Our Staff is the Sour Patch Kids!

Ever had one of those rotten days?  Where things never seem to fall into place for you?  Then as you think its not going to get any better someone comes along and brightens your day.  Later as you reflect on the day you realize it was at that point in the day when you met that little ray of sunshine that everything turned around.

Our staff here at Hampton Inn Alexandria Old Town Area South have had several members of our staff stand out in turning someone’s day around.  It’s really because Luana Fitzgerald takes their job to heart and connects with out guests even when they are having a bad day!  It’s always nice when someone is warm and approachable at work and it really shows in their conversations with guests and Luana exemplifies that on a day in and day out basis.

It’s because of our people that we our guests enjoy coming back repeatedly and being welcomed by name as they come back to our hotel.  How many times has business travelers visited other properties repeatedly only to be greeted as if this was their first time?  We take pride in our positive attitudes and client recognition and strive to give a wonderful experience back to our guests, no matter what kind of day they are having.  Some days are easier than others but with team members like Luana it makes it easier to do.

Bigger is Better

As technology continues to evolve, technological devices are becoming larger or smaller depending on their function. Cell phones and laptops/tablets are becoming smaller and lighter making it easier for us to carry our contacts and work with us. However, other technological devices that are stationary such as televisions are becoming larger, allowing us to view a bigger and higher resolution image from our office or home. Fortunately, we can reap the benefits of both types of devices when we connect them together.

While it is convenient to carry your laptop computer around with you and work on it at your leisure, it is much harder to have several people working from a single laptop at the same time. Plugging a laptop into a large monitor that can display the laptop screen to the entire group makes it much easier for everyone to view the image, website, or document. In the last two years, we have purchased 36" LCD monitors for all of our rooms throughout the hotel. These monitors/TVs are compatible with both PC and Macintosh laptops. If you have the cables to connect laptops to the monitors you can turn your room into a presentation room if you and some co-workers are getting together to discuss matters.  Bring your group project, staff meeting, or brainstorming session to the comfort of your room and take advantage of the available technology.

Of course if your meeting is too big for a room we have our meeting room that can do this and so much more!  Welcome to Alexandria, the city where business never sleeps, well until you do!

When You Deserve The Best

Many folks struggle with the idea of being deserving. They feel that there is something wrong about them. That's why they feel they don't deserve happiness, love, wealth, you name it. Here are three things to avoid when trying to change your life. When you are trying to feel you do deserve all the best.

1. Avoid comparing yourself with others, especially if they have more than you of whatever. You are unique and your situation does not match anyone else's. See yourself as an individual with your own special range of influence, which you truly have.

2. Avoid comparing your present life with your life as a child. You were essentially powerless as a child, as is every child. What was then when, you were a child, does not control what can be when you are an adult.

3. Avoid negative thinking. It is said that people have between 50,000 and 60,000 thoughts per day - - most of them negative. If most of your thoughts are negative, and they will be unless you make a concerted effort to change them, just think how you are perpetuating negativity in your life.

So, there is another side to this coin of thinking you deserve all the best. Here are three things to seek in your daily life - - leading to a better feeling about what you deserve.

A. Seek to define yourself as who you really are. One idea you need to distinctly consider is this: You are a child of the Universe. Yes, if you will, you are divine. Therefore, you deserve all the best.

B. Seek to know that what occurred in the past, whatever is was, need not limit you now. The past is gone. As much as is possible, forget it. Live in this moment. Make the most of this moment.

C. Seek to express yourself positively. You start that by be conscious (aware) of your thoughts when you take a minute, make a minute, to consider what you are thinking. Sounds peculiar, I know. But in order to halt the negativity in your thoughts, you must be come aware of those thoughts. Then, when you discover negativity, replace it immediately with positivity.

Now, take these things to avoid and things to seek and apply them to life now. I believe you will feel immediately more deserving.

Traveler’s Bill of Rights

Enter The Coalition for Airline Passenger's Bill of Rights
A one-woman juggernaut named Kate Hanni was on the American Airlines flight that was grounded in December, and has taken her story all the way to Congress. Hanni formed the Coalition for Airline Passenger's Bill of Rights, which is calling for a passenger bill of rights to be written into law; the organization's Web site is worth a look.

The Coalition's proposed Bill of Rights reads thusly:

All American air carriers shall abide by the following standards to ensure the safety, security and comfort of their passengers:

·  Establish procedures to respond to all passenger complaints within 24 hours and with appropriate resolution within two weeks.

·  Notify passengers within 10 minutes of a delay of known diversions, delays and cancellations via airport overhead announcement, on-aircraft announcement and posting on airport television monitors.

·  Establish procedures for returning passengers to terminal gate when delays occur so that no plane sits on the tarmac for longer than three hours without connecting to a gate.

·  Provide for the essential needs of passengers during air- or ground-based delays of longer than three hours, including food, water, sanitary facilities and access to medical attention.

·  Provide for the needs of disabled, elderly and special-needs passengers by establishing procedures for assisting with the moving and retrieving of baggage, and the moving of passengers from one area of airport to another at all times by airline personnel.

·  Publish and update monthly on the company's public Web site a list of chronically delayed flights, meaning those flight delayed 30 minutes or more, at least 40 percent of the time, during a single month.

·  Compensate "bumped" passengers or passengers delayed due to flight cancellations or postponements of over 12 hours by refund of 150 percent of ticket price.

·  The formal implementation of a Passenger Review Committee, made up of non-airline executives and employees but rather passengers and consumers -- that would have the formal ability to review and investigate complaints.

·  Make lowest fare information, schedules and itineraries, cancellation policies and frequent flier program requirements available in an easily accessed location and updated in real time.

·  Ensure that baggage is handled without delay or injury; if baggage is lost or misplaced, the airline shall notify customer of baggage status within 12 hours and provide compensation equal to current market value of baggage and its contents.

·  Require that these rights apply equally to all airline codeshare partners including international partners.

Is this a fair response to years of shoddy treatment of the flying public? You bet it is. And is it better than what we have now? Absolutely. The current Customer Service Initiative mostly says "we'll try our best, but we don't really promise anything." It contains nothing whatsoever setting benchmarks, meeting deadlines, setting compensation amounts, requiring notifications, or just about anything hard and fast. It's all squish and slip.

For example, read American's policies regarding "Essential Customer Needs During Extraordinary Delays"; it's clear that these promises rang extremely hollow in late December 2006. The biggest change in the new bill of rights is that these "policies" will become law. It will no longer be enough to say "it's not our policy to starve our passengers on the tarmac" and have the issue just go away.

Is it unreasonable to ask this of the airlines? I don't think so, as, for the most part, the proposed bill simply holds the airlines to their own policies.

Sleeping Through Meetings

I was walking by one of my meetings and popped my head in to check and make sure everything was refreshed and looking good.  Our meeting space comfortably holds quite a crowd so frequent checks help insure we consistently have everything for our meeting goers.  In this case I had to stifle myself do to the man in the back of the room.   He was head down, arms crossed and I’m sure tow breaths away from snoring. 

This really got me thinking.  I’ve been in meetings before that have been dry or tough to get through but I thank coffee or soda for getting me through those tough times, but how many people catch some Z’s in meetings? 

You can find in the news how council members sleep through meetings or Youtube videos of people falling asleep there is a ton of stuff showing people falling asleep in meetings.  So the guy in my meeting was not unusual but comical just like the girl in the video. 

So what is the reason for people falling asleep?  Is it a dry, monotone speaker, lack of sleep, not enough coffee?  If you find yourself in a meeting and need to stay awake here are a couple of tips to use to keep your peepers open:

·  Pretend to take notes. Writing things down will make you look fastidious, efficient and incredibly interested. Rather than notes, however, your pad of paper can be filled with an array of fun activities.

·  Play word games. This is as easy as picking a word, such as "corporate" and seeing how many other words you can make from the letters. "Corporate" gives you: rat, rate, poor, coop, crop and crap, just to name a few.

·  Count words. Certain speakers, in their monotone, may be prone to repeating certain words, utterance or phrases. It's fun and easy to count how many times Nancy in marketing says "newfangled," Vance in budget says "earmarked" or George from human resources utters "Um."

·  Rate neckties. Start with a list merely rating all the different ties in attendance from 1-10. The list can then be broken down to rate the most colorful, the most original and one you would do nothing but hang yourself with.

·  As mentioned, always keep one ear open to what the suits are rambling on about in case someone decides to ask your opinion.
·  Don't doodle. Doodling on your notepad may be fun, but someone is bound to glance over and note your pages are filled with eyeballs, smiley men or other funky little illustrations. Whatever you are writing cannot be read from far away.
·  If you must doodle, don't draw evil caricatures of the people in attendance. Someone is bound to see.
·  Don't play tic-tac-toe with the person next to you. That's just too obvious.

Travel Gadget

When the first iPad came out just over a year ago, we were sure it would transform travel: Apple's tablet computer married work and play utilities so well, it rendered a laptop excess weight on a vacation. Thirteen months later, our computing behavior has already evolved drastically. Everyone from VPs to restaurant sommeliers to preschoolers are using iPads everywhere. It did not take long for the tablet to find a place in our lives.

Since the second generation iPad was released a month ago, much has been said about the new lighter, smaller, faster model. And the fact that Apple has added significant new features to iPad 2—such as the front- and back-facing cameras—without raising the price (it starts at $499). Let’s consider what the iPad 2 does to further transform travel with its smaller size, new cameras, innovative new travel apps, and iMovie travel videos.

iPad 2 For Travel

1. Packable Size, Speed

Yes, the iPad 2 is light (33 percent lighter than iPad 1) and thin (thinner than the iPhone 4). It’s so fast—two times faster thanks to the A5 chip—that the graphics seem to fly across the screen as you use it. The sleek, skinny iPad 2 disappears in your handbag, tote, or backpack. And at the airport, iPads do not have to be screened separately in the security line.

2. Ample Battery Life

The ten-hour battery life means you can literally not worry about charging your iPad for days. Battery life is simply not an issue. The iPad also has its own voltage converter, so you just need to find a power adapter for your host country and you are all set.

Here are three ways to maximize your iPad’s battery life:

• Turn down the brightness of the screen.

• Limit the apps in your multitasking. Each open app is using a bit of battery. Close out of the apps you aren’t using.

• Turn off the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth settings when you are not using them. They soak up battery power.

3. Cameras for Video Chatting, Hi-Def Video, Photos

The much anticipated front- and back-facing cameras enable FaceTime chats from wherever you have a Wi-Fi signal—airport layovers, coffee shop chats, Madrid’s Plaza de Santo Domingo. More and more cities are publishing maps of their free Wi-Fi hotspots. Though the cameras' video is hi-def, the photos are less sharp than photos taken with the iPhone 4. But in reality, shooting photos and video on the iPad is a little strange. For my iMove travel video (below), I used my iPhone 4 to shoot photos and video, then synced to my computer, then to my iPad. You can also use the USB adapter to sync iPhone 4 photos directly to iPad.

4. Top Travel App Innovations

With the addition of the new gyroscope and cameras, and the existing GPS, the world of travel apps is about to take off. The gyroscope and GPS could enable some very cool virtual tour guides of favorite travel sites—say an iPad tour of Machu Picchu where you point your iPad at a feature and it tells you historical facts. Here are some of the more impressive new iPad travel apps out there:

• iMovie - $4.99

Optimized for the iPad, this app could transform you into a filmmaker. For travel videos, it’s amazing. It makes editing videos simple—little kids could do it. See the section below to read the full review.

• National Geographic National Parks Maps HD App - $4.99

This app pairs hi-res images of points-of-interest within National Geographic HD topo trail maps for 15 parks (Yosemite, Yellowstone, Zion, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, and ten others). The iPad’s Digital Compass will locate you within the park when you are ready to start exploring.

• JetSetter - Free

This visually stunning, content-driven travel app lets you discover travel destinations through a gorgeous layout and photography. The stories and editorial reviews will tantalize you to take a trip—and the app even allows you to book a hotel stay with a cool calendar feature. It also has “Flash Sale” limited-time travel deals.

• Word Lens - Free, $9.99 per language

This app utilizes the camera to photograph and translate text. Right now it only works for English to Spanish and Spanish to English. Still it’s a remarkable service on the iPad. It’s not perfect. I tried it on my friend Mark Adam's new book title, Turn Right at Machu Picchu. It came up with “Turno Correcto a Machu Picchu,” which is a little off, but the possibilities are exciting.

• TripAdvisor - Free

Thanks to the iPad’s digital compass, TripAdvisor’s vast database of user reviews are made available on Google Street maps. Simply locate yourself via the GPS, then read reviews of nearby restaurants and hotels positioned on a Google Street View map. What’s surprising is all the local information. I always considered TripAdvisor to be best for international hotels. But with the app, I located myself in my apartment in Brooklyn and it showed me all the restaurants and businesses on my street with contact info and user reviews.

• Fotopedia Heritage - Free

Brilliant photos illustrate the world’s UNESCO World Heritage sites in this app. The Machu Picchu slide show alone has 59 images.

• FlightBoard - $3.99

This app quite simply lets you see the Arrivals and Departures flight boards in any airport. Pretty handy if you are dealing with weather delays.

• AllSubway HD - $.99

This is the first collection of subway maps from the world’s great cities, from Moscow to Munich to Perth. You don’t need a Wi-Fi connection to use it, so subterranean navigation is possible.

Starting in May, Apple is going to offer free travel app workshops for consumers at their 200+ U.S. stores. At these workshops, Apple instructors will show the latest and best travel apps available.

5. iMovie: Geo-Referenced Travel Videos

iMovie ($4.99), which we loved for the iPhone 4, is now optimized for iPad and so easy to use. The added screen real estate allows for great control and precision while editing your trip video. You can trim video clips before you add them to your edited material, and then re-edit the cuts throughout the process with multiple video editing tracks. The app is so superior, it gives you the confidence to actually cut together a video you could be proud of.

The Cherry Blossom Festival

As we continue to see Japan struggle in the news as of late I wanted to pay my own respects by remembering and blogging about their contribution to our beautiful city.

The National Cherry Blossom Festival is a spring celebration in Washington, D.C., commemorating the March 27, 1912, gift of Japanese cherry trees from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo to the city of Washington. Mayor Ozaki donated the trees in an effort to enhance the growing friendship between the United States and Japan and also celebrate the continued close relationship between the two nations.

In 1906, David Fairchild imported 1000 cherry trees from the Yokohama Nursery Company in Japan and planted them on his own property in Chevy Chase, Maryland. The Fairchilds were pleased with the results of their planting and in 1907 began promoting Japanese flowering cherry trees as an ideal tree to plant around avenues in the Washington area. On September 26, with the help of the Fairchilds' friends, the Chevy Chase Land Company ordered 300 Oriental cherry trees for the Chevy Chase area. In 1908, Fairchild donated cherry saplings to every D.C. school to plant on its school grounds in observance of Arbor Day. At an Arbor Day speech that Eliza Scidmore attended, Fairchild proposed that the "Speedway" (a now non-existing route around the D.C. Tidal Basin) be turned into a "Field of Cherries."

In 1909, Scidmore decided to raise the money to buy cherry trees and donate them to the District. As a matter largely of form, on April 5 she wrote a letter to First Lady Helen Herron Taft, wife of newly elected president Howard Taft, informing her of her plans. Two days later, the First Lady responded:

Thank you very much for your suggestion about the cherry trees. I have taken the matter up and am promised the trees, but I thought perhaps it would be best to make an avenue of them, extending down to the turn in the road, as the other part is still too rough to do any planting. Of course, they could not reflect in the water, but the effect would be very lovely of the long avenue. Let me know what you think about this.

By chance, Jokichi Takamine, the Japanese chemist who discovered adrenaline, was in Washington with Mr. Midzuno, the Japanese consul to New York City, on April 8. Informed of a plan to plant Japanese cherry trees along the Speedway, Takamine asked if Mrs. Taft would accept an additional 2000 trees, while Midzuno suggested that the trees be given in the name of Tokyo. Takamine and Midzuo subsequently met with the First Lady, who accepted the offer of 2000 trees.

The original 1910 gift of 2000 cherry trees from Tokyo had to be burned after they were discovered to be infested with agricultural pests and disease

On April 13, Spencer Cosby, Superintendent of the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds, purchased ninety cherry trees (Prunus serrulata) that were planted along the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial south toward East Potomac Park. It was subsequently discovered that the trees were of the cultivar Shirofugen, rather than the ordered Fugenzo. These trees had largely disappeared by the 21st century.

On August 30, 1909, the Embassy of Japan in Washington, D.C., informed the U.S. Department of State that the city of Tokyo intended to donate 2000 cherry trees to the United States to be planted along the Potomac. These trees arrived in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 1910. However, the inspection team from the Department of Agriculture found that the trees were infested with insects and nematodes, concluding that the trees had to be destroyed to protect local growers. President Taft gave the order to burn the trees on January 28. Secretary of State Philander C. Knox wrote a letter expressing the regret of all involved to the Japanese Ambassador. Takamine responded to the news with another donation for more trees, 3020 in all, of a lineage taken from a famous group of trees along the Arakawa River in Tokyo and grafted onto stock from Itami, Hyogo Prefecture. On February 14, 1912, 3020 cherry trees of twelve cultivars were shipped on board the Awa Maru and arrived in D.C. via rail car from Seattle on March 26.

Remember the help our neighbors give so we can return those favors.  Even if our neighbors are 6906 miles away! 

Come and Enjoy our Easter Package

If you are coming in to the Alexandria area then you can take advantage of our Easter Special! Follow the link below and enter EAS as your Group/Convention Code to gain the Easter deal we have to help families come together! You can only get this deal by following our blog, Facebook or twitter!!

Book your Room!

The special is for April 22nd through 24th so book your room quickly!