First off, the service was spot on.  Just the right amount of attention, my water glass was never empty.  Our questions were always answered politely, even when my coworkers asked about the daily special at least 5 times.  Each time the special was repeated with the same politeness as before.

They carried the favorite wine of my one coworker even though it is not a common or popular wine.  That definitely started the dinner on the right foot.

Then there is the food.  We got the daily special which was the lobster risotto, the scallops ceviche, the brussel sprouts, and the polenta.  First off…if you have any preconceived notions of brussel sprouts from family dinners throw them out the window.  Even I, as someone who enjoys brussel sprouts, think they can be bitter when I make them.  These brussel sprouts were not bitter, tough, or any other negative adjective that could describe them.  I never thought I would rave about brussel sprouts, but these were amazing.  I wish we had gotten 2 portions for the 3 of us they were so good.  It’s funny to read the reviews talking about slow service since we were all surprised by how quickly our food arrived.  There was some time span between being seated and finally ordering, but it was the normal progression of ordering drinks, then appetizers, then entrees.  We skipped the appetizers.  Maybe it was because the other tables were already seated and there was a gap before seating additional tables, but the food came out quickly for us.

My scallops had a hint of ginger which made the flavor pop, but not too much ginger to overpower. I didn’t try the risotto, but my coworkers both thoroughly enjoyed it.

The desserts did not disappoint either.  We had the 2 chocolate options.  The chocolate cake was not the oversweet crap you can get at Chilis or Applebees, instead there was enough sugar to enhance the chocolate and complement the ice cream.  The white chocolate dessert was also definitely worth the 12-minute wait.  The restaurant was conducive to a good conversation, or discuss business as it seemed most of us were doing.

My expense account wouldn’t justify one of the tasting specials, but next time I’m in NYC on my own dime I definitely feel it will be worth it to stop in for a nice dinner.

Great atmosphere, great service, great food.  That is the 5-star trifecta for me.  I thought I knew good restaurants in Charlotte, but NYC definitely delivered a home run here.

Back several months ago when I got my acceptance for a Nexus interview I scheduled the interview with a planned trip to Alberta.  It was partially to cut down on trips, but mostly because that was pretty close to the earliest any airport could see me.

I could have gone to one of the land crossings very quickly and had the interview and dropped in for the iris picture on my next trip to an airport, but it also worked out that this is my first trip to Canada since my acceptance.  I thought about canceling many times to just take a hop up to Detroit, but now my time is here.

Hopefully I will finally use the Canadian money I have been carrying around for months.

Do you need your travel forum fix but can’t wait until you’re back on terra firma and are too cheap to shell out the $$ for gogo?

Well you’re in luck because Milepoint (brought to you by the same people who bring you Boarding Area) is now available for free on flights with Gogo.

Cool or what? Milepoint members can now access Milepoint website for free on over 1,500 flights powered by gogo Inflight, a first for flyers

I highlighted the comparison.  The tower indicates my cellular data and the wifi logo indicates wifi.

I will do my best to rat out others with slow internet because as you can see I track this often.

I should have figured it would be this way since they still use the old access codes, not the current login screen used by most other Hamptons.

I think there are enough places to discuss the rumor already so I will just say what I think.

I have to fly on the cheapest airline within reason (which is why I fly Delta at all living in a US Airways hub) so I have that working against me, but since most of my tickets are booked less than 7 days in advance I often have higher fare class tickets.   A 500 mile, 2-leg each direction trip often costs $500-$700 so this might work to my advantage.  I will have to see how everything plays out with the earning to know if this will actually help me.

I just never got around to making the change because the website still worked after the initial changeover.  I checked this week and realized it no longer worked so I went ahead and changed.

Back to business as usual.

Stay tuned while I read up on Mommy Points to figure out where to start.  She seems to love Chase Ultimate Rewards as much as I do.

Hilton HHonors members can earn double points or double miles for stays from April 1 through June 30, 2012.

HHonors Promotion registration is required. Promotion FAQ link.

HHonors Points & Points Earners with Double Points

Double points means 20 points per dollar for all brands except Home2 Suites where double points is 10 points per dollar. A Points & Points earner gets 25 points/$1 and elite bonuses are on top of that.

• HHonors Silver = 26.5 points/$1.
• HHonors Gold = 27.5 points/$1
• HHonors Diamond = 30 points/$1.

HHonors Points & Miles Earners with Double Miles

Most US airlines earn 500 miles per stay at most Hilton HHonors hotel brands for Points & Fixed Miles earners. Double miles is 1,000 miles per stay.

The main thing to remember with double miles is the low earning rate with most airlines for stays at Homewood Suites, Hampton Inn and Home2 Suites typically at 100 miles per stay for Points & Fixed Miles earners. You are not allowed to switch to Double Points once you have chosen Double Miles, so keep in mind that Double points are likely much higher value than Double Miles if your stays will be heavy on Hampton and Homewood.

There are some exceptions like bmi miles where members earn 1,000 miles per night for up to three nights. That can be 6,000 miles per stay.

Points & Variable Miles is usually the best miles earning preference for guests on extended stays.

HHonors airline partners and miles earn rate link.

Hat Tip to Loyalty Traveler

I prefer Hilton points over airline miles so I opted for Hilton points.

I’ve used VOIP for about 5 years now.  I was with Vonage for a few years but switched to Voipo 2 years ago.  It’s a long story, but I didn’t want to change my business number and Voipo has call forwarding for $3/month and many of the other services promising cheap call forwarding were folding right and left.  I switched to using their full blown and whopping $18/mo plan a year ago.  I like the online controls of Vonage much better, but as a whole the quality of Voipo is as good as Vonage and Voipo keeps adding features without raising my price.  Although the vPanel isn’t easy to navigate, when I do check it out I realize they have added the ability to simulring (ringing my cell phone # and my VOIP line at the same time so if I’m in the office I can answer my office phone and if I’m out I can answer on my cell) which is the key feature from Vonage I missed most.  Voipo allowed me to easily forward all calls to my cell, but that meant if I stepped out for a quick errand I had to forward my calls before I left and change it back when I got home.

Get to the point already, Grace!

So, I just now realized I can use the BYOD (bring your own device) settings from Voipo to use a SIP client on my iPhone.  I always thought I needed Skype, but when I used Skype on my cell phone on a great Wifi connection I kept getting dropped on my conference call and my cell signal where I was didn’t yield better results.  Since I like to try before I buy I’m currently using Media5-phone since it’s free.  It registers with Voipo just fine and I get calls to my office phone and on Media5 simultaneously, but when I answered on my office phone, Media5 kept ringing for minutes on end which was quite annoying.  Also, my iPhone battery seems to drain faster.

I do like being able to return calls from my office line instead of my cell line since I prefer to not give out my cell line, but if I use this extensively I will most likely need to purchase codecs to allow better call quality over 3G or maybe just a better SIP client.

Acrobits seems to come up the most in online discussions and it’s $6.99 in the iTunes store

Bria also is highly recommended and is $7.99 in iTunes.

I always got confused since buying these apps is equivalent to buying a phone, just because you have a phone does not mean you have service.  I just now realized I’ve had service all along!  If I find that I am using the VOIP account more than my normal cell phone I might just go ahead and purchase Acrobits and the G.729 codec (apparently the codec is still proprietary and requires a license for use) to get better quality over 3G.  Best of all, I can call home from abroad and not have to worry about Skype credit anymore!

We’re not even in April yet, I’ve maybe taken the thing on 5 trips and the Micro USB had broken off and is just rattling around in the case.  Apparently this is a known issue from previous versions as well because a simple google search turned up this video from the iPhone 3GS:

Click here to view the embedded video.

(NOTE: don’t actually open it because you can’t fix it!)

I like the form factor of a wrap around case and I like the Micro USB charging because that gives me 2 options to charge and I usually have a Micro USB cord for other reasons anyway, but sounds like this case has issues.