I made pretzels again today – this time, things went smoothly. I let the butter soften for a long time and distributed the dry ingredients a bit more carefully before putting in the water, and was very cautious in adding a little extra water to incorporate the remaining flour. I hardly had to clean up any flour dust, and the dough hooks came out almost clean. The dough wasn’t too sticky when it came time to roll it, either. Practice makes better, right?

Our long-delayed volksmarching award booklets arrived today; I’d sent them in for processing just before the first of the year, so I expected them to be delayed by the holidays. Then the AVA had some issues with their postage provider which were only resolved last week – so the booklets went into the mail on Monday and arrived today. I couldn’t really say that the delay was critical, though; they’ve been ready to send in since 2002!

And Diane’s new iPad mini came in; we’d ordered it on January 10 and been given a delivery window of February 15-22. The first indication of progress came yesterday, when they sent a shipping notice and UPS tracking number showing expected delivery today. I guess they bulk-shipped the units from China to California before sending out notifications (unlike previous purchases, which I followed every step of the way from Shanghai to here).

We had a few glitches in getting the new iPad set up as a clone of her old one, but it’s done now; once Diane’s sure the migration was successful, I’m going to turn the old iPad into a hub for HomeKit. Not tonight, though!

We got an update from our travel agent telling us about changes for the flights for our Alaska cruise this summer. The return flight from Vancouver had been changed – instead of a nonstop to San Jose, it was now a nonstop into San Francisco. Flying into San Jose would require a change of planes in Seattle (or worse) and would add a couple of hours to the trip – so we’ll fly to San Francisco and be happy.

The news was worse on the outbound flight – instead of leaving San Jose at 4pm and getting into Fairbanks at midnight with a couple of hours layover in Seattle, we were now going to leave at 8pm and arrive at nearly 2am, with only 42 minutes to make our connection. I was not amused.

I found a flight which leaves San Jose at 3pm and arrives in Fairbanks at 11:20pm, nearly the same schedule we’d originally had. But the flight numbers are different, so they have to reissue the tickets. Go figure.

And our travel agent for a 3-week river trip we’re taking next summer in Europe said that he had to move our group from AmaWaterways to UniWorld – details to follow. He promises that the price will be slightly lower and the itinerary will be better. I hope so!

Yesterday’s adventure in booking train travel also meant that I had to update my Tripit/calendar integration program to understand “rail objects” in the Tripit data stream – the hardest part was looking at my code and figuring out what it did again. After that, it was easy to adapt the code that handled airline travel to take care of trains. Most of the changes needed were because the field names in the Tripit data are different for planes and trains; I probably could have made the code smart enough to handle both, but it was easier to make a copy of the airplane code and change it.

At least there are flowers to enjoy!

I decided to finish booking the rest of the travel for our next trip, which meant figuring out how to get from New York to Baltimore. Since we were going downtown-to-downtown, Amtrak seemed like a good idea.

I saw a “Deals” tab on the Amtrak site and clicked it, not expecting to find much. I was wrong – they were offering a two-for-one sale for Valentine’s Day, ending today. I grabbed it; the fare on the Acela train was less than taxi fares to and from the airports at each end, and it should be more convenient.

This afternoon, we went to Oakridge Mall for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic; Diane likes Levi’s and hoped to find them at Macy’s. The mall was rather empty – lots of vacant storefronts and not many shoppers; it wasn’t quite as deserted as the last days of Vallco but it was startling.

Macy’s had the jeans she wanted, at 30% off; finding a functioning fitting room was a challenge, but we eventually succeeded, and she bought them. When I got home, I decided to see if she’d gotten a good deal; I’m not sure. Every store I checked (Kohl’s, Dillards, JC Penney, and even Levi.com) had a 30% off sale on those jeans!

We’ve been accumulating travel points for many years (we joined AAdvantage in 1981, just a few months after its initiation). In the olden days, we could sometimes redeem airline points for as much as 10 cents each for trans-Atlantic business class flights, so we’d hang onto them until we had enough for a big redemption.

The airlines caught on, and they’ve been steadily reducing the value of a point and removing the chances for big payouts. So have hotels. But it’s still generally been useful to save the points for a big trip.

Of late, though, we’ve been directing our spending towards cards that pay back in cash or that offer bonuses for specific purchases or redemptions. Getting $20 back from the Apple Card isn’t as exciting as getting a trans-Atlantic business class ticket “free”, but times change.

Today, we burned a lot of points for an upcoming multi-city East Coast trip. Our transcontinental flights were paid for by Chase Ultimate Reward points (worth 1.5 cents each); I bought a $79 flight from Richmond to New York with 7500 American points; but the big expense was our hotel in New York. I have status and lots of points with Marriot, and they have many hotels to choose from. I wanted to get the freebies (especially breakfast) that are included with my status, which ruled out quite a few of the hotels; in the end, we looked seriously at the Times Square Edition, the JW Marriott Essex House, and the St. Regis New York.

The Edition looked, umm, interesting. And the location was attractive. But when we read about the bespoke fragrance that they pump through the hotel, we decided to skip it.

I’d heard about the Essex House since I was a kid – I remember hearing announcements on TV shows that “guests of this show stay at the Essex House”, and I actually booked a room there. And then I found that there was a $35/night “amenity fee” and read some reviews that said that the hotel was a bit on the tired side.

The St. Regis is an old-fashioned luxury hotel. Each floor has a butler; as a Titanium member, we’ll get our free breakfast served in our room (I think we also can eat in the restaurant if we prefer); the location is great; the reviews are mostly outstanding. And there’s no “amenity fee”. So I changed our reservation to the St. Regis.

It’s nice planning travel again! And we still have lots of points to use, too!

It was Valentine’s Day; cards and chocolate had featured roles.