Your mission, should you choose to accept it......

[mangosteen]

Mission: Figure out the fastest way to get NYC (NY) bagels to Boston (MA), sparing no expense.

Your restrictions are the following:
1. You must use current technology (i.e. no teleportation).
2. No police escorts.
3. No civil infrastructure projects (i.e. can't upgrade the entire NE corridor rail infrastructure).
4. NYC bagels are bagels that are baked (to completion) in within New York City limits, as of the time of this writing (i.e. Allston is not the sixth borough).
5. The bagels must arrive intact and edible.

Go.

Comments

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

American Airlines commuter flight from JFK to Logan takes 1:05. Of course, you'll have to add in travel time to and from the airport, so depending on where you are in NYC Newark (flight time 1:15) might be faster.

[jadasc.livejournal.com]

Gotta factor in time spent in security checkpoints and buying tickets. That adds a chunk.

I'll set a baseline.

[jadasc.livejournal.com]

1. Buy bagels. (I'm fond of Ess-a-bagel.)
2. Take the Lucky Star Bus from Chinatown to Chinatown.

Estimated time: 3 hr. 30 min.

Re: I'll set a baseline.

[kalimar.livejournal.com]

Mmmmmmm....ess-a-bagel...

Y'know I was talking about how Ess-a-bagel was the best bagel I've ever had and lamenting how you can't get good bagels in Boston.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

I will consider Boston Logan Airport to be in Boston.

I offer:

FedEx:
On Board Courier Service who will actually take it somewhere else in Boston.

There would be bonus points for opening the package in front of the FedEx guy "to check for damage" and then offering him one of the bagels, "they're fresh...".

Or DIY, with an optimisation:

Charter a plane ready for takeoff at La Guardia (closest airport to the central bagel areas). Obtain bagels and pack in strong container; aluminium flight case, say. Take bagels to airport by fastest means, that would probably be (insane) motorcycle courier. Board plane, take off. Ensure immediate landing clearance at Logan, ensire bike courier waiting. Bike courier delivers bagels.

[white-and-nrdy.livejournal.com]

This one comes from a professional courier (me)... :)

There are large, national courier services that will take care of all the details for you. However, the basic idea is this. A courier in NYC goes to the bagel shop. Gets bagels, puts them into a box, etc. Goes to the airport. Fills out an airbill to put them on a particular commercial airline flight. The package goes onto the plane along with passenger baggage. The plane goes to Boston. Upon landing, the baggage is unloaded and comes up the carousel. A second local courier is waiting to meet it - snags it off the carousel, signs for it, and takes off. Goes directly to the final destination.

I've handled both the sending and receiving ends of this process myself. It's quite easy. In a real life, realistic, LEGAL scenario, this is probably the fastest way to do it.

For an illegal scenario, what bikergeek said. :) Though honestly, I'm not sure which would be faster. There'd be some downtime while the baggage is loaded and unloaded, and the couriers on either end wouldn't drive like maniacs (if they have work vehicles like mine, they're simply not capable of it : )). But a plane travels at several hundred mph, rather than the 100mph or so average speed the bike could do. It's a toss up.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Mapquest gives a distance of 200 road miles between The Bronx and Boston.

Extremely fast motorcycle (e.g. Suzuki Hayabusa or Honda CBRXX Blackbird) fitted with capacious hard saddlebags. Fill bags with bagels, ride NYC to Boston without stopping. Split lanes like a mad asshole, use EZ-Pass for tolls, run from cops. Probably will require one fuel stop. Can be done in two hours if you can maintain a 100mph average speed. That's not unreasonable for that type of motorcycle.

Smokey and the Bandit approach: 18 wheeler full of bagels, fast car like a Dodge Viper to run interference. The 18 wheeler can probably average 70mph if pushed. time, a little less than 3 hours.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

o loft bagels on long cable with balloon for air-scoop pickup, plane goes straight to boston, and air drops them. probably the fastest method.

o hot motorcycle rider gassed and ready, bagels are stuffed in luggage holder, rider GOES. modern fast bikes ARE quite fast. legal? who said anything about legal. expenses are for lawyers :)

o military? got a cruise missle handy?

#

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

I think the cruise missile approach would mutilate the bagels though.

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

1. Buy bagels.
2. Hand them to me, along with the keys to a Countach or, failing that, a 1969 Superbird, or failing that (and entering the realm of rationality), a 1972 Road Runner; and a CD player.
3. Wait 2.5 hours.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

Obtain, by hook or by crook, an ambulance. Apply as many concealed performance enhancements to the ambulance as required to increase its speed. Ensure it has sufficient fuel capacity for a nonstop run to Boston.
Insert bagels and appropriately-dressed crew. Conceal bagels.
Engage horns and lights, drive rapidly to Boston. When approaching Boston, drive with no mercy for Boston drivers don't even yield much to ambulances.

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

Sleep with a Navy fighter pilot for a period of several months. Make sure you give him really good head. Convince him that the thing to do is pick up the bagels and then drop them (with parachute) over Boston.
Have money on hand for bail.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

one would hope for repeatabilty (they'd run out of pilots)... cuz that poor over sexed navy pilot would have to basically be awol, steal the plane, fly into restricted air space, eject, destroy a VERY expensive plane, and then face lockdown for a LONG time having also jeaporzied an expensively trained pilot. the head had better be VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY REALLY good ;)

#

[dsrtao]

Drive to Watertown. Enter Russo's retail store on Pleasant Street. Purchase H&H bagels (shipped daily from H&H) at the back of the store. Drive to the closest point of Boston...

Oh, right. Sparing no expense. Not "most feasible method when I just want a real bagel".

Here we go:

Arrange account at bagel bakery. Order bagels by telephone. Have bike courier pick up bagels, transport to Wall Street or otherwise nearest heliport. Private helicopter to Boston takes about 90 minutes, sets down on convenient parking lot equipped with toaster and cream cheese or other desired toppings...

[mangosteen]

Keep in mind that in the first case, you also have to add in transit time from NYC to the bagel store in Watertown.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Do not transport a "bag of bagels" on a bus or airplane. Bring a rigid container. A small cooler would work to protect bagels from crushing and odor contamination, though the bagels don't need to be kept cold.

[ceo]

Sheesh, you people and your NYC bagels. Get a bag of Lender's from Stah Mahket and stop whining already.

Hey, what the-- OW! OW! OW! STOP IT! :-)

[mangosteen]

INFIDEL!

[skreeky]

My first thought involves buying the Concorde (is it still for sale?) and installing helicopter landings on the roof of the bakery and your house.

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

A heli would work, but a Concorde needs a full-size air strip to land. (Plus, they don't like them flown over land - sonic booms, shattered glass, just not nice.)

[gingicat]

Is it total heresy to say that I'm very fond of Kupel's bagels, which are already right here in Brookline?

[mangosteen]

Not in particular; they're actually quite good.
You're just not answering the question. :)

[vatine]

They're both on water, right? Hopefully with not-too-protruding coastlines in-between. So, get a handy Swedish Navy stealth boat. They do up to about 100 km/h IIRC and they just plain *look* cool (they also surface-skim, so not massive need of depth). Load bagels in NYC, hug the coast at max speed until you enter Boston.

Sparing no expense. OK....

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

NYC to Boston is beyond artillery range, so that's out.

There's a guy in NZ who's building himself a cruise missile, just to see if it can be done. So far, he's succeeding. So: Construct your own cruise missile, or have him build you one. Construct a payload module with a styrofoam-padded casing to hold a dozen bagels all neatly lined up, equipped with a 'chute to soft-land it, and a mechanism for ejecting the canister at a specific set of GPS coordinates. Buy bagels, load bagels into canister, load canister into missile. Missile flies directly to Boston at about 1000 feet, ejects its payload over your house, turns south, and ditches offshore. Estimated delivery time from walking out the store to your truck-mounted launcher: 25 minutes.

The resulting local, state, and federal charges are your problem. ;)

A ballistic solution would also be possible, using a sounding rocket like, say, a Black Brant. This would be an even faster trip, but would impose greater risk to the bagels, and prelaunch prep (erecting the rocket etc) would take longer.

Fastest of all would be a rocket-assisted artillery projectile, but I know of no such current projectile with a 200-mile range.

[skreeky]

I think all the cruise missile solutions should be tested during the RNC.

[scromp.livejournal.com]

[maedbh7.livejournal.com]

Coerce doctor friends into having your bagels LifeFlighted from Mount Sinai in NYC to Beth Israel in Boston. -H...

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Sparing no expense, eh?

Very well then:

[mangosteen]

So you're thinking sub-orbital on a 187-mile hop?

That sounds.... dicey.

[halleyscomet.livejournal.com]

I think the water route deserves to be better explored. Assuming a decent bagel shop can be found on the coast of Manhattan Island, and your Boson destination is on the coast, then the fastest water craft around would be an option. Probably not as fast as a helicopter though.

The helicopter can be sped up by having it hover over the bagel shop and use a rescue ladder or a winch to bring up the bagels.

[skreeky]

a winch to bring up the bagels

Oh, nice touch! It's like a scene from an action flick, the chopper speeding away with the bagel bag line streaming behind and being reeled in by a crew in fashionable goggles as it disappears northward...

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

1. hire a few Government contractors to build you a cruise missile.
2. buy the building next to the NYC bagel shop
3. raze that build next to the bagel shop, and turn it into a cruise missile launch pad.

4. Hire some specialists in cruise missile technology to build you a special cruise missile that will fly to about 50 feet above where you're standing. It will be programmed to drop it's cargo so that a parachute will gently allow the cargo to land softly upon your waiting open arms. Missile will then safely ditch itself into some appropriate area, where it will not harm anyone.

5. Hire someone to build a special padded box, and another person to put the fresh bagels in the box which will not allow the bagels to be destroyed upon landing, nor to lose any of their fresh aroma.

6. as soon as bagels are cooked, put them in the special box, run them next door to drop into cruise missile, and shoot missile (set up area for the bagel delivery person to hit a button to drop floor, to drop self X feet below the missile, to be protected from the blast. Ceiling will snap shut above bagel deliverer and the rocket will take off instantaneously.

Oh my god, I can't believe I didn't think of this.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

1. At 639 West 46th Street, where 46th hits the West Side Highway, is a branch of H&H Bagels.

2. Immediately across from the 46th St. H&H Bagels is the USS Intrepid.

3. On the deck of the USS Intrepid is a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird:



I think we have a winner.

Re: Oh my god, I can't believe I didn't think of this.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

this assumes that a blackbird is for sale.

can they be launched off the intrepid? i think the damned thing wouldn't even be warmed up by the time it hit boston and be leaking fuel like crazy. it's my understanding they have to warm up, then in flight refuel and then ZOOM.

#

the fling...

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

there's this game where you set up a whole series of catapult like things, that launch an object that just landed on them.

so i'm thinking, if a single rail gun can't do it, you simple have several such units, scattered as need be, including off shore, that you launch something to, and it has a huge net which can capture and funnel an object/cannister such that it gets launched again.

so, bagels go BOING *wheeeeeeee* BOING *wheeeeeeee* ... until they reach a landing net in boston. where BOING is really the sound of a rail gun launching something 50 miles or so, at a time :>

even if there's a little error in the system, and some get lost, it's correctable. once you start launching bagels, you keep launching them. so a never ending stream of bagels, like a network, bagel packets, from NYC to Boston.

so, an initial launch from a bagel shop to an off shore platform, and then straight up the coast. poing poing poing.

###

try the 2 - okay. cost no object. an undersea pneumatic delivery system, like the message tubes of old, and like the bank systems of today. system is layed off shore, with redundancy, make it large enough to stuff, say, a beer barrel sized object. vroom. i'm guessing some SERIOUS speeds could be achieved, perhaps magnetic induction.

#

Re: the fling...

[mangosteen]

penumatic delivery system violates Rule #3.

The railgun approach comes dangerously approach to violating Rule #1, as you'd have to develop tech to conform with Rule #5.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

Alright. Let's make the problem more specific and slightly more interesting, so from H&H Bagels (80th and Broadway or 639 West 46th Street) to Boston Common.

Start at the 46th Street H&H. Getcher bagels, start the clock. Put bagels in a flight case and give them to the waiting motorcycle courier who has been heavily tipped to transport the bagels as quickly as possible to...

The 30th St Heliport. There someone taked the flight case and boards a chartered helicopter awaits and takes off immediately for La Guardia airport...

At La Guardia there awaits a chartered
Cessna Citation X, or equivalent fast bizjet with a flight plan filed for Boston. The bagels and their keeper board the aircraft which leaves immediatel. The aircraft is configured for fastest possible cruise and the flight plan also chosen for fastest possible cruise...

Land at Logan Airport. The bagels and their keeper leave the aircraft and proceed to hand the bagels to the waiting motorcycle courier, who has been heavily tipped to take the bagels to the corner of Boston Common by the cemetary as quickly as possible.

Upon arrival, the bagel recipients should have a picnic hamper spread out and ready to eat, and should offer the courier a bagel, noting that fresh bagels from New York are vital.

Causing the Bostonian courier's head to explode will gain you extra credit.

It's not even illegal. It just requires quite serious spending power.
I'm guessing 1 hour 40 minutes for the journey.
For extra fun dispatch two sets of bagels at once, one via FexEx and one via the custom solution.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

is the motorcycle courier in NYC the same as the one in Boston? :>

you've seen that "pizza delivery movie"? it's INSANE. this guy on a scooter driving like a COMPLETE madman, scraping sparks, to deliver a pizza cross city. yow.

hmmm. i'd think one of the faster helicopters could probably do this really well, current but retired military one? build bagel factory into same building as a legal helipad, and said helicopter could SCREAM to boston, overfly the commons and drop the goods if not find a legal pad to land on with waiting courier as you said. be interesting to try several solutions :) kind like a smokey and the bandit run.

#

another approach

[frotz.livejournal.com]

Why do people keep going on about helicopters? There's a guy running charters out of the East River Seaplane Base in a C208; should be 45 minutes to Boston.

Why the H&H fetish, though? You can get bagels in Massachusetts (Katz Bagel Bakery in Chelsea) that are way better than those wretched things.

Re: another approach

[mangosteen]

It's not about H&H (I'd prefer Columbia Hot Bagels, anyway. too bad they're gone), it's about the general logistics puzzle.