A billboard advertising Anthony, N.M./Texas as the Leap Year Capital of the World is pictured around the time of the first leap year event in 1992. Although the billboard is no longer there, the cities still celebrate those born on Feb. 29.

The border-straddling towns of Anthony, Texas, and Anthony, N.M., are once again inviting international notoriety and welcoming leaplings — people born on Feb. 29 — to celebrate at the Leap Year Capital of the World.

Week-long events began Saturday and included a car show, a golf tournament and an ice hockey game.

The fanfare is a giant leap from the humble origins in 1988 when Mary Ann Brown, born Feb. 29, 1932, read a news story stating that her neighbor, Birdie Lewis, was also a leap year baby.

“I went across the street and said to Birdie, ‘You know, I’m a leap year baby, too. Let’s go to the chamber of commerce and see if we can make this a promotional thing for the town.’ That’s just what we did,” she said, and founded the Worldwide Leap Year Birthday Club.

Subsequently, the chamber, along with the governors of New Mexico and Texas and the  mayor of Anthony, Texas, proclaimed Anthony, N.M./Texas the Leap Year Capital of the World, and in October 1988, former Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) read the proclamation into the Congressional Record.

With no budget, that first birthday club in 1992 was held at Anthony Auto Parts, the family store run by Mary Ann's late husband, Joe Bob Brown, and attracted nine people who gathered for punch and cake. The festival has been growing in leaps and bounds ever since. This year, Brown is hoping for more than 100 leaplings to partake.

Anthony isn’t the only place where leap year is something special. The Z NYC Hotel in Long Island City, for example, is offering a “Leap Over To The Z” package offering free accommodations for anyone born on Feb. 29. A second night is just $229 and has $29 dinner for two at its Diner 247.

But you’ll have to be in Anthony to enjoy the cosmic quirkiness of leap year.

Entertainment will be provided by BarTab. Singer-songwriter Derek Apodaca, on vocals, was born Feb. 29, 1988. “We’re really excited,” Apodaca told msnbc.com. “My family’s griping that I won’t be spending my leap year birthday with them, but this is going to be a lot of fun.”

BarTab is following in some big musical shoes. Graham Nash of the iconic group Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young headlined the festival in 2000.

Turns out Nash is married to leapling Susan Nash, who contacted Mary Ann Brown and asked if her husband could perform at the festival as a birthday present.

"My mom had no idea who he was," said Jerry Garland Brown, Mary Ann's son, "but she said, 'Sure, tell him he and his friends are welcome to come on down.'"

“He played ‘Our House,’ ‘Teach Your Children,’ and so many great hits,” he said. “He told stories about all the songs and some of them were so beautiful they brought tears to our eyes."

Wednesday's festivities will start off with a one-mile parade "starting in New Mexico and ending in Texas," Mary Ann Brown said, and will end with a birthday party — which unlike some of us, is something leaplings do not take for granted.

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Want to bask in Oscar buzz? Consider a stay at the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel, site of the first Academy Awards and just steps from Kodak Theatre.

On a weekend when Hollywood comes together to celebrate the 84th Academy Awards, some fans go on location to celebrate the festivities.

Call it Oscar tourism.

Guests book rooms at posh Hollywood hotels with the hopes of rubbing shoulders with the stars in hotel elevators, halls or lobbies. Most probably won’t get past security at the private after-Oscar parties, but who knows?

Sometimes it's enough just to be in a star's orbit, something many fans from around the world enjoy.

“As soon as the dates for the Academy Awards are announced, we start getting calls from long-time guests who love nothing more than to be here on Oscar night,” says Bob Gregson, sales and marketing director for the Hollywood Roosevelt. 

The first Academy Awards ceremony was held at the hotel’s Blossom Ballroom on May 16, 1929. 

“There were 200 people there and the whole ceremony was over in 15 minutes,” Gregson says. “I don’t think anyone then ever imagined how big it was destined to become.”

In 1942, growing attendance prompted a move to Grauman’s Chinese Theater, directly across Hollywood Boulevard from the 300-room, 84-year-old landmark hotel. Since 2001, the Academy Awards ceremony has been held at the Hollywood & Highland Center's Kodak Theatre, just steps from the Hollywood Roosevelt.

Those same ballrooms used on the first Oscar night this year will serve purposes more utilitarian than celebratory: The Roosevelt is headquarters for E! Entertainment Television, and the network uses the ballroom to stage its coverage.

Slideshow: City of Angels

David Livingston / Getty Images

Visitors to La-La Land will find beaches, culture, history and much more.

Launch slideshow

Guests over the years — during Oscar week and year-round — have included Johnny Depp, Robert Downey Jr., Leonardo DiCaprio, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Alec Baldwin and Marilyn Monroe.

When Clark Gable and Carole Lombard stayed at the penthouse suite, it cost $5 a night. Today, it’s $5,000. Basic rooms there this weekend start at $366.

A newer cluster of stars are shining in the two-year-old Redbury Hotel at the iconic address of Hollywood and Vine. Recent guests at chef Daniel Elmaleh’s Cleo restaurant include Jeremy Piven, Elizabeth Banks and Joe Jonas.

“Any night of the week at the Redbury, you’re likely to see the stars,” says hotel general manager David Lang. “But on Oscar night, you might find yourself walking down the hall where A-list stars are hosting their private Oscar parties.

“We’re getting guests from around the world who are eager to immerse themselves in the buzz that comes from staying at a luxury hotel right in the center of all Hollywood has to offer. They’re booking rooms as much as a year in advance.”

Those rooms this weekend start at $339 a night.

Other Hollywood hotspots:

• The W Hollywood boasts that it allows guests to "watch the stars under the stars." Another Hollywood and Vine address, this one includes a massive outdoor movie screen. Rooms this weekend start at $459, with a minimum 2-night stay.

• Looking to make a splash during your Oscar week stay? Check out the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel & Spa. Its proximity to Kodak Theatre make it the headquarters for the world media due to descend on Hollywood for the Oscars. Renaissance rooms start at $419.

“The logistics of the Oscars tend to surprise guests as much as the glamor,” said Gregson. “There’s security, staff and media, and they’re all crowded around this one little neighborhood.”

More on Itineraries

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Chris Rodell is a Latrobe, Pa., freelance writer who blogs at www.EightDaysToAmish.com.

"From Asbury Park to the Promised Land: The Life and Music of Bruce Springsteen" will be on display Feb. 17-Sept. 3 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

A museum devoted to the bedrock of American democracy will from Feb. 17 through Sept. 3 celebrate a more visceral sort of rock: The music of Bruce Springsteen.

The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia is presenting, “From Asbury Park to the Promised Land: The Life and Music of Bruce Springsteen.”

Originating at the The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, where the exhibition was featured next to the likes of Elvis and Elton, The Boss will now be rubbing monumental shoulders with George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

“No other artist is as steeped in Americana or has better told the story of the American dream than Bruce Springsteen,” said David Eisner, the center’s CEO. “He’s the perfect artist for a center devoted to the robust discussion of American values to feature.”

America has one national anthem, but Americans have dozens, many of them — “Born in the U.S.A.,” “Promised Land,” “Born to Run,” and “The Rising” — composed and performed by Springsteen and the E Street Band. Over the past 40 years, Springsteen has sold more than 120 million albums worldwide and helped define American character as surely as Uncle Sam.

“The only other artists so connected to America are Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, but even compared to them he’s fairly unique,” said Jim Henke, curator of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland. “His songs deal with the struggles as much as the dreams.”

National Constitution Center

The jeans Bruce Springsteen wore on the cover of "Born in the U.S.A."

Springsteen also differs from other artists, Henke said,  in that he had an innate recognition that he was doing something that was transcending the music.

“He saved everything,” Henke said. “So we have the Fender guitar featured on the cover of ‘Born to Run.’ We have the jeans he wore on the cover of ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ The exhibit is a very comprehensive look at his life and his career going clear back to his childhood.”

Eisner, whose favorite album is the stark “Nebraska” from 1982, said he’s been particularly pleased to thumb through the lyric notebooks.

“His penmanship on things like set lists is very hurried, but with the lyrics you can tell he was almost reverential with the words he was composing to songs like ‘Jungleland,’ ” Eisner said.  “It’s also fun to see some of the changes he made from before recording the songs."

With Springsteen playing shows in Philadelphia on March 28 and 29, Eisner is besieged by friends who are begging for any hint that The Boss will come to the exhibit.

Henke said it happened in Cleveland.

“I called up his assistant and said the show was closing and we’d be happy to give him a private tour,” he said. “He said that wasn’t necessary. So on the very last day of the Springsteen exhibit, on a packed weekend, many fans were treated to seeing the Bruce Springsteen exhibit with Bruce Springsteen himself. And he couldn’t have been nicer.”

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Chris Rodell is a Latrobe, Pa., freelance writer who blogs at www.EightDaysToAmish.com. Read his 2009 Springsteen album-by-album blog retrospective here.

The 650-square-foot VIP Spa Suite at Mandarin Oriental in New York City serves up views, a fireplace, deep soaking tub and dual massage beds.

A visit to a lavish spa suite can be an ideal gift for a holiday that celebrates love — especially if you bring along your significant other.

“Spa services are a very intimate and private experience,” says Lori Shubert, spa director at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Farmington, Pa. “When a couple comes in and shares these intimate moments together in a treatment, it brings them closer together and allows them to share a unique experience with each other that they cannot find elsewhere.  Afterwards, they have a fun and romantic memory to cherish.”

A trio of Nemacolin couples spa rooms feature an elegant waiting area with a copper-topped fireplace. Basic spa day packages start at $320 and go up to $540 for specialized services.

Today, high-end spas like Nemacolin consider it a must to offer a couple’s suite to accommodate lovers who enjoy an atmosphere that’s conducive to romance.

As high-end spas go, few are higher than the 35th floor of the Mandarin-Oriental in Manhattan. The VIP Spa Suite includes a private steam room, hot tub, fireplace and side-by-side massage beds. From  Feb. 11-14, the hotel is offering a $1,750 “Valentine’s Day Midnight Magic Over Manhattan” package from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. Packages include lobster, champagne and caviar.

Spa director Heather Hannig says the elements combine to make the luxurious spa the place of frequent proposals.

“It’s very sweet,” she said. “We’re all in on it and do everything we can from sprinkling rose petals to preparing special dishes and surprises to make sure everything goes perfectly.”

A typical three-hour booking of the 650-square-foot VIP Spa Suite -- without the dining extras -- costs $1,500; a four-hour stay, $2,000.

“Some couples will book it for up to eight hours,” Hannig says. “We have lots of anniversaries with guest couples who just want to spend the whole time luxuriating in the romantic privacy.”

In Kohler, Wis., a luxurious couples spa at The American Club Resort is sure to make a splash. The spa features the Riverbath treatment followed by its signature 80-minute massage for two; $225 per person.

The Venetian’s Canyon Ranch Spa in Las Vegas gives guests more than romance. In a town famous for quickie weddings, the spa lets couples get hitched, Rasul-style. Rasul refers to an ancient Oriental pre-wedding night cleansing/purification ceremony complete with candles and rose-petal spreads.

Couples fingerpaint each another with purifying mud before ascending heated spa thrones to bask in the mud’s therapeutic effervescence. The Rasul treatment is $200 per couple.

Oh, and don't forget the chocolates.

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Courtesy Whispering Hope Chapel, Transport for Christ

Whispering Hope Chapel is located on Intersate 20 in Columbia, S.C., and offers truckers a place to stop and worship.

In a secular season when one jolly old soul is hailed for transporting presents in a sleigh, a Christian outreach program is again reaching out to the guys who haul the rest of the stuff.

This is the 60th year for Transport For Christ, a Marietta, Pa.-based evangelical organization operating 34 North American truck stop chapels in 19 states and five Canadian provinces. They aim to keep our nation’s highway rollers holy.

“Today’s interstate truckers face a host of difficult personal and physical challenges,” said TFC spokesperson Jane Evans. “They’re confined to their rigs for long stretches at a time, far from their homes and families. A lot of times they really just need someone to talk to. Anyone feeling the stress of the road is welcome, but we really reach out to our truckers.”

The chapels were established in 1951 and, much like the truckers they aimed to serve, they were out on the road. It wasn’t until 1986 when the first permanent chapel was established at an Interstate 81 truck stop near Harrisburg, Pa.

Evans said they invite truckers to worship in a place where many of them often feel most at home: the inside of a truck. It costs $20,000 to $30,000 to convert an old rig into a house of God.

All the chapels are painted alike so they become familiar to weary truckers. Evans says the TFC’s goal is to locate a mobile ministry within one driving day of anywhere in North America.

“The drivers know we’re there and they look for us,” she said. “Our chaplains were involved in more than 67,000 contacts last year.”

To most every American, the open road has always meant freedom. To truckers, it can be the exact opposite.

“It can be very lonely,” said 56-year-old Nelson Martin, who for the past 35 years has driven interstate trucks an average of 125,000 miles a year from coast to coast. “I have 10 grandkids and really miss my family.”

Truckers have a saying that the only thing they don’t deliver is babies. For instance, Martin is hauling eggs throughout the Northeast from near his home in Meyersdale, Pa. You may think about chickens when you have eggs, but you probably don’t think about guys like Martin.

“The schedules and the miles can be grueling,” he said. “You have to have these eggs delivered by a certain time, no matter what the weather or the traffic problems.

“It can be real sad for guys to be far from home when there’s an emergency or family trouble. There are temptations of prostitution and the urge to drink or take drugs and that can get you fired. These chapels can be real lifesavers and I mean that in every sense of the word.”

Bob Thompson is the owner of the Perkins Restaurant at the original location for the TFC truck stop in Harrisburg. He says the chapel has a spiritual sanitizing effect.

“The chapel really helps keep the illegal activities at bay,” said  Thompson, also a TFC boardmember. “Prostitutes have told police they aren’t comfortable working the areas where the chapels are. The chapels set a tone that lets the drivers know this is a place that’s trying to run a respectable business that cares about their well-being.”

Chris Rodell is a Latrobe, Pa., contributor who blogs at www.EightDaysToAmish.com. 

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PUBLIC Chicago opened for business in October. Hotelier Ian Schrager is hoping its $35 million renovation and focus on "cheap chic" will make the hotel a hit.

Ian Schrager wants PUBLIC, his "new" Chicago hotel, to entice locals to check out the place travelers check in.

"About 150 years ago, the grand hotel lobbies were manifestations of these great cities," Schrager told msnbc.com. "It’s something hotels have gotten away from. We intend to bring it back. We want the lobby at PUBLIC Chicago to be a 24-hour beehive of city activity."

That means mingle nooks, poetry readings, a library, video installations, performances and ambitions to be the in-demand home to Chicago’s best restaurant and liveliest bar.

PUBLIC Chicago is a 285-room, history-drenched hotel located in the Gold Coast neighborhood — about one mile north of the Loop central business district. It reopened to the public in October, though it originally started as the Ambassador East Hotel in 1926.

Sound familiar? It was to an eclectic mix of celebrities ranging from a sex symbol to a Sex Pistol: both Elizabeth Taylor and Sid Vicious were fond of the old hotel. Other famous guests included David Bowie, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Redford, Robert Plant and Frank Sinatra.

And now it's popular with a new crowd.

"The hotel has opened to great fanfare during what traditionally is a slow time of year," said Peter Walterspiel, the hotel's general manager. "Ian's recent hotels have served more niche-type clientele. The name here says it all. It's public."

Moreover, Schrager intends to turn his private venture into a brand. He has plans to open PUBLIC hotels in New York and Miami, and wants to seize on a consumer thirst for what he’s called "cheap chic" with rooms starting at $135 and coffee, an in-room staple that can cost $15 in some luxury hotels, for $5 a pot.

He wants everyone in the city, both the rowdy and the rich, to feel they have a stake in the hotel's success.

"We want the lobby to have a feel of a 1950s coffee house or, really, a Starbucks," he said. "There needs to be an electricity in the air. A great hotel today has to be about more than just a place to get good night’s sleep. The best restaurant and the best bar needs to be right under your roof."

Famed chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten is overseeing what was and by local edict will remain the Pump Room restaurant.

Chicago Tribune food critic Phil Vettel wrote: "The Pump Room ... has recaptured its mojo as a celebrity-spotting, see-and-be-seen destination. The dining room and its attendant lounges are packed every night, and 8 p.m. reservations are the stuff of legend, in the sense that they may not really exist." Vettel went on to say that the food was "solid," and that "Pump Room is a very good restaurant with the potential to be a great one."

Nilou Motamed, features editor for Travel + Leisure, recently cited Pump Room as a must-stop spot for travelers visiting Chicago.

Schrager says he was urged to change the name of the fabled restaurant so he put it to a vote. "We had more than 28,000 votes and keeping it the Pump Room won in a landslide."

So far, PUBLIC is getting public approval.

"For me, the best part is to see couples 60 to 70 years old sitting right next to 20-something couples and both of them enjoying themselves," said GM Walterspiel. "The neighborhood seems to really have embraced the hotel. It's becoming a gathering place."

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Chris Rodell is a Latrobe, Pa., contributor who blogs at EightDaysToAmish.com

The lost and found at the fabled Breakers resort in Palm Beach, Fla., is the size of a two-car garage and contains contents worthy of Fort Knox.

“There are expensive bracelets, Rolex watches and diamond earrings worth more than $10,000,” says Arthur Birmelin, director of security.

Mere baubles compared to some of the items distracted well-to-do guests have left behind at the oceanfront resort.

“We had one guest forget a satchel with more than $200,000 in jewelry,” he says. “Housekeeping found it. The watch alone was worth $100,000.”

The owner said it was a gift inscribed by Johnny Cash.

“She asked we mail it back to her in Nashville,” Birmelin says. “We told her insurance considerations prevented us from doing that so she hired an armored car to pick it up and drive it back to Tennessee.”

The richest people in America are just like the rest of us. They forget stuff, too. But it's what they forget that fascinates us.

Diana Bulger is the spokesperson for the posh Fairmont Hotels & Resorts. She canvassed her associates and found a laundry list of sundry items in the lost and founds of the rich and famous.

“A diamond encrusted Cartier watch, an entire set of golf clubs, a pair of Rolex watches, a brand new Louis Vuitton wallet, divorce papers, bags of marijuana, a professional flute — and somebody at the Fairmont Banff Springs forgot a car they’d left with the valet,” she said.

Bulger added that cash also is commonly left behind. Birmelin’s team has dealt with their share of that, too. And he’s talking about the currency, not the Man in Black.

“One guest checked out and left $5,000 in cash in one hundred dollar bills in the safe,” he says. The guest ignored daily phone calls informing him something of value was left behind.

“After about 10 days, he finally called back and said the only thing of value he could have possibly left behind was cash,” he says. “He said he always took a lot of cash to gamble and it was always in hundreds. But he couldn’t say how much.”

Unable to land a guess even in the ballpark, the guest amicably agreed to donate the loot to a worthy charity, a welcome destination for most of the unclaimed items.

The Breakers and the Breezewood Motel in Breezewood, Pa., may seem to have little in common. Rooms at The Breakers range from $400 to $2,400 per night; at The Breezewood, $32 to $37.80.

But they share an admirable quality that goes unmentioned in the guidebooks: integrity.

Breezewood's owner Tim McCauley recently found a wallet with $4,000 in it.

“When he came to get the wallet, he couldn’t believe none of it was missing,” McCauley says. “I told him we’d be nothing without our honesty.”

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Chris Rodell is a Latrobe, Pa., contributor who blogs at www.EightDaysToAmish.com.

If your city were a song, you’d want it to be upbeat, symbolic, historical, enjoy a catchy melody and, yeah, sure, have it be one of Elton John’s hits.

Philadelphia hit the jackpot in 1975 when, as a favor to a friend, the popular singer-songwriter and his lyricist wrote “Philadelphia Freedom,” a song that 36 years later remains a musical love letter to the City of Brotherly Love.

TOM MIHALEK/AFP/Getty Images

Visitors tour the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, a city linked to the 1975 hit song, "Philadelphia Freedom."

“The reason it will always work so well for Philadelphia is because people hear it and they think it’s about Philadelphia’s role in so many historic struggles for freedom,” said Cara Schneider, a spokesperson for visitphilly.com. In fact, the song was written for tennis star Billie Jean King, co-founder and owner of the Philadelphia Freedoms, a tennis team that continues to play today. The song’s enduring popularity makes it as much a part of Philadelphia as Ben Franklin and Rocky Balboa.

Other cities have gotten similarly lucky. Here are a few more memorable melodies:

• “Cleveland Rocks,” Ian Hunter, 1979: “They said Cleveland was uncool and L.A. and New York City were cool,” Hunter once told reporters. “I didn’t see it that way. Cleveland had a lot of heart.” Hunter, an Englishman, helped change the perception. So did Drew Carey, the star of the Cleveland-based “Drew Carey Show,” which set the show’s opening credits to Hunter’s song. The show's cast lip synched the lyrics as they danced across parts of the city. It also doesn’t hurt that Cleveland has been home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum since 1995.

• “Viva Las Vegas,” Elvis Presley, 1964: “This song will always be the best song about Las Vegas because it touches all the reasons why people love coming to Las Vegas,” says Dr. Michael Green, professor of history at the College of Southern Nevada. “Viva Las Vegas” is the title song from the movie of the same name, the one that features the sizzling on- (and off-) screen chemistry between Presley and co-star Ann-Margret. Peaking at a lackluster -- for Presley -- no. 29 on the charts, the song and the city have become inseparable. The song has been covered numerous times, including by Ann-Margret in the 2000 film “The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas.”

• “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” Tony Bennett, 1962: As much a vivid cityscape as a song, Bennett said the tune “helped make me a world citizen.” With its wistful vignettes about little cable cars climbing halfway to the stars and foggy air chilling the city by the bay, it’s a melodic parade of postcards, a song about not being there that somehow makes everyone feel like we’ve never left.

• “Do You Know The Way to San Jose,” Dionne Warwick, 1968: Rand McNally couldn’t have done a better job of putting a single city on the map. It’s the song that helped launch a million Nor-Cal-bound conventioneers. “It’s amazing how a song can still resonate from all those years ago,” says Meghan Horrigan, spokesperson for local visitor’s bureau, Team San Jose. “It has a way of making what is the 10th largest city in America seem like a friendly small town where everyone feels like they belong.”

• “New York, New York,” Frank Sinatra, 1979: This indelible song about one distinctive East Coast city has the audacious feel of a pop culture anthem. Originally written for Liza Minnelli in the 1977 Martin Scorsese film of the same name, it was left to Sinatra to give it its signature swagger. As brash and robust as the city it describes, the song conveys all the excitement and electricity Manhattan means to the world.

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Chris Rodell is a Latrobe, Pa., contributor who blogs at www.EightDaysToAmish.com.

Frequent flier Warren Chang inexplicably began to fear flying last year. That’s a real hardship for any executive who flies 60,000 to 70,000 miles a year. For Chang it was even worse.

He’s the general manager of fly.com, the website devoted to helping airline customers snag the best fares with the least hassle.

It doesn’t look good for the purveyor of a website that encourages people to fly to say he was reluctant to do so himself.

So what did he do?

He set about researching the facts he knew would ground his fears. Here’s are a few air travel myths — and truths:

Myth: Chances of surviving an airplane crash are slim
False. Chang cites a National Transportation Safety Board study from 1983-2000 that found that 95.7 percent of passengers in plane crashes during those years survived the incident. “In fact, there hasn’t been a fatality on a commercial aircraft since 2009,” he said.

Myth: Lightning striking a plane will cause it to crash
False. Good thing it doesn’t. Studies show that each commercial airliner gets hit at least once a year by lightning. Lightning striking the plane travels quickly along the plane's skin and disperses into the air.

Myth: You have nothing to fear from impulsive mad men intent on opening the emergency exit mid-flight
True. Emergency doors are designed to open inwards before opening outwards. The tremendous pressure differential between the cabin and the outside air makes this impossible. “In fact,” Chang said, “the higher the plane goes, the tighter the seal.”

Myth: The recycled air on airplanes quickly spreads germs and infection
False. Planes recirculate air in the cabins every three to five minutes, but studies from the National Research Council’s Transportation Research Board found that airlines are no worse than subways, offices or other enclosed places.

Myth: Everyone can’t wait to use their cell phones in-flight to yak away the hours
False. Fly.com did a recent study of 1,300 U.K. frequent fliers and found that fewer than 5 percent of passengers want in-flight mobile and Internet access.

Myth: It’s safer to fly than drive
True. “Study after study shows it’s safer to fly than drive,” Chang said. “The odds of dying in an airplane crash are 1 in 11 million while the odds of dying in a car crash are 1 in 5,000.”

Joe Brancatelli of the business traveler’s website joesentme.com advises travelers to fret more about what they can control.

“I’m more fearful about driving to and from airports than air time,” he said. “Passengers arrive or land late and are rushing away to drive a strange car in a strange city, and some of them have been drinking too much. People need to be more careful about what they can control.”

More on Overhead Bin

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Chris Rodell is a Latrobe, Pa., contributor who blogs at www.EightDaysToAmish.com. 

Even the smoothest flights will be plenty hairy for passengers on one Qantas Airways plane through the rest of the month.

The aircraft, a Boeing 737-800, is being decorated with a nose-cone mustache to spread the word that it’s not November.

It’s Movember!

“Mo” is Australian slang for mustache and the designated vehicle for what four Melbourne men admit is the laziest way to raise money and awareness in the battle against deadly prostate cancer.

Courtesy of Qantas Airways

For Movember, Qantas Airways had a moustache painted on one of its planes.

It’s like a 5K for couch potatoes.

“We call it the hairy ribbon,” Adam Garone, Movember CEO and one of four co-founders, told msnbc.com. “Our motto is, ‘Changing the face of men’s health. We want to use growing a mustache to get men talking about prostate cancer, and this is a fun way to do it.”

It all started at a 2003 backyard party when Garone and his mates were talking about how every fashion eventually recycles and becomes popular again.

All but one.

“We talked about mustaches and how popular they were in the 1970s and ‘80s,” he said. “But they never came back. There were 30 of us, and we decided to devote the month to growing mustaches.”

Expecting support, they received revulsion. Garone said his girlfriend hated it and his bosses at Vodofone forbid him from making sales calls, reactions that only added to the fun.

So the next year they decided to do it again — only this time for a good cause.

They marched into the local headquarters of the Prostate Cancer Foundation. The organization said they’d welcome any funds they raised but, no, they were reluctant to affiliate with such silliness.

Little did they know the men had tapped into a perfectly manly way to reach men about an area they’re often reluctant to discuss. And it isn’t their funny bones.

In that first year, 450 friends raised $55,000 and the organization began sensing the so-called “Mo Bros” and “Mo Sistas” were onto something that would soon take off in ways that had nothing to do with Australia’s iconic airline.

In addition to the mo-plane, Qantas spokeswoman Emma Kearns said the airline placed a giant mo on its Sydney terminal building. "We're proud to support Movember and are encouraging our team to 'grow a mo' for Movember," she said, adding that prizes for best mo will be given. Females are encouraged to add to the mo-mentum by sporting fakes.

The disease is personal at Qantas, where CEO Alan Joyce was treated for an aggressive form of prostate cancer earlier this year. Early detection, however, led to a successful operation and a return to work within a few weeks.

“My doctor told me that there was an 80 percent chance that I would have been dead within 10 years if it hadn’t been detected when it was,” the 45-year-old Joyce said in July.

Movember swooped into North America in 2007, and Garone said the mustache and nearly 500,000 global participants, including affiliates at Livestrong and the Prostate Cancer Foundation, have helped raise $174 million.

The stunt with Qantas thrills the group, who want to make facial hair to November what pink and breast cancer awareness are to October. They are optimistic more promotional stunts will ensue.

“I wouldn’t advocate vandalism over works of art, but the Mona Lisa would look great with a Photoshopped mustache,” he said.

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Chris Rodell is a Latrobe, Pa., contributor who blogs at www.EightDaysToAmish.com. 

Andrew Little

One of Andrew Little's specialties, Schnitz und Knepp (ham, apple and dumpling), is transformed when dumpling is exchanged for whole-grain mustard gnocchi.

Chef Andrew Little shares a job description with an unlikely occupation: Hollywood plastic surgeon. Both use their creativities to make plain things sexy.

Courtesy Andrew Little

Andrew Little is the executive chef at Sheppard Mansion in Hanover, Pa.

With the doctors, it’s budding starlets. With Little, it’s things like scrapple, pickled watermelon rind and root vegetables — dinner-table staples of the famously stoic Pennsylvania Dutch.

“I’m determined that people begin to take a fresh look at this wonderful regional cuisine and begin to consider it sexy,” says Little,  executive chef at Sheppard Mansion in Hanover, Pa.

Little wants to be to Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine what Paul Prudhomme is to Cajun cuisine. On Nov. 13, he is hosting a cooking class intent on sharing his passion for offbeat twists on common dishes such as pork and sauerkraut or chicken and dumplings that many foodies have written off as pedestrian. Cost is $45.

“The challenge is to take dishes and interpret them in ways that make them feel at home in a fine dining restaurant,” Little says. “It’s familiar food done in a refined way.”

Food critics are noticing. The Washington Post says Sheppard Mansion “struck gold” when owners and sisters Kathryn Sheppard Hoar and Heather Sheppard Lunn in 2006 hired Little and asked him to transform an already charming B&B into a destination dining experience.

Little says his aim is to take something truly familiar and reintroduce it. He and his staff cull family recipes, some dating back more than 100 years, and break them down the way skilled mechanics do vintage automobiles before they can really rev up the engine.

“We need to understand the rules of the original dish before we can break them,” he says. “Some of these recipes come with measurements that say, ‘half egg shell of vinegar.’”

So shoo-fly pie, a popular Pennsylvania Dutch dish of barely set molasses base, not unlike a custard and crumb topping, is re-imagined as an ice cream float.

A dish called Schnitz un Knepp (ham, apple and dumpling) is transformed when dumpling is exchanged for whole grain mustard gnocchi, and rabbit does a tasty tango with pieces of minced country ham.

“He’ll call me about one of our old family recipes and then take it and put his own creative spin on it,” says his mother, Sue Steigerwalt Little, who says her son gets his creative bent from her husband, Jim.

“Growing up, I hated the beef tongue my father loved,” she says. “Andrew served me some on a brioche with caramelized onions and truffle jus without telling me what it was. It was delicious!”

Rob Mayer, spokesperson for the York County Convention & Visitor’s Bureau says Sheppard Mansion gives tourists a truly fresh reason to visit.

“People from all over enjoy going to our area farm markets to get authentic Pennsylvania Dutch foods,” he says. “Now they’re realizing that some of the best meals are cooked and served right here, too.”

Andrew Little

Chef Andrew Little puts his own twist on Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine. Pictured are sauerkraut balls.

Andrew Little

Creamed chicken and waffles is a dish at Sheppard Mansion.

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Chris Rodell is a Latrobe, Pa., contributor who blogs at www.EightDaysToAmish.com. 

iStock

National Geographic Traveler in its current issue lists Pittsburgh as one of the world's 20 must-see places to visit.

Pittsburgh promoters still like to point to an heirloom accolade by distinguished New Yorker essayist Brendan Gill who came to observe the transformation of the city once disparaged as “Hell with the Lid Off.”

“If Pittsburgh were situated somewhere in the heart of Europe, tourists would eagerly journey hundreds of miles out of their way to visit it,” Gill wrote in 1989.

Since then, the whole world has begun coming to Steel City — it hosted the G20 Summit in 2009. In fact,  the people at VisitPittsburgh.com are having trouble tracking all the fresh accolades that seem to flow daily into their offices.

“Hearing praise for this great city never gets old,” said Craig Davis, VisitPittsburgh’s vice president of sales and marketing. “But this was a wonderful surprise.”

National Geographic Traveler in its current issue lists Pittsburgh as one of the world’s 20 must-see places to visit. It is the only U.S. city listed and just one of four cities on the entire planet (along with London; Belfast, Northern Ireland; and Dresden, Germany). Other must-sees are either regions or nations; Sonoma, Calif., joins Pittsburgh as the only other American destination.

The article touting Pittsburgh’s attributes reads: “Its mourning for its industrial past long concluded, this Western Pennsylvania city changed jobs and reclaimed natural assets: a natural setting that rivals Lisbon and San Francisco, a wealth of fine art and architecture and a quirky sense of humor.”

The flattering notice qualifies as a whopper — even by the standards of a city that in the past five years has become accustomed to hearing top news organizations and travel magazines declare it among the most livable, most affordable, safest, most secure, most literate, greenest, friendliest and prettiest, to name just a few.

It’s like this once ugly industrial duckling has emerged to become America’s Homecoming Queen.

Pittsburgh is renown for its championship sports teams and their spiffy new venues (ESPN named PNC Park as baseball’s best), its Andy Warhol and Carnegie museums, National Aviary, and for a geographic setting that is truly captivating. The city’s three rivers confine its center, known as the Golden Triangle; the only direction downtown can sprawl is straight up.

Davis says the city sells itself when he takes visitors and prospective conventioneers up one of its landmark inclines to enjoy the view from one of the fine dining establishments atop Mount Washington, named in 2003 by USA Today travel writers as the second most lovely vista in all America.

Award-winning travel writer Christine O’Toole nominated the city she calls home and authored the article after years of hearing Pittsburgh’s reputation rise around the world.

“Travelers wherever I go are always looking for authentic cities with real personalities,” she said. “That’s Pittsburgh. European visitors in particular are always impressed by this city. The smaller scale and historic riverfront reminds them of the charming inland cities there.”

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Chris Rodell is a Latrobe, Pa., contributor who blogs at www.EightDaysToAmish.com