Gadling

With the hot summer sun beating down on me, I actually start to miss winter. But, when that brisk chill turns into relentless cold, I start to think in the other direction. The Keystone Resort has found a way to give you the best of both. This summer, it will be the only resort to offer snow-tubing. Yes, you can roll around in – and glide on – the cold white stuff in July and August.

Keystone's Adventure Point will offer two lanes of snow every Wednesday through Sunday this summer, from 10 AM to 2:30 PM, as long as the snow lasts. Each guest can spend $25 to get a one-hour tubing session with unlimited runs (including gondola rides up the mountain).

"With the success of the tubing hill in the winter, we wanted to try and offer our guests a unique and fun experience by tubing on the snow during the summer," said Matt Hoover, tubing hill manager at Keystone Resort. "It's definitely summer time here at Keystone, but at our high altitude we can offer the best of both worlds to give guests an unforgettable on-mountain experience this summer."

Not far away, you can still hit the usual summer activities in Keystone, including the bike park (the River Run Gondola will take you back to the top), with an unlimited mountain biking season pass costing only $299. and, be sure to grab a meal at the mountaintop Alpenglow Stube and Der Fuondue Chessel. Everything tastes better at 11,444 feet.

Just when you think Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary can't come up with another way to mess with his passengers, he takes away the seats. The European low-cost carrier's latest way to cut costs and cram more people on planes is to stick them on stools with seatbelts. According to the Daily Mail, he's even spoken with Boeing about making this happen.

The nice expression for this, used Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara, is "vertical seating."

But, it's not a sure thing. The Irish Aviation Authority needs to give him the green light. Something tells me that there has to be a safety issue buried in this. There just has to be. If not, well, let them stand.

The airline estimates that it could increase passengers per flight by 30 percent with the standing room approach and at the same time cut costs by 20 percent. That's a pretty big gap between revenue and expenses – the sort of financial upside that most airlines have been unable to figure out.

Summer is here, and we're looking to get out of the SkyMall Monday headquarters to enjoy some sun, sand and surf. But, well, as I've discussed in this space before, I'm not exactly winning a hot body contest anytime soon. Thankfully, our favorite catalog knows that we're not all going to be beauty queens. That's why SkyMall helps us hide our flaws and trick others into thinking that we're the bees knees! This week, we look at not one, not two, but five products that are so perfect, they'll make all of us look and feel perfect, too! So, keep ordering those supersized English Breakfasts and refrain from exercising. Exercise is for suckers. Let the healing powers of SkyMall wash over you and turn you into the person you were always meant to be. I mean, it beats jogging, right?

J.D. Power released the results of their yearly airline satisfaction survey, and the results paint a pretty bleak picture of the traditional carriers. Eight of these legacy carriers were reviewed on 8 different aspects of their service:

Overall satisfaction, reservation experience, check-in experience, boarding/deplaning/baggage experience, aircraft experience, flight crew experience, in-flight services and costs/fees experience.

Of the eight traditional carriers, Alaska Airlines took the top spot, followed by Continental Airlines. Alaska did such a good job this year, that they scored 5/5 in 6 of the 8 categories. This fantastic result means they take home the J.D. Powers award for 2009 airline satisfaction.

United Airlines and US Airways scored "about average" in just one category (in-flight services). In every other category, they scored just 2 points, which is also the lowest possible score. This is a pretty dismal score, and one that shows that United and US are in a serious mess.

Of the low cost carriers, Jet Blue took the prize, though their contest was a very close match between fellow low cost carriers Southwest Airlines and WestJet.

AirTran and Frontier scored mostly 2 pointers in each category, with Frontier managing to snag 2 3-pointers in in-flight experience and aircraft experience.

Bottom line is that the traditional carriers are in a boatload of trouble. As they keep chipping away at their services, and adding more fee based amenities, the low cost carriers have mastered the art of keeping passengers happy.

When you look at the in-flight services, airlines like JetBlue and Southwest outrank even the largest of the legacy carriers, and it has to be quite embarrassing for an airline like United to see the cheap airlines beat them in so many categories.

Here are the hottest gadget deals for today, Monday July 6th 2009. Remember, these deals are often only valid for just one day, so act fast before they are gone.

Frys.com is selling this Kensington 70Watt laptop power supply for just $14.99 (with free shipping). This product is perfect if you need a lighter power supply, or just want to invest in a replacement. The power supply ships with adapters for the Acer Aspire One, Lenovo Ideapad S10, MSI Wind and Dell Mini Inspiron series. Click here for this deal.

The N97 is the flagship phone in the Nokia lineup, offering a touch screen, sliding keyboard, 3G, 5MP camera with auto-focus and access to the OVI application store. This powerful phone is currently on sale for just $599, which is $100 off the normal retail price. Click here for this deal.

Looking for some better entertainment on the road? Check out this $95 Philips 2-in-1 DVD player/iPod dock. Its 9" screen plays DVD's (and CD's, DIVX and MPEG4 files) and can dock with your iPod or iPhone for full screen movie entertainment. The unit comes complete with a remote control, AC and car chargers and a set of AV cables. Click here for this deal.

And finally in today's deal lineup is this Bluetooth GPS receiver for just under $20. Perfect if you own a PDA or smartphone without GPS, or if you want to add GPS to your Bluetooth enabled laptop. Click here for this deal.

Regular readers will know that I'm a sucker for a good gadget. Granted, most of the stuff that grabs my attention is battery operated, and has at least one button.

So, it takes a pretty smart gadget to impress me if it doesn't beep, buzz or blend.

The humangear GoToob is such a gadget. This little tube is designed to hold your liquids when you are on the road. Sure, the concept may sound really simple, but humangear did an amazing job of such a simple task.

One of the coolest things about having lots of friends who travel is getting postcards from around the world. Sadly, letter and postcard writing don't seem to be as common as they used to be. Much of the stuff coming through the mailbox these days is either bills or junk mail. Going to the mailbox has gotten to be a drag.

An organization called Postcrossing is trying to change that. This free group allows members to trade cards with strangers. You log in and request to send a card, and someone's address is sent to you, along with a unique country-coded number. You pick a card, write a nice message with the code included, and pop it in the mail. Once the recipient gets the card and registers it on the site by using the number, you're put next in line to get a card from a different stranger. There's also a forum where people can arrange "private swaps" for particular countries or images.

With more than 100,000 members in 196 countries, the idea is catching on. I'm a member, as is former Gadling blogger Abha Malpani. Earlier this year Postcrossing reached the milestone of two million postcards received and one active member has racked up a thousand just by himself.

Various Postcrossers have created interesting spinoff blogs about their obsession, such as Wild Postcards and A Postcard a Day. Warning: Wild Postcards is occasionally not work safe, as the blogger likes old pin-up cards. Nude women with mom hair. Yipe!

Postcrossing is a great way to get cards from around the world and set up trading exchanges with people you may never meet. Consider it a form of staycation. It's fun for kids too. My three-year-old son is learning a lot about the world. He specifically wants postcards of cars and trains and about half the cards I get are meant for him!

I live in Los Angeles and yesterday my 15 year-old cousin flew into town from New York with a group of fourteen 15 year-olds who had, oh....about 10 hours before their Qantas flight to Australia departed. Believe it or not, It isn't all that unusual for travelers heading overseas to have that much time in-between flights. Constantly I meet people aboard the airplane flying into LAX with hours and hours of sit time on their hands.

"So...what are you going to do before your next flight departs?" I often times ask.

Most of the time people have no idea what they're going to do, which is why they always ask me, the flight attendant, for a few suggestions. I'm going to tell you what I always tell them...

THREE HOURS OR LESS - If your sit time at the airport is less than three hours, sit tight. You don't want to miss your flight. Anyway, there's plenty of things to do at the airport. But if you do find yourself hungry and can't find anything to eat where you are, take a walk over to the Tom Bradley International Terminal where you'll find a few sit down restaurants outside of security. Or you can go down to baggage claim, walk outside and grab a complimentary shuttle to the Parking Spot, which is located right next to In-n-out Burger. That's where you'll find the best burger in town. Try ordering it "animal style."

FOUR HOURS OR MORE - If you've got four hours or more of sit time in Los Angeles at LAX, why not make a mini vacation before your vacation officially begins by visiting Hermosa Beach? Hermosa Beach is where you'll find the typical Southern California layed back experience. Just a fifteen minute cab ride from the airport, it shouldn't cost you more than $30 (with tip). Make sure to check the big bags, don't forget to pack your bathing suit in your carry on, and get ready to soak up the sun!

Gallery: Galley Gossip: Hermosa Beach Drum Circle

Another of the TSA's finest was arrested on Friday as she tried to board a Houston bound Continental plane at Newark airport.

Wanda Weems, of Newark New Jersey is a TSA agent, and for reasons unknown to us, she decided that she was too important to deal with things like airport security.

Instead of standing in line like the rest of us, she used her TSA credentials and a staff line to enter the secure area of the airport, which also means her belongings were not screened.

Before the plane was able to take off, she was arrested, where a police investigation showed that she was wanted on traffic warrants.

Because of the security breach, the flight was delayed for over an hour as all the passengers were told to disembark for re-screening.

I'm actually quite impressed with the way the TSA handled this - someone tried to bypass security, and somewhere in the system the authorities were alerted. I'm not sure whether this is just a coincidence, or whether the TSA actually implemented checks to prevent this from happening. Either way, another rotten apple has been removed from the ranks of the TSA.

Late last year, we took a look at mobile information portal KeyToss. Back then, they were offering everything from flight status updates to the latest news through an easy to use mobile site.

Last month, KeyToss added hotel searches and reservations to their lineup, and after playing around with it for a bit, I've got to say that I am very impressed. The portal is extremely easy to use, and is filled with small touches that make it a breeze to find a hotel.

Things like being able to enter a check-in date or "days from today" mean you won't be messing around on your phone to find what you need.

The site pulls information from Hotels.com which means you get access to their extensive database of hotel information, including photos, reviews, maps and of course any available discount rates.

You can make a reservation on your phone using a 2 step form, or if you plan to make multiple reservations you can add all your information to your KeyToss secure wallet and breeze through the booking process without having to dig up your credit card for each booking.

When you find a hotel deal, you are presented with all the fees and fine print involved with the price. All in all a fantastic update to an already impressive site. If you are regularly on the road, I highly recommend adding m.keytoss.com to your mobile bookmarks.