All the Alex Bain you can handle!

Here’s my new favorite panoramic ever taken with my family!

Here’s a fun panoramic I stitched together from dinner Friday night in Naples.

What about their loyalty to me?
Don’t fly United.

I’ve flown 325K miles since 2002 on United Airlines. That’s equivalent to flying around the world 13 times in ~5.5 years.

United has 3 levels of status in their loyalty program, Premier, Premier Executive, and 1K. Up until this year I have always been at least Premier Exec, but twice I was 1K. I’ve finally dropped down to Premier, which still means I flew over 25K miles last year. Whenever I have a choice I always fly with them.

Today, they told me two things about my lowered status that really peeved me:

1. If I want to book my flight with a human being on the phone, they’re going to start charging me $15 per phone call. I prefer to book online anyway, so this shouldn’t be a big deal, except that Lisa and I enjoy sitting next to each other when we fly, and coordinating this usually requires a phone call. Thanks, United.
2. I can no longer book exit row seats in advance. I’m welcome to request them, and to beg for one on the day that I check in, but “advanced reservation” of exit rows is only available to their highest two levels of status.

Well, they’ve made my future travel decisions very easy. I’m going to burn off all the remaining miles and upgrades I’ve earned with them, and never fly with them again, when faced with a choice. I know that this isn’t exactly a hardship, and that they’re not running a charity, but they have an inferior product to JetBlue or Virgin America, and if they wanted my continued business, they had to earn it through loyalty.

It’s a shame it had to end this way.

Here’s a fun, unretouched panoramic of the view from my father’s condo in Boston at sunset last night before the fireworks got going. This is part of why I like to go to his pad for the holiday every year.

Here’s a neat pan I just stitched together of the view from our suite at the Hotel Roosevelt this weekend. It’s a little too wide to appreciate at this size, but if you click into it, you’ll see a larger version.

As you may be able to tell, the “scene” around the pool is surreal. Locals and vacationers alike crowd around this trendy area, and nearly all of them are as beautiful as the surroundings. It felt like we were on the set of a movie. There were a handful of pro athlete and celebrity sightings, too.

Here’s a great panoramic from our hike around the Blue Hills, and below are some other fun shots. Clicking on the pics will take you to bigger versions on Flickr.

Here’s a fun panoramic that Lisa shot for me this weekend up in Hanover.

Let me quickly explain what we were doing up there:

Last year, HBS had a charity auction, and my buddy, Nate Fick, had gone to Dartmouth for undergrad, and graciously donated a weekend near his alma mater, including a hotel stay at the charming Hanover Inn and a terrific dinner at a nearby restaurant, the Canoe Club.

By pure coincidence, we happened to end up on campus the same weekend that Brown was playing Dartmouth in football, so there were a ton of Brown alums on campus, and the cherry on the NH sundae was that my boys came out on top.

Here’s a pan from our game of Apples to Apples last night.

I left in the jagged edges partly because I like the way it looks sometimes, and partly because there was good detail (like the drinks and the details of Lee’s awesome apartment) that would’ve been lost with cropping.

Playing “25 Words” with the Busers & the Barnes

Samantha’s rounding up a Vandy posse on her Blackberry before we head out.

Brought back some Ben & Jerry’s after a dinner at San Antonio Taco Factory. We’re debating which DVD to watch before we head out later. I can’t believe how barren her place’s walls are.