We spent last week traveling and relaxing. It was easily the best break I've taken since starting my present gig a couple of years ago. However I would offer some observations from the trip.

Your kids aren't that cute - Sorry to be the one to tell you but your screaming kid is not as cute as you think they are. Even if you've programmed them to scream intermittently (every 5-10 seconds) instead of continuously they are still not cute. Here's an easy test. If you think your kid does something cute multiply the cuteness by 0.1 and you'll come up with an estimation of how cute others think it is. There are plenty of parents in the world that have well-behaved polite children and you can too. However ignoring your screaming child will not make them stop, especially when they've been programmed that the only way to get attention is to scream your name repeatedly.

Also there is another part to this equation. While it is not easy to take your toddlers in and out of backpack carriers when getting on or off a shuttle bus, it is the right thing to do. Stacking them off to the far side of the bus as one more piece of baggage will not make the trip enjoyable for any of your fellow passengers.

Hotels need TiVo - I largely gave up on watching TV some time ago. However in the motel room I still tend to turn the boob tube on and see what I have (or haven't) been missing. There seems to be a rule of motel-TV scheduling, however, that says the one thing you'd like to see will be on at the only reasonable time to eat dinner, go to the pool, etc. Which of the hotel chains will be the first to add TiVo to the room?

Silly wireless passwords - Some hotels, or at least the Comfort Inn Zion, are now putting stupid passwords on wireless access. Sure 12345abcde isn't that difficult to type and doesn't take that long, but what's the point? It is a case of trying to prevent some mythical non-customer from accessing the free wireless at the cost of inconvenience, however minor, to paying customers. Why bother to inconvenience paying customers? If someone who is not a customer is that interested in using your wireless in the parking lot they'll find a way.

Stupid customer service - Once in a while as I'm traveling I've been known to leave a thing or two behind in the room. While not as critical as leaving my credit card and airline ticket in my New York hotel room, that was last year, I left some papers in the hotel room. A couple of hours away I noticed their absence and called. Sure enough they found the papers and would send them to me. But they would only send them COD. So the moral of the story is that a customer who just spent several hundred dollars with your business is not worth spending less than a dollar in postage to get their papers back.