digging online and about a half hour on hold for the travel agent, I have ended up saving the government and Yahoo! combined over $700. Needless to say, I feel it was worth my effort and on the positive side, I now get 2 full days at OSCON for recruiting, an extra night to hang out with friends who are there, and about 400 extra frequent flyer miles (not much, but hey, every little bit counts).

Ok, some would say I have taken my passion for Yahoo! to an unhealthily insane level now, but I disagree completely! Today my car got wrapped finally in Yahoo! branding. It’s something I have talked about doing for a long time, just never fully committed to making a reality. Well, those days are now behind us and you can see the newly transformed car here on Flickr:

My Yahoo! wrapped 2006 Honda Accord

I’m going to repost the Q&A from the Flickr set here as well:

Q: Did you really pay for this to be done?
A: No, Yahoo!’s buzz marketing team paid for this.

Q: Does Yahoo! pay you for this?
A: No. I have no monetary compensation for having my car wrapped.

Q: Why are you doing it then?
A: There are a number of reasons, but the simplest of them is that I truly love Yahoo! this much. You might not agree with my passion and ways to express it, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to spread the word about how awesome Yahoo! is.

Q: Where can I see it?
A: I have my car on campus most days. If you are on campus, ping me and I would be happy to show it to you. Otherwise, check my blog and you can find out about my scheduled public appearances with it (aka conferences, Yahoo! events, etc).

Q: Can this be done to my car?
A: Definitely! Ping me and I will tell you where to find out more information (assuming you are an employee of course).

If anyone has any other questions, please feel free to leave them in a comment or IM/email me. I’d be happy to answer any questions anyone has.

The first scheduled appearance off campus of the car is at the car show which is part of Camp Yahoo! 2007. I’ve heard rumors it might be positioned center stage, but we will wait and see if that becomes a reality or not. Unfortunately that is not open to the general public and I am not sure when the first time it will be out in public yet (other than my normal daily driving). Please keep an eye on my blog as I will post future public appearances of the car here, assuming you are interested in seeing it in person.

Finally, if you see me out and about in public, please be sure and come up and say hello. It just might get you something for free by doing so. =) (no promises, but it should be something cool).

Let me know what you think!!

I apologize for the extremely late notice, but James Jones (also of Yahoo!) and I will be giving a talk at OSCON in Portland, OR which you might find interesting. Here is the relevant information:

Yahoo! Disaster Response: Being prepared for the next Katrina

After learning from the lessons of Hurricane Katrina last fall, Yahoo! saw a real void in disaster response which it felt sorely needed to be filled. This talk will outline the proposal of what Yahoo! plans to build which already has positive input from the American Red Cross, Department of Homeland Security, and other non-profit groups. We plan to capitalize on and promote existing open-source technologies, like Sahana, and new open data sharing standards to be better prepared for the next disaster. Come get a quick insight into the system and offer your feedback and comments.

Speakers:
James Jones, Technical Yahoo!
Jeremy Johnstone, Technical Yahoo!

Date/Time:
Friday, July 28th, 2006
11:35am - 12:20pm

Location:
OSCON 2006
Oregon Convention Center - room E141
Portland, OR

Please tell everyone you know who would be interested to come!

Update: room information posted

Was just reminded (sad I had to be reminded) that I somehow had forgot to write up a blog post on my new car. Back in the end of April (20th to be exact) I bought a 2006 Honda Accord V6. It has GPS navigation, XM satellite radio, and every premium option. Gas mileage, while not the best, is still far better than what I had before (19 in town / 28 highway according to the trip computer from my own driving). Here’s a photo I took shortly after buying it:

Many thanks go out to my Grandfather as he helped me out by co-signing the loan. (more…)

I had never heard of it before, but apparently my father just bought one of these Wego Kite Tubes. They seem really intense and man I can’t wait to try it in 3 weeks. Below is one of the best videos I have found so far on it.

Let me know what you guys think of it. Would you ride it? View the full post for more video links.
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