I’m on my way over to 30 Rock to meet with some folks at NBC. (I wish I could say it was regarding TheMBAShow.) I’m headed up there to do some surprise consulting for Rockefeller Consulting a new social media company that consults with Fortune 500 companies on social technology integration. It turns out that surprise consulting requests happen A LOT in business school. This will tentatively be my 9th engagement in the last 13 months. (Nothing is finalized yet.)

Anyway, so I’m headed over to NY on the Amtrak Acela. I am highly impressed! No one hassled me about my shoes, ID, or water bottle. No one even took a semi-revealing picture of my naughty bits for “security purposes”. This is highly civilized. One might walk into Back Bay station 5 minutes before departure and hop right on the train. Also, I’m writing this blog on my laptop, which is plugged into an AC outlet and connected to the interwebs via free wifi. I might as well be sitting on my couch at home right now, but then I wouldn’t have had access to good coffee and a breakfast sandwich from the cafe car.

The ticket price is $111 each way, which puts it significantly higher than Bolt Bus (~$20), but the difference is noticeable. Worth it, I don’t know? That depends on who’s paying. It’s faster than bolt by about an hour (3:30 vs. 4:30) and I didn’t EVER have to stand in a single line. Now that I’ve seen this, I think the Bolt experience is just a little too airport for my taste.

Photography by UrbanDKaye