Long time no talk!

It has been quite some time since the last posting, lest you think I have nothing to say... it is approaching the end of the year. I made it to that highly esteemed Platinum level some time ago and will finish the year with around 105 flight segments.

Traveling for work during the Holidays is not my idea of fun. There are so many people who have never flown before and many others who have not flown in the last decade. They wander the airports aimlessly looking to find their way. Some airports have staff who will give guidance if you look lost... but the truly lost are oblivious.

As a fan of Human Factors and User Interface Design, I find it interesting at how difficult some airports make it for people to figure out where to go or what to do. Well designed airports have adequate signage and traffic flows that naturally guide you to where you need to be.

Take my connection in Cincinatti this afternoon as an example. I needed to get from the plane I arrived on to gate B37. The only clue that it wasn't near my arrival point was that there were no other airplanes at the terminal. Now calling it a terminal is a bit of a stretch, its more like a tented walkway that extends 500 yards from the nearest building and is without a heating system (it was 3 degrees above zero).

Walking to the center, a common theme for airports, I found a computer display that confirmed I needed to get to B37. The only problem was that all the signage for terminal B only went as high as 19. Having learned from prior experience that you must trust the signs, I sought a friendly retired Ohioan manning the information booth. He informed me that they changed the gate numbers yesterday and to go get on the bus that would take me to terminal B.

Having just 15 minutes left before the flight there was not a lot of room for error. Getting off the bus at B, I now only had to go the very end of the building to get to the desk just as they started the boarding process. It was sort of ironic that at this terminal you walk out the door, down a ramp, and then through a series of traffic cones to find your airplane out on the tarmac. Leaving gate checked bags on a cart and climbing the stairs, I made it.

At the end of the day it is hard to be too critical of infrequent travelers. It is foreign territory, lots of chaos, and lots of pressure to get it right. I don't blame the infrequent travelers but still wish they wouldn't block the entrance to escalators or clog up an entire moving walkway.

One half of the trip down... half to go. Happy Holidays!

Its starting...

I'm not sure if anyone reads this but as I finish a college writing
class, I'm appreciating the value of blog therapy. Its been six months
since the last posting. That is not because I've stayed home.

There have been a number of states under my feet and many different hotels.

Next week will hint at what the next year is going to be like with
four of five days traveling in three different states.

If you are reading this, what could I write about to make this more interesting?

--
Sent from my mobile device

Holy City!

I took a first flight out this morning to Charleston, South Carolina. I had not been to the state before today but so far have been impressed. Rated as the best mannered city, it is quite a contrast to living in New Jersey. What is the proper etiquette for holding a door open for women and other men? Do you say sir or ma'am? Do you greet everyone you see? All recent challenges that are not a concern in NJ.

A group of us are staying in the heart of the Charleston Historic District at the Market Pavillion Hotel (http://www.marketpavillion.com/) which has a history beginning 300 years ago. A boutique hotel that provides a very nice atmosphere combined with excellent service. They brag of getting four diamonds from AAA and the nicest amenities in the city.

This is the view from the rooftop bar that sits just a few feet from the walk-in pool. Just over the edge of the railing, you can't see the local market. It reminds me of the Pike Place Market, minus the fish throwing. Across the street in the bottom of the three story building is an Oyster restaraunt where we had lunch. I now know that fresh oysters do not sit well with my system...

After a couple drinks and conversation we took a walk down Broad Street looking for a nice restaurant. It is not hard to find good menus, with two or three restaurant entrances per block. The first several maitre'd stands I approached offered 40-90 minute wait times. On the fourth try we found the Slightly North of Broad sign hanging invitingly and stepped in. It looked good and they could seat our group of five right away. I ordered a berry sangria to wash down my cup of crab soup and Deviled Crab Stuffed Flounder. The food was excellent and the service was great. You can check out their website at http://www.mavericksouthernkitchens.com/snob/index.html where I just now learned that it, not surprisingly, has earned top awards and the 2008 Restaurant of the year!

In the distance in this photo you can see the largest cable stayed bridge in the Americas. It dwarfs the aircraft carrier sitting next to it (not in photo). You can read more for yourself about this great city at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston,_South_Carolina . It is probably one of the more romantic cities that I've traveled to and looks like it would make a great couples get-away!

Be safe, keep the rubber side down, and thanks for coming along!

Time flies when you are...

...not on the road! The past couple of months have not required quite as much travel. I have enjoyed spending more time at home! The travel season has started to warm up though over the past few weeks.

As of this week I have acheived Gold Elite status on Continental. If you recall from a prior entry that requires 60 flight segments, I now have 67 on about 35,000 miles since January 1st! Once I hit 90 there is no higher level so maybe it will be time to start collecting miles on another airline ;-)

I flew to Corpus Christi, Texas on Sunday where I shared a meal with a dear friend that I have known for years and her family. It was totally last minute, my travel agent worked to arrange for my Sunday trip on Friday evening.

After a one hour meeting on Monday, my boss and I enjoyed a family style Mexican meal. She has a new Garmin Nuvio 300 series GPS unit and we have been trying out its restaurant finding features. After criss crossing several border town looking neighborhoods we found one that was still open. The food was cheap and tasted great, if you don't count the piece of glass hidden in my plate.

Since my last entry I have been to Knoxville and Kalamazoo twice each. A couple weeks ago my boss and I went on a road trip, starting in Fort Wayne, IN to Ipsilanti and then Grand Rapids, MI. On my return flight from Houston to Newark there was some excitement. Now I get upgraded to first class on nearly every flight that has first class and for this 7pm flight I was in the first row window seat of the 757-200.

After we reached cruising altitude I raised the electric foot rests and adjusted the electric lumbar and backrest to dig in for the flight. There was a little rumble in the plane that felt like mild turbulence although it was unusual to experience it at that altitude like we did.

After a minute or two the plane banked to the south and we turned towards the sun. The last time I checked the sun should not be in front of a flight going from Houston to Newark in the evening. Expecting an announcement that we were being held for air traffic control purposes I was surprised to see that we were starting to lose altitude, as one would expect for landing.

I considered asking the flight attendant about it but noticed that they were all whispering to each other and going back and forth through the plane. A moment later the captain made an announcement in an urgent, decisive, and clear manner, "Folks, we had a little engine problem with the right side engine and I shut it down. In 10 minutes we will be making an emergency landing at Houston. You will see a lot of emergency vehicles but don't be alarmed. We expect nothing other than a normal landing. Once we stop the emergency services will check the engine for fire. If you need to do something, trust me, we will tell you."

He made one more similar announcement just before we touched down. After hearing an announcement like that, especially with 10 minutes, you really start to think about things. I was thinking, did (prior) airplane crash victims have ten minutes to think about their fate? What did they think about? Did they really think about their whole life and all that? Someone should study this phenomenon. Yes, that is me thinking that. Needless to say the landing approach was a little different, we seemed to be lower and faster, than normal. Once the wheels touched down you could feel and see the captain was making an effort to stop as quickly as possible but he couldn't use the reverse thrusters on just one side of the plane and there was some left/right steering required to keep it straight.

It looked like there were 100 airport firetrucks all over the place and as we were coming in you could see other fire trucks responding from more distant locations. Somone near me asked the flight attendant if they do this often - she responded to the effect of 'almost never'. There was no fire and after about half an hour we taxied to the terminal and another hour on the ground to switch planes. We switched to an identical plane with the same crew. The ultimate deja vu.

I am still trying to decide who the celebrity was that sat behind me. She was a 45ish extremely thin and very tall female with very long and straight brown hair. If you know who she is please let me know.

Like many of my friends, I am a beer guy. I do like vodka martinis with just a little olive juice but a nicely flavored and ice cold porter makes the evening enjoyable. Back to the moment... I'm in Knoxville and a person I sometimes interact with left a gift for me. A mason jar full of apple pie moonshine! I am not kidding!

I was told the guy who made it was recently arrested for distilling. Apparently it is illegal to own or operate an unlicensed distillery in TN. How is it? It is as smooth as root beer and sneaky as a couple of martinis. The flavor is almost identical to homemade hot apple cider. There is no burn as it goes down!

Getting up at 3am to make the first out flight then spending the day working and now I have you. Thanks for visiting, you make all of this travel worth it. Stay tuned for more frequent updates as my travel season gets going again.

The Rock

For the past couple weeks a coworker from Brazil has been here in Shrewsbury, NJ for a training class we were attending for work. Last weekend I accompanied him on a whirlwind trip through New York City. I have to say that we did a good job of seeing the sights by spending the whole day moving through and across Manhattan.

It should be noted that in San Paulo, Brazil right now is the middle of Summer. The weather is in the 80-90 (F) temperature range each day although even in the Winter "cold" is relative and I suspect it is more similar to Florida.

The day started with a drive up the Garden State Parkway ($0.25 toll) from exit 109 to exit 127 changing over to Highway 440. That takes you across a small bridge ($8 toll) onto Staten Island. You drive past the beautiful "Fishkill river", past the swamps of the Sopranos and a landfill mountain, right into the neighborhoods before getting on the Verrazano Bridge into Brooklyn.

The Staten Island ferry is an interesting experience because of the scenery. You have the Manhattan skyline in the distance, Governors Island to the right and Jersey City to the left with the Statute of Liberty in between.

The day was sunny, the temperature was about 32 (or 0 degrees to my Brazillian friend) and the winds were fairly strong. My friend first learned about wind chill on this ferry ride. After snapping a few photo's of the Statute we snuck back into the warmer passenger deck of the ferry.

After disembarking we started to walk to the World Trade Centers but after about 100 yards my friend decided it was too cold, so we ducked into one of the many sidewalk subway openings to get a quick ride. A few pictures were taken there and my friend bought his first pair of gloves from a street vendor for $5 but passed on a $5 hat.

Next we took the train to Columbus Circle, at the Southwest corner of Central Park, which I learned is also at the foot of the Trump Tower. Don't get too imaginative with the tower, it looks just like any other 30 story or so black building except for the silver globe statute that sits out front. Deciding it was too cold to walk through the park we headed south towards Rockefellor Plaza (a.k.a. The Rock).

This involves several blocks of upper Broadway where there are a few hints of Broadway. Most notably, to me, was the Ed Sullivan Theatre where the David Letterman show is taped:

We finally made it to Rockefellor Plaza, the headquarters of NBC and many of its shows such as Conan Obrien, NBC Nightly News, and of course the morning show with Katie & Matt. It is also where the ice skating rink is located. After making about three trips around the interior we found the ticket booth for taking the elevator to the top. Oh yeah, this is not a free elevator ride and is not for those who are scared of hieghts. The ticket costs $17.50 for about a half-hour of time at the top. The main elevator takes you to the 67th story while another smaller elevator takes you to the 70th, the Top of the Rock. I didn't time the elevator ride but it took little more than one minute to get to the top. The floors were going by almost as fast as you could say the number-a great improvement over most hotel elevators that take that much time just to go one floor.

That is the view from the top, looking northward across Central Park. Across the bridge to the left is NJ, while the Bronx and midtown Manhattan are visible surrounding the park. To give you an idea of what downtown looks like, here is a cheesy picture of my friend and I with the Empire State Building behind us:

After hitting the streets again, we walked to Grand Central Station, then through Little Brazil (of course) and headed for Little Italy. A cab driver tried to sell us his music CD for $5 while he took the long way to where we were going, 'to get around' the traffic. Then we walked through Chinatown, past all the sidewalk markets... at one a lady was picking up a frog from a bucket of frogs. She was picking it up with cooking tongs. It was cold enough to keep them calm but you could still make out the breathing movements and could not miss the frogs eye blinking. I wonder what she plans on making with the frog... my friend was surprised to learn that they are edible. The frogs in Brazil may be poisonous but I'm not sure that I would eat one regardless of its country of origin.

We subwayed it back to Times Square just as darkness was creeping in. That is an interesting time of day to be there, as the normal city hustle is mixed with the flashing lights, and sidewalks crowded with tourists. A quick trip through the M&M Store and we headed back to the Ferry.

It was a fun day although being a little chaotic as any day in the city is. Just pick a city, it doesn't really matter which one, and you will be happy to go back to suburbia for the evening.

Thanks for coming along!

Blizzard

It seems like Winter has been going for eight or nine months but in reality it has only been a bit more than half of that. Nearly every trip to Michigan since October has been in the midst of a snowstorm. I always wondered what "lake effect snow" was really like and for some reason imagined that New Jersey suffered from it and from "Nor'Easters".

Last week I talked to someone in Michigan on Monday and heard it was raining in the morning but nice and sunny in the afternoon. Looking forward to the changing season, I flew in less than 24-hours later. During the flight the pilot reported the weather to be snowing with -8 (F) temperatures and 30mph winds which looked exactly like this:

There were slideoffs and rollovers everywhere. The new snow was 8-10" deep and four more inches was predicted overnight. I didn't bring warm winter clothing - shame on me!

Oh well, so far this Winter it has been warmer/nicer in New Jersey than Michigan. There has been no real snow to speak of with some cold nights but it rains much like Seattle in the dark months of the year. I flew home in the late evening hours, in the dark. Not long after getting home with a totally clear night sky we watched the lunar eclipse. Even in NJ we could see the moon and watched it fade out and then back in. I would share a photo with you but they didn't turn out so well.

I remember as a child waiting with anticipation for a big snowstorm. One that would be deep enough for sledding and was likely to cancel school. Living in Sandpoint, Idaho this happened all the time. It was not uncommon to get 1-3 feet of snow in the mountain community surrounding Lake Pend Oreille. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandpoint,_Idaho or http://www.sandpoint.com/ or http://www.city-data.com/city/Sandpoint-Idaho.html are good places to look at the area.

So when we moved to Boise, I had conjured up images of nice peaceful snowfalls throughout the Winter. It is Idaho after all... but apparently we hit the mildest winter in recent years. A couple of light snowfalls blew through but nothing substantial, you did not need 4x4 to get around town.

Moving to NJ we once again imagined those major snowstorms that are seen on the national news. Two, three, or more feet of snow in a single dump. That is what I had imagined NJ to be like... along with lots of salt on the roadways to cause all cars to become rusty by their fifth birthday. The winter of 2007-2008 has been yet another letdown for anyone who like snow. Mild temperatures and rain have been the norm.

Until... last Friday. The biggest baddest winter storm of the year hit the NYC metro area, including NJ. I woke up in the morning to five inches of snow... and the drive to work being such a long commute, normally takes me about five minutes. This day it took almost ten minutes! This is what my commute looked like:

So for the next few months I will enjoy snowstorms as I travel to Michigan and (hopefully) warmer weather in Tennessee. NJ will probably be somewhere in the middle. In any case like the title of this blog, No road is long with good company, so thank you for coming along!

Frequent Flier

As January ends and February begins an interesting record is about to crash and burn. Continental Airlines requires either 30 flight segments or 25,000 miles to reach the Silver Elite status and I will have 28 segments. That's not bad for one month. By the first of March I could be hitting Gold... and by May will hit Platinum (Platinum status requires 90 segments or 75,000 miles). I could hit double platinum before the year ends, although I don't think they give you anything more for it.

What does it mean to be a frequent flier? When arriving at a larger airport there is a special area to check-in where only the frequent fliers can. There is a shorter line through security and you are allowed to be the first to board the plane. If checking bags they put a special Elite tag on it for faster offloading. For me these are the real perks. Why? It is not because of some special feeling or hidden narcissim, no... let me explain.

Last night I was seated in First Class on the 737-300 from Cleveland to Newark, a short 61 minute flight. As the second person on the plane, there was plenty of room for my suitcase and computer bag in the overhead. After about 40 minutes of people streaming by my seat, just as the door was to be closed, another First Class passenger came on board. She had a suitcase and computer bag as well but was in a bulkhead seat (that means no seats in front of her so no place to put her stuff). By this time the flight attendants had already removed the economy class passengers belongings from the first class overheads... except for one large suitcase that wouldn't fit anywhere else. This suitcase took the space rightfully belonging to the last lady on board but it was too late. Two other people had to (err, volunteered to) accomodate her luggage, taking up their precious leg room.

Getting on the plane first also gives you a chance to get comfortable in the spacious but not too nice seats up front. The really nice first class seats are found on long distance flights and planes (not the 737). The flight attendant takes your coat to hang in a forward closet then offers a drink. Yes, up here the drinks are free and there is time for one before take-off and two more during the hour long flight but I rarely have more than one vodka-cran during these short flights. I need to be able to find the limo driver waiting for me in Newark. Ok that is another perk but it comes from my employer and is available to all of our employees.

The main difference between Silver, Gold, and Platinum are the ability to get free upgrades for companions and increasing priority for the upgrade. Each flight credits you for a certain number of miles no matter your status but with the FF programs you get incrementally more miles for each real mile.

Most of my flights are short flights on the ERJ 135 or 145 planes. These hold about 48 people and every seat is first class... so I'll take it when I can get it.

Winter?

I have been such a slacker, not writing for almost a month. Since the last posting I have been fortunate enough to spend about five nights in my own bed. It has been interesting traveling to Knoxville through the winter, especially having just completed the novel 'Flesh and Bone' by Jefferson Bass that is set in Knoxville with a plot around the infamous Body Farm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_Farm). You can read more here: http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/10/31/body.farm/index.html.

This evening it would be a little eery to go searching for the exact location as it is snowing a heavy wet snow. The news channels are all lit up with the snowstorm news, many school districts are announcing closures for tomorrow, reporters are interviewing
third shift' workers wondering how they will drive home in the white stuff, and there were several large planes grounded at the airport-rerouted from Atlanta and full of people sitting on the tarmac. The city of Knoxville has been "pre" spraying the roads with a wet salt mixture for three days now just to prepare for this storm.

I can hardly wait for morning to see the carnage that everyone seems to be expecting. It is almost like the frenzy that would come with huricane preparations but its barely 32 degrees and the snow is melting as it lands. The weather guy just told school administrators to wait until the morning before deciding on closures... good advice I would say.

Earlier this week I was in Kalamazoo, Michigan on the presidential primary day. Apparently John McCain had visited Kalamazoo on the same day but none of the others did. With all of the media frenzy on this topic you would think that everyone in Michigan would be talking about it. I never heard one person mention it although I wondered if McCain was staying at the same hotel. Back to the winter topic, it was cold and snowing there with several inches of accumulation during the day. No one even gave it a second mention but that is understandable, it was a minor storm compared to the several others I've witnessed there this winter already.

Back in New Jersey it has not snowed enough to matter although jackets are required most days. Over the last month I have seen 78 degrees for a high and 11 degrees for a low here in Knoxville. The San Francisco Bay Area was in the 60's, with palm trees and other blooming plants giving no indication that it was the last week of December.

Wherever you might be, be warm, be safe, and keep the rubber side down!