Joe Taylor Jr.'s Blog

By Non-stop, We Meant You Won't Start

I was pretty excited to land a nonstop flight from PHL to SFO for a business trip this weekend. Things looked pretty good upon check-in: minimal security line, plenty if space to stretch out on the plane.

The only thing stopping us right now is our plane's lack of a functional navigation system.

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Christmas Eve in Athens, GA: Five Years Later

Five years ago tonight, I posted the original version of this image to my Flickr stream.

This is what you see when you drive through the center of town at midnight on Christmas Eve: festive decorations, welcoming shop windows, and no people.

I found myself at this intersection on the way home from the hospital, where Lori had just come out of life-saving open heart surgery. She had stabilized, and had made the transition from anesthesia to the medication she'd be on for the next week. As Lori drifted off to sleep, the nursing team sent me home for the night. (Our house was just on the other side of downtown.)

Thanks to everyone who helped us make it through these past five years.

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How to Use Wawa: Four Rules for Philadelphia Visitors

I got to share this photo a little earlier than expected, since I was sharing a fun iPhone app with a client. Still, she confirmed what anyone who has spent time in Philadelphia knows by heart: Wawa is more than just a convenience store, it's the nexus for peculiar Philly culture.

Philly natives know the drill at Wawa. It's full of contradictory cultural norms.

• The Wawa Door Hold. You must hold the door open for the person behind you, especially if it means you must wait a few seconds for someone from the parking lot to catch up with you.
• Touch Screen Camaraderie. Wawa installed touch screen menus to speed up the line at the deli/hoagie bar, since we always like to chat with the person taking our order. This just means you exchange pleasantries with the counter clerk as you pick up your $2.99 Gobbler instead.
• Checkout Scramble. Lest you think that Wawa is an island of civility, the Modern Matriarch documents the events that occur when a new checkout line opens in the store. It's every man for himself, and the Wawa Way is to not get upset if someone behind you makes a mad break for that surprised fourth clerk.
• Gas Pump Grace Period. Ever since the emergence of Wawa locations with gas pumps, a variation of the Door Hold rule stipulates that it's fair game to make a quick visit to the indoor market shortly before or after filling your tank. This has been grandfathered in from the time when you used to have to leave a twenty with the cashier before pumping gas, then return to the cashier for your change. 

And that's the Wawa rule that got me thinking about a story idea yesterday, when I was pumping my own gas and watching an exchange between a fellow citizen and someone who was clearly not a regular Wawa visitor.

I'm gonna say that he had a Gobbler under one arm, since it's only here for a limited time and all, when a ruddy face popped out from the minivan parked behind an idle car across the pump from mine. "HEY YOU!" the driver shouted. "You can't just leave your car here and go into the store! I'm in a hurry and I need that pump!"

The driver can't possibly be from around here, since the last thing you want to do to a native Philadelphian is encourage some passive-aggressive behavior. "Chill out, man! I just got my hoagie when I paid for the gas. It's how this works here," says Gobbler Guy.

Ruddy minivan guy starts bellowing obscenities, so Gobbler Guy leans against his car and unwraps his sandwich, savoring each bite. The minivan lurches around to my side of the gas pump. Uh oh. I'm only on gallon three. Once the angry guy was on my side of the pump, Gobbler Guy peels out, proving another Philadelphia law. Getting upset and acting out over something you can't control only causes you to wait longer.

Olive's Lazy Saturday

Olive's our little North Carolina girl. We adopted her while we were living in Charlotte, and this whole "snow" thing is really strange to her. On a cold winter's day, she likes to curl up on the windowsill and watch the world in high-def. Actually, she likes that every day.

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Gloucester Road Station

This is the view we enjoyed from our window at the Bailey's Hotel each morning. It looks like a movie set.

What follows is some kinda nerdy detail that folks who read my credit card blog will be into:

Probably the most striking change from the last time I visited the UK was the ease of converting dollars to pounds. When I was in school, I probably spent a chunk of time each week at the MoneyGram desk or at the Bureau de Change converting cash from my American bank account into legal tender.

On this trip, we set up a free checking account at Bank of America with a debit card pre-approved for European travel. We used that debit card at the Barclays Bank branch one block up the road, where we enjoyed no ATM fee. At retailers, we used the debit card and got an exchange rate that was far better than I expected. The only time we got hosed was on the first purchase I made at Harrod's. The cashier suggested that she ring up my purchase in U.S. dollars, and it didn't occur to me that they used a conversion rate that was about 10% higher than my bank's.

Although we didn't encounter any issues paying with plastic during the trip, many of the cashiers I met showered pity on me because the security features on American credit cards are so far behind those in Europe. Here, merchants rely just on the magnetic strip and a little hologram to ensure that our cards are legitimate. Retailers in the UK use a "chip and pin" system that reminds me of the PennCard I used to use in the 90s: you leave it inserted in the payment device while the system analyzes security and recent usage data stored on the card.

I had my CapitalOne card in the hotel safe just in case my debit card got skimmed. From previous experience, I knew that Bank of America would be able to lock down my debit card if the cashiers' omens came to pass. 

Fortunately, we didn't need to worry about that. It was fun, however, to see my balance printed out on the ATM receipts in Pounds Sterling.

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