Month: April 2008

How long do we have to wait till Travelodge's Movable Pod Hotel will be launched?

Travelodge TravelPod 1
The “New” TravelPod
The "New" TravelPod Interior
The “New” TravelPod Interior

The Travelpod is Travelodge’s answer to a tent and can become a movable Pod Hotel.

From its July 28th, 2006 Press Release:

Travelodge has produced the ultimate accessory for lovers of outdoor entertainment. Forget waterlogged tents – now you can have for the first time, a mobile bedroom or ‘Travelpod’ to make even the fussiest festival-goer feel at home.

The room comes complete with a luxury double bed, bedside tables, lights, duvet, pillows, fully carpeted floor, dressing table with light, mirror, chair and even its own WC.

The palatial pod is sealed in a 6 metres (Length) by 2.4 metres (Width) x 2.6 metres
(Height) clear polycarbonate glass box but inside has features that you will find in any Travelodge hotel across the country…

Wayne Munnelly, Travelodge’s Director of Sleep said:…”This summer we are running a few private trials which will allow me to work on the levels of light, noise and privacy allowed by the Travelpod. We will be opening up the test to customers next summer, targeting festivals and other major outdoor events.”,

From its August 20th, 2007 Press Release:

Today Travelodge unveiled its second generation Travelpod – the world’s first mobile hotel room. This latest version has been designed with new features in response to findings from the initial Travelpod trials in 2006.

The modified Travelpod is 40% bigger than the initial prototype. It has been styled in the hotel company’s contemporary room design, incorporating a red, white and blue colour scheme… and has – Air conditioning – Heater – Flat screen TV – DVD player with a collection of DVDs – Ambient lighting which includes bedside lights and a illuminated headboard – Tea / coffee making facilities – Washroom with biodegradable toilet and washbasin with running water facilities.

In addition, the furnishings are made from recyclable timber and lighting has been designed to use low wattage bulbs. The room comes complete with a luxury double bed, bedside lights, duvet, pillows, fully carpeted floor, window blinds, dressing table with light, mirror and chair.

The palatial pod is sealed in a 6 metre (length) by 2.4 metre (width) x 2.6 metre (height) clear polycarbonate glass box, but inside, the features replicate the conventional Travelodge hotel room just recently re-designed.

Leigh McCarron, Travelodge’s Director of Sleep said: “The Travelpod is a ground breaker in outdoor accommodation. We ran some tests on the original Travelpod concept last year and those findings have been used to develop this second generation model for customer trials.”

The new Travelpod will be tested over the next couple of months and the general public will have the opportunity to participate in trials by entering a prize draw at www.travelodge.co.uk.

My musings:

  1. It seems a great concept, a trailable hotel room, or is it just a publicity stunt and aren’t they planing to do anything with it?
  2. Do I miss something? The dimensions are exactly the same. Then where does the 40% more come from?
  3. I wonder who will be the present Director of Sleep..and whatever that may be “A Director of Sleep”?

MyBlogLog: Something Old and Something New

This is a re edited post originally dating back a year. (Yes I am trying to getting organized).

Some time ago I was inclined to kick my MyBlogLog widget from this Blog, because its server didn’t respond quick enough and caused hung pages on this Blog and several other Blogs.

My first introduction to Bloglog was by Guillaume of Hotel Blogs who had the widget already quite some time. I got curious and registered in January 2007.

Basically MyBlogLog was about counting. Counting the incoming and especially the outgoing links as a tool for the Blogger. The main reason seemingly to make it possible for the Blogger to see the clicking through in detail, as Google Adsense gives such a tiny little bit of information. Community building is also possible, but only as an afterthought I believe. The best part of MyBlogLog still is its recently revamped widget, especially because you can visualize your visitors if they also have a MybloLog account.

In January 2007 My Bloglog was acquired by Yahoo. See: The Jig is Up.

Browsing around I hit upon the Everybody Hurts post on the Blog of Mybloglog

Quickly thereafter I found The Rise and Fall of My Bloglog

and here is the other side of the story: Shoemoney is part of the problem

It all came down to the fact that a lot of people were using MyBlogLog to spam. Shoemoney pointed it out and the result was he was banned from MyBlogLog. An example of killing the messenger. MyblogLog cured the problem and apologized to Shoemoney and case closed.

In their recent revamp they are trying to make MyBlogLog a sort of center of your community building. It is not bad, but BlogCatalog does it a bit better. I don’t like it that MyBlogLog apparently allows non Blog authors to join and seemingly to incorporate non claimed blogs as well. The advantage of the also recently revamped BlogCatalog is that you can unfollow feeds of “friends” in you dashboard. But both are worthwhile to pursue.

Getting Organized: Backpack it, Samurize it or Springnote it?

Getting organized is high on my wish list. Sometimes I see ideas from the corner of my eyes: I found some ideas, but are curious whether my readers have thoughts on the following gadgets:

Any thoughts?

Are Bloggers the Slaves of the 21nd Century?

A couple of recent articles drew my attention:

Just remembering that GTD (Getting Things Done) author and organizing yourself guru David Allen stopped blogging even before I started this Blog….

High Five (1) The one and Only

Pension Manfred Klaus, Weingartsgreuth Germany

Manfred Claus

Today a short review of Pension Manfred Klauss, because one of our Austrian relatives called for their address and I want to be able to find its address back here at my blog.

This little Inn (“Pension” in German) is located between Wurzburg and Nurnberg in Germany.
This is about half way between The Netherlands and Vienna in Austria which we visit frequently. It is also nicely half way if you like to go skiing in Austria from The Netherlands.

We have stayed there many times. It started more than 40 years ago when my parents in law stopped for a couple of hours of sleep at the Motel Steigerwald next to the gas station Steigerwald along the A3 / E45 motorway in Germany, see the map. The motel had no vacancies and the attendant at the gas station directed my father in law along a rural back road (actually only allowed for local traffic) that brought him just 500 m from the motorway to a very peaceful little inn operated by his parents in law. The gas station attendant still works for the gas station (more than 40 years now) After his father in law passed away, his wife and his mother in law still run the place. Last December I stopped at Steigerwald under way to Vienna to refill my car and I visited them for a cup of coffee, while I offered the hostess a couple of roses to stress our enduring relation. In recent years we use to fly more than to drive to Vienna so we see each other less.

They offer you a very clean bedroom with a good bed nice crisp sheets and an excellent breakfast. I if you arrive late, you can buy a nice bottle of local wine: The Wurzburg Nurnberg region has excellent wines that the locals like so much that you can hardly find them outside the area. All for a very decent price. So although it is not a luxury hotel, it offers you the luxury of a clean comfortable bed to crash in and go on with your traveling. In addition, in a nearby restaurant they serve excellent food. Reservations for both the pension and the restaurant are recommended.

Off Topic
This is my first post from a computer with the Linux operating system. It is the Suse 10.3 distribution. It is a steep learning curve, but I am glad that I may be able to say good bye to the Windows operating system….