Remember Kyla Ebbert? Probably not, but you may remember my earlier post Too sexy to fly?, about the girl that was told by a South West flight attendant to cover herself to appear more decent to the other passengers while her ensemble was no more revealing than the average summer outfit of any college girl.
It now appears she has been posing for a Playboy photo shoot and appears on Playboy’s website.
Playboy:
After the incident Richard Branson told Kyla she was welcome anytime on his Virgin Airlines. “I definitely have a new airline of choice,” says Kyla, who had been a dedicated Southwest traveler before the incident.
Thankfully, there were no incidents when Kyla flew American to Chicago for her Playboy shoot. Kyla says her whole experience posing for Playboy was a dream come true. “I’ve wanted to do it since I turned 18,” she says. “The Playboy shoot was amazing.”
Given her troubles in the skies, we felt obliged to ask a final probing question. “Yes, I am a member of the mile high club,” Kyla says. “And no, it was not on Southwest. It was on a private plane.”
Getting kicked from a flight proves to be a nice promotional move…and she wants to become a lawyer!
Two months ago a 23 year old (I should say young) student Kyla Ebbert was reprimanded by a South West Airlines flight attendant because she was under dressed. First the flight attendant wanted to boot her, but she was allowed to continue the flight under a blanket eventually.
This “news” hit the US news networks as the girl is contemplating to sue South West Airlines.
Here the NBC coverage:
Blogger Burning Taper pointed to an early 70ies commercial of South West Airlines and questions the flight attendant’s sense of history:
I would say: “This is hilarious”: Look at all those comments! The family lawyer of Kyla: “If this would have been Paris Hilton, she would have been accompanied to her seat and given a complementary drink!”
This week sees the opening of the former Boston Charles Street Jail reborn as The Liberty Hotel after an US $ 150 mio acquisition / refurbishment of 5 years.
The luxury hotel features 300 rooms (i.e. a US $ 500,000 investment per room) of which 10 lavish suites. Not all rooms are crammed in the old Jail, rest assured. There is a modern high rise next to the old Jail dating back from 1851.
The Jail House past comes back in a specially commissioned mosaic by Coral Bourgeois featuring multi- textured tiles depicting historical scenes from penitentiaries and true life crimes, in “do not disturb†door hangers wisely worded Solitary and Alibi, and in the first floor bar that is housed within the jail’s former Drunk Tank.
Ah, they have Molton Brown bathroom amenities, which reminds me I have a rant in my sleeve about Molton Brown.
I wasn’t aware it is almost completely new, at least for The Netherlands, as it appears it was available earlier in the USA, in Taiwan and in France: The Heineken 5 Liter DraughtKeg.
We hosted a party last Monday and someone took a cooled Heineken 5 L DraughtKeg with him and installed it. I noted the recent transport didn’t create any frothy problem when using it.
Installation was so easy and natural that it seemed the 5 L DraughtKeg was there already for ages…(off course similar systems are already on the market for ages). Not so: The guy who brought the keg is an early adapter.
Today, after having used 7/8 of the 5 liter keg on Monday, I took it out of the fridge and had another couple of nice draught beers.
What is it?
It is a mini disposable double walled beer keg. The assumption it being double walled appeared to be wrong after I had seen a video where they sawed the keg through.
It is pressurized and comes complete with an easy to install tap. Just tap the keg and draw up to 20 glasses of crisp draught beer.
And with Heineken’s patented Intelligent Pressure System, you can be sure every glass, from first to last will be perfect.
Getting Started:
It comes with a very simple plastic tap mechanism in a blister pack on top of it and picture instructions showing how to use it.
Chill the keg for at least 10 hours in your fridge.
Remove the tap components from the blister pack on top of the keg.
Remove the green plastic closing cap from the top of the keg.
Snap the ring on top of the keg.
Place the mini tap in the center of the ring.
Details:
After first use the beer stays fresh for 30 days when stored in the fridge.
You can take off the tap and re apply it.
You can store it on its site in the fridge.
No froth forming as with the traditional large keg in a tap installation.
Some foaming during the initial pour is normal. It should settle down after that. For best results, the beer should be cooled for at least 10 hours at 2-5 degrees Centigrade (40-45 degrees Fahrenheit). Do not store at temperatures above 35 degrees Centigrade (95 degrees Fahrenheit). Do not shake the keg before usage. Make sure your glasses are rinsed and cool.
Some considerations
There have been miniature beer kegs around for years, but thus far the tap mechanisms were horrible in use and you would hardly ever get the (at least in The Netherlands required) two fingers froth on your beer.
Apparently Taiwan served as a test market and the first 1,000 kegs imported were sold within two weeks (source Nation Multimedia).
Heineken introduced the Beertender in 2004 together with Krupps. Later Philips followed with a similar system in cooperation with Inbev. It sold tremendously, but the disadvantage was that chilling the beer in the beertender took a long time and storing a half used keg was only possible inside the beertender. So I take it that the introduction of this new 5L DraughtKeg will eat the market of this Beertender.
Dutch seafront bars are already complaining that the they sell less beer because of the 5L DraughtKeg (you have 3 to 4 hours of really nice cool beer after taking it from your fridge). The real reason is off course they charge horrible for a glass of draught beer.
Most important consideration: It is much handier than slaving with crates with bottles.
Most important question: Is it sustainable? Heineken claims it is recyclable….
Sources
More on Heineken Com
More multimedia about the DraughtKeg: Party Heineken
More on the USA introduction at Free Republic
DraughtKeg on YouTube:
On YouTube I found this instructive video about how to install the DraughtKeg. I do not exactly know which language it is, can somebody help me out?:
How to use it
This video hilariously addresses the old problems the DraughKeg solves:
What frothy problems it solves
Two Dutchmen hilariously addresses the sustainability problem: What to do with a shed of used DraughtKegs?
What to do with the empty DraughtKeg
It seems the last one is produced by Heineken itself.
The funny thing is that in order to see video on the Heineken site (Yuck a site entirely in Flash) you have to give some proof of your age whereas no such thing is asked by YouTube…..
In a recent article the Boston Globe reports about the plans to give the Ames Building in Boston, once (from 1893 – 1915) Boston’s tallest building except for The Church of the Covenant, a new life as a hotel. Ehotelier.com also reports about this development from the same source. As the Boston Globe it suggests that the Ames Building will become a boutique hotel. I fear this is over stretching the term boutique hotel a bit with 125 rooms planned.
For the time being the project is christened The Ames Hotel .
The present developer Normandy partners who teamed up with Brit Richard Kilstock and Eamon O’Marah, acquired the property in April 2007 for US $17,7 mio and anticipates a US $ 40 mio redevelopment.
Prior plans to convert this property into a hotel were from former owners Intercontinental Real Estate Corporation and from O’Callaghan Hotels, a Dublin based hotel chain.
Boston based Cambridge Seven Associated, Inc were architects involved in the O’Callaghan plans.
The building itself looks promising as a hotel from the above pictures. I would suggest the developers to have a look at the Vienna Radisson SAS Style hotel which is similar in structure albeit with only 74 rooms a bit smaller and probably more personal.
