Need to Get Away??

If you having been saving to get away from the everyday, now may be a good time to go, that is if you have the dough. I’ve been flooded with sales and deals for travel. Although the economy is taking a plunge, there are some great opportunities to get away if you can spare the cash. I’ve found deals at hotels in Las Vegas, and deals and sales from Delta Airlines, Hotwire.com, and NorthWest Airlines.

I got a notice that Delta is having a sale on flights from Atlanta, Boston, & New York. Fares range from $69 up to $149. The destinations are pretty much across the board. The cities offered are:

Akron,OH - Minneapolis/St Paul, MN
Baltimore, MD -Moline-Quad Cities, IL
Bloomington, IL - New Orleans, LA
Buffalo, NY - New York-Kennedy, NY
Charleston, SC - New York-La Guardia, NY
Chicago-Midway, IL - Newport News, VA
Chicago-Ohare, IL - Orlando, FL
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX - Pensacola, FL
Dayton, OH - West Palm Beach, FL
Denver, CO - Philadelphia, PA
Detroit MI - Phoenix, AZ
Flint, MI - Pittsburgh, PA
Fort Lauderdale, FL - Raleigh/Durham, NC
Fort Myers, FL - Richmond, VA
Gulfport, MS - Rochester, NY
Houston-Bush , TX - San Antonio, TX
Houston-Hobby, TX - San Francisco, CA
Indianapolis, IN - Sarasota, FL
Jacksonville, FL - St. Louis, MO
Kansas City, MO - Tampa, FL
Los Angeles, CA - Washington-Dulles, DC
Las Vegas, NV - Washington-Reagan National
Memphis, TN - White Plains, NY
Miami, FL - Wichita, KS
Milwaukee, WI

I thought it was a pretty good deal. I trip from Atlanta to New York, any airport s on $99 one way. It would be great if you want to buy now and fly later. The fares have a 10 advance purchase and have to be used by January 30, 2008. Delta’s sale on fares ends on October 31, 2008 so hurry if you want to take advantage.

I was checking out prices at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, and they have several days during the week where the room rate is under $80 a night. That is pretty good deal for that hotel. Typically prices are much cheaper during the off-season and especially during the week. I recommend checking the prices at the hotel’s website and then compare them to the discount travel services like Cheapoair.com, Hotwire.com and Priceline.com. Hotels will have promotions from time to time, but the best deals are likely to be found on the discount services, if the hotel isn’t running a special.

Hotwire.com has deals on Vegas hotels as low as $32 a night. They also are advertising deals on flights on United Airlines and hotels in Florida. You can sign up to their travel ticker and they will email you new deals as they become available.

NorthWest Airlines is over a promotion running now on cruises. Just in time as the cold weather moves in, you can take a vacation to a nice an toasty destination. NorthWest is offering, for every dollar you spend you receive a WorldPerks bonus mile (NorthWest frequent flier program.) NorthWest is offering deals on cruises on Celebrity and Royal Caribbean cruise lines. Cruises on Celebrity start at $299 and a free on-board credit. Royal Caribbean cruises start at $399 and also include a free on-board credit. Both cruise purchases earn WorldPerks miles.

Lithonia Mayor Joyce McKibben Is Voted Out 166 to 47

A special election was held on Tuesday, at issue to recall Lithonia’s Mayor. In a vote nearly 3 to 1, residents sent the embattled Mayor packing. 166 votes ousted Joyce McKibben. The Mayor has been the subject of media reports for months, first after she tried unsuccessfully to fire the city’s police chief. Then there was a period of infighting with the city council. And then there were also those now infamous skirmishes with Lithonia police over computers and access to city hall among other things.

The latest part of this saga was the mayor tried to have a concert promoter prosecuted for making threats against her. That case was dismissed. Ironically that concert promoter was part of an effort to recall the mayor. Lithonia has been in the news for weeks now; I don’t expect this to be over. Mayor McKibben hinted in an interview with local news reporters that she wasn’t going quietly.

Only 20% of registered voters in Lithonia voted in the special election. Now the door opens for new candidates to run for the now vacant office. Mayor McKibben can run again if she chooses to do so. Whoever runs and wins this election, they may still face the same resistance. Although I don’t agree with how Joyce McKibben went about cleaning up city hall, I admit it did need some cleaning. The police chief I think was out of line a number of times, especially with the issues over gas cards and hiring. Also, no matter what powers the city charter gives the mayor, she is still the mayor and deserves respect from city employees.

I also take issue with how members of the city council have acted. Instead of trying to reach a compromise they have resorted to petty bickering. Changing the locks on the building, having employees arrested, and directing police to harass the mayor, and someone altered the city’s website removing the title of mayor from Joyce McKibben’s name, all of this was unnecessary. They should have taken the higher road. On the news tonight a member of the city council, Kathleen deCocq was just overjoyed and very excited about the 166 to 47 vote. She should have just made a simple statement and let it go. It just made this whole process look like a big school yard fight.

I think the Mayor has good intentions, and that she may be right on several things. But personalities, lack of tact and perhaps bad judgment help get us to this point. The real looser in this is the residents of Lithonia. Let’s not forget this is the city that had to ground its city vehicles because it couldn’t afford to pay the auto insurance. The city has had some major problems these past few years. Someone needed to go in and make a change in the way things were done. Perhaps that person isn’t Joyce McKibben, but I do think that someone needs to at least investigate some of her claims, if not only to give residents piece of mind.

Atlanta's Gas Crunch

Most of Metro Atlanta’s motorists are feeling the gas crunch. Atlanta is experiencing a gas shortage that some compare to the 1970’s. Only this time people are confident that the gas supply will get back to normal much sooner. But as more and more stations run dry, people are playing musical gas stations trying to get fuel before their gauges hit “EMPTY.”

There are a lot of people pointing the finger, saying that the Governor didn’t have a plan and knew something like this could happen. One good thing is that the Gov, has asked the Environmental Protection Agency, to relax the rules for special fuel for the Atlanta area until the supplies stabilize. That will mean we will get gas from sources that we normally couldn’t use. That way we get gas in Atlanta, faster.

As we wait the situation out, people are obviously frustrated and its showing. I’ve herd on the news of police being called to stations that do have gas because of customer fights. I’ve seen something similar first hand. I was at a Quick Trip gas station in Dekalb County, and there were people screaming out the window. The lot of the station was just chaos. The station I was at wasn’t fortunate enough to have an employee outside directing cars like I saw on the news. We sure could have used one though, people were lined up in all kinds of ways trying to get to a pump. It almost seemed like the people waiting in line had their own rules for getting gas at this station. People that had pumped gas were blocked from getting out of the lot because people had started lines to try to force their way into the lines coming from the street. It was every car for itself. Well I’ll just end by saying it was a very tense situation. I pumped my gas and got out as fast as I could.

I think we should wait until this shortage is over before we start pointing the finger at who may or not be at fault for this. Perhaps Atlantans can punish those they hold responsible at the voting box this November.

We Finally Hear From Gov. Palin Herself

Well it finally happened, the interview with Alaska’s Governor Palin. Charles Gibson’s interview with John McCain’s running mate was the first of several interviews to air. I now know why it took them so long before they let her sit down with reporters. I wasn’t impressed with her answers. Charles Gibson and even the women from “The View” having interview John & Cindy McCain, have gotten criticism for the questions they asked. First off these people are running for the most powerful position in this country, not the PTA. They need to be asked the hard questions. They may not like the questions, but the people want the answers to them.

Governor Sarah Palin certainly has the republicans party fired up, but what concerns me is how she downplays the state of economy. Just days after the interview aired, Wall Street stumbled. The markets went down, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, insurance giant AIG is in trouble and Merrill Lynch has been sold to Bank of America. What is the “appropriate role of government”? I would think it would be to help stabilize the American financial system?

Gov. Palin told Charles Gibson that “our economy is weak right now.” I think weak would be an understatement. She says that Government should play an appropriate role, but what exactly will that role be. John McCain has flip-flopped on the issue of government bailing out Wall Street. McCain said that government shouldn’t get into the mess that irresponsible Wall Street executives made. But after the Fed announced an $85 billion dollar bailout of AIG, McCain’s tune changed to sound a lot like that of the White House.

Even with the bailout of AIG, Wall Street reacted to the news, and the markets took another tumble. The economy is more than just weak, it’s a disaster. Banks are struggling to stay afloat. Rumors are floating that Washington Mutual is up for sale. I call it homemade financial terrorism. The Housing market and sub-prime mortgages burst, now banks, insurance, stocks are falling.

All before now McCain has been saying that the market will correct itself and now action is needed. But I disagree. The numbers speak for itself, unemployment is up and don’t forget the number of people that have exhausted their unemployment benefits and not found jobs. They almost never get included in the figures which would make the unemployment rate significantly higher than those announced by the government. Homeowners across the country are on the brink foreclosure.

AIG’s bailout, whether we agree with it or not was done with taxpayer money. So if AIG is getting bailed out, I think struggling taxpayers deserve a bailout as well. If Sarah Palin’s interview is any indication of what’s ahead if she is VP, then I’m pretty concerned.

Remembering September 11

Today is the seventh anniversary of the September 11th attacks, the worst act of terrorism on US soil. People all over the country are commemorating the tragedy and remembering those who lost their lives that day. While we remember that day in September, I think we should also remember what lead up to those events and ask ourselves are we any safer? Lapses in intelligence allowed the hijackers to get as far as they did. Lapses in intelligence lead us to war with a country that had nothing to do with the attacks. Today we are still relying on intelligence to keep us safe. Is it working, are we safer? I can’t say. We haven’t had another attack since then.

Seven years after The Towers fell, Osama Bin Laden is still at large, but Saddam Hussein is dead. Recently there was news that the Al Qaeda leader in Pakistan was killed. But still no sight of Bin Laden. It seems like the current administration took a detour in the hunt for Bin Laden. A detour, that sent us to Iraq. Are we safe because of the actions of our government? I want to say yes, but I have to question that. We have put so many resources into stabilizing Iraq; I want to know what resources have been allocated to capturing Bin Laden?

It really makes me wonder, being the world’s superpower, having the best and most technologically advanced military in the world, what’s going on? The next President needs to listen to advice of the trained and experienced military leaders. We need to find Bin Laden, secure our boarders and make sure we have dependable human intelligence to help keep us safe. At this point I’m not sure if the government has kept us safe, or just pure luck there hasn’t been another attack.