Travel and Health

 

We arrived in China on Wednesday and on Sunday my colleague and I were both sick. We had done a lot of things right: Used bottled water for brushing teeth as well as drinking, avoided eating food from suspect sources, but we still got sick. AJ, my partner, had stomach problems, and I had "flu like symptoms", basically achey joints and a dry cough.

What we could have done better is carry a small bottle of hand sanitizer in our pants pockets when we were out and about. Public lavatories are not frequent and don't have the amenities were used to.

And we didn't pack prescription drugs with us before we left. You can go to your family doctor, explain what your about to embark upon and (s)he will write prescriptions for the most likely problems.

The dumb thing I did is that I have a company issued travel kit that contains:

Gentamicin Sulfate eye drops for eye infections.

Diphenhydramine, Benadryl, which you don't need a prescription for, and by the way the cheapest way to get this is in Tylenol-PM.

Loperamide, which is a little safer than Lomotil.

And finally, the big gun, Sulfamethoxazole/Trimethoprim. This is a powerful antibiotic which I would only use in an emergency.

I had this kit in a convenient zippered pouch and left it in my desk!!

Fortunately, we were still able to work, and were only knocked out of exploring the area for two days.

I had made a promise to AJ that my plan was to go in healthy, come out healthy, and don't let 'em kill us. Technically, I kept my promise, we just got sick in the middle.

Xiamen and Gulangyu Photos

These are, more or less, a random collection of pictures I took during my visit to Xiamen, China and it's satellite island, Gulangyu.

Near my hotel was a boulevard that had been blocked off as a pedestrian only shopping area. My last day in country, my last couple of hours, in fact, I frantically walked through this area taking pictures of the shops and people. Some, I asked if I could take their picture, and everyone was happy to pose. Since I stood out, and had gotten used to being stared at, it wasn't difficult to get their attention with my camera. These two girls were enjoying a break.


This young lady was walking past me and let me take her picture.






This delightful woman came up to me and wanted her picture taken. I was tickled to oblige. After I'd snapped the picture, she said , "Xie, Xie." "Thank you" I said, "Xie, Xie" as she hurried away, waving, very pleased with herself. I heard this recently, "Growing old is a privilege, not a curse." She embodied that sentiment.







I frequently noticed people snacking on corn on the cob, which they buy from street vendors. When I eat corn on the cob, I'm never as elegant as this young lady.










Earlier in the week, we walked to the ferry docks to cross the channel to Gulangyu. They've created beautiful parks on both sides of the channel. This is on the Xiamen side.





Another of the Xiamen side.









The park on the Gulangyu side has almost a theme park feel to it.






I was told of two other parks within a short distance from our hotel, but didn't have the time to find and explore them. This is another view of the Gulangyu park, just on the west shore of the channel.

The previous two pictures are from a little trip to the island of Gulangyu.

It was a European, mostly British, enclave, with remarkable architecture. Some of it is in decay, but much is preserved as tourist attractions. Many guided tours passed us during our visit.

To us target-oriented-shopper types it means one thing: Pearl World and Nena.

We found the shop and introduced ourselves. The name of my employer worked powerful magic. They immediately fetched Nena, a young girl of about 25 who spoke very good English, which, I came to realize was taught mostly by people from my company. She opened a business card binder with page after page of our cards in it. I, foolishly, didn't bring one. No matter, my partner had one, and he had "The List". Pearl World is famous among my coworkers.

We spent two hours there filling orders from the people at home, selecting the pearls, deciding the length, and watching the girls string them.

I asked for a jade bracelet and got to hand pick the beads and helped arrange them into something I thought C would like. Fun!

It's 4:00 AM here, Saturday morning. We're going back!

On Gulangyu

This is a picture of a cute little girl. Her lovely, fashionable mother just happened to be in the frame. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Junk Boat

Junk Boats are motorized now.

Narita to Xiamen

The Tokyo, Narita Airport reminds me of Heathrow. The layout is almost identical. If you've been to one, you'll feel comfortable in the other.The Japanese live in a compact environment The hotel rooms are small but nicely appointed. The public restrooms are just too small for me. Even the men's room in the JAL Executive Lounge was confining. (Speaking of crowded, the culture allows line jumping. This morning, several times, people crowded ahead of me. Odd, in such a seemingly orderly society.)(Update: They might not have been Japanese.)

I'm sure that the tap water in the hotel is safe to drink. Japan is fastideous about cleanliness and health in general. I did use it once to brush my teeth, but I felt better using bottled water.

It was windy when we landed yesterday, but this morning was calm and sunny, a beautiful day to sight-see the south east coast-line of Japan. The pictures here are of the bay near Nagoya and the bridge near Kobe.

The flight to Xiamen is on a JAL 67, a wonderful plane, my favorite.

Narita

The first leg of our journey was to Narita. A 10 hour flight on United. My partner had a bad reaction to the salmon, but was better by the end of the flight. We spent the night at the Airport Hilton, and will leave in a few hours for Xiamen on JAL. The Hilton is our preferred place to stay, the ANA Hilton is smaller and not as clean. I'll get some pictures later and add them to this post.

It's easy to forget how much bigger the Pacific ocean is than the Atlantic. From Seattle to London is a 9 to 10 hour flight, half of that is over North America. Seattle to Tokyo is over a 10 hour flight.

I didn't bring the USB cable for the camera, so I'll try to buy one somewhere.

Update: Got a cable. Here are a couple of pictures of the Narita Hilton.

Travelog: Xiamen, China

Xiamen is located in the Fujian Province of China. Fujian is about 500 miles North of Hong Kong, and looks out to sea at the island of Taiwan, approximately 150 miles due East.

I will be traveling there on business in a few days and hope to provide a few insights on the trip and my experiences.

Xiamen is nestled on the mainland side of the Amoy Island.

Monica Schroeder

Thanks to John Scalzi, I've found some new music to help pass the time on my commute.
This is one of my favorite tracks also, generously made available on her web site.

Old Town, San Diego

I cropped and straightened it.

A Photo Blog

Nice Essay on Mary Chapin Carpenter

This site summarizes her career.

With several downloadable songs.

This site, by the way, is an excellent source for music information. Click the circle!

Humorous (and wrong) Quotes

My favorite:

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." --Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

I've cornered the market!!!

Talk Like a Pirate Day!!!

Pirate?! I spent the whole day talking like a Parrot!!! Dang!

Hypoxia

This post by Instapundit has reminded me that Fighter Pilots and Scuba Divers have something in common: they're both fanatic about their air supply. The disclaimer on the Re-breathing apparatus is enough for me.



There are some differences in what happens when oxygen is scarce, but the outcome is disaster for both.

From my first introduction to military flying, I was indoctrinated in the use of supplimental oxygen. We had to attend "Altitude Chamber" training before we were ever allowed in a plane that could exceed 10,000ft altitude.(the T-37)

This training consisted of two days of classroom activity followed by the "chamber ride" itself. Since then, I got "refresher" rides every three years, for twenty years. This has resulted in an obsessive-compulsive attitude about having enough air to breath.

(When my daughter was born, there was a moment before the docter arrived, when the babies heart beat dropped alarmingly, the umbilicle cord was around her neck. The head nurse instructed her assistant to give the mother oxygen. When the assistant asked her how much oxygen, I blurted out, "A hundred percent!")

The fact is there are no fighter pilots that smoke. It interferes with the hemoglobin. I still have to deal with potential hypoxia in my job today.

Anyone interested in the effects of oxygen deprivation can get an idea of how non-responsive a hypoxic person can be , watch the plight of Jill in this very controlled environment.

Quote of the Day

Since this life here and now is all we can know, our most reasonable option is to live it fully.

– Paul Kurtz

Of Passing Interest

Inside the Factory Door

Two Eugolies

In the early sixties, C and I started going steady. It's what you did in high school. Yes, we're high school sweethearts. When I first met her family, her mother was working as a clerk in the local, very small, grocery store in our very small town in East Texas. Not long after we were dating, her mother got a job in the town's only bank. By the time she retired, she had become the President and CEO of the bank, loved by the bank's customers and the town's residents that new her. In fact, she and my own parents were close friends. Heart trouble caused her to have bypass surgery in her later years, and that led her to give up smoking. We think giving up smoking added about eight years to her life. She died around Christmas in 1991 of cancer. The smoking finally took it's toll.

I would have said she was a unique person except that we came to know someone who was cut from the same cloth. Ann Richards was so like my mother-in-law that her death was an additional blow to C. She symbolized her mother. C's mother supported Ann's campaign for governor. One of her cherished memento's is a photo of her mother and a beloved cousin, taken at Ann Richards Inaugural Ball after her campaign for governor. I had occasion to meet Governor Richards professionally and arraigned to let C meet her long enough to get the photo autographed.

It was Ann that said George W. Bush was "born with a silver foot in his mouth."
Smoking finally took it's toll with Ann, too.

Thank you, both, for what you did for your communities.

Living Flat Out

For brief moments in my life, I've transcended my common sense and done something that could have ended disastrously, not just for me, but for my comrades as well. It was like a switch was thrown, and I didn't care if I bent my plane or not. I was not going to let the situation get the best of me. Looking back, it was when I did my best flying. It was when I learned something new about myself, something I didn't even know was in me. I'm not proud that I risked other lives, but I'm not ashamed either. We all knew the risks and accepted them. My only defense is, it didn't happen often. Maybe it didn't happen often enough. I've known pilots that were able to get that impulse under control and manage it. They were much better pilots than me, geniuses really.

Steve Irwin reminds me of some of them. I would watch Steve on TV and think, "Man, you need to get a grip, or you'll kill yourself." The deck was stacked against him, and he stacked it himself! I could only watch him in small doses. But I understood. He was in that moment always. Like an addict, he couldn't step out of it. We seek that kind of passion, but something holds us back; fear, common sense, inertia. At least he showed us that there is another choice. My condolences to his family, Australia, and the fans that loved him all over the world, but I don't feel, like many, that he threw his life away.

Here's to you, Steve.

Test Your Reaction Time

My best time was about 0.22 sec, but I'm old.

Social Networking

Quote of the Day

The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority.

Ralph W. Sockman

My Geek Resume'

I'm the official office computer wizard, a "Computer Focal." How that came to be is a long story which I'll spare you. It's not my real job. I've been doing it so long that I inadvertently acquired "God Mode" admin privileges. I only use my powers for good, but don't think I won't use them! About fifty people come to me first when something doesn't work with their computer. As a result, I see lots of problems. Most of them I can fix, especially if I've watched the real helpdesk fix that problem before.

I was shocked to realize that I have six computers in my home, four WinXP and two Mac OSX machines. That doesn't count a Palm T2 and an iPaq PocketPC. They all work, and they all talk to each other on my secured home network.

Not bad for an autodidact computer geek.

Parallel Universe

Trying to figure out just which one of these I'm in!

I'm Hiding

He he he, you can't see me, cuz I'm the same color as the leaves.

Vashon Island

On Saturday, we took the Grandkids, Bug(12) and Dodie(7), to Vashon Island for some exploring and high-impact beach-combing. We caught the ferry from Point Defiance to Tahlequah, then drove north to "Sound Foods," an old hippy hangout, now a high end, and pricey, lunch place.

We sat outside in a lush, English-style garden.
The temperature and sun were perfect, the food was good, although we all agreed they need to work on the clam chowder recipe a little more. And don't be in a hurry when eating here, it's not that kind of place. The tea shop is no longer there. It moved to the location of the old "Stewart Brother's Coffee" warehouse. (It's now known as "Seattle's Best Coffee," but this is where they started.)

After lunch, we drove (wandered) to Point Robinson Park, where there is a turn-of-the-century (the other century) lighthouse. We walked south along the beach, collecting shells and rocks and taking pictures of the driftwood. I'm glad we only had one bag to collect shells in. Bug took my camera and slowly approached a blue heron, taking pictures as he walked and got a pretty good picture as it took off.

We backtracked to the lighthouse and got a tour of the inside and the light itself. Like so many historic locations, there is always a need for restoration funds, so Dodie put some money in the donation jar and signed the register. Signing the register is important because that's proof that many people enjoy visiting this site. It helps secure government funding. Why is it that lighthouses are so picturesque? I've never seen a lighthouse that wasn't photogenic, and I've seen many.

We were lucky to get the tour. It's normally open only on Sundays (4 Bells of the forenoon to 4 Bells of the afternoon, look it up!)
The Great Lighthouse Hunt in Washington is underway so it's open additional days.

The lighthouse is on the point, so continuing our walk means a turn to the west. More shells and driftwood. And more pictures.

After more than three hours of exploration and enjoying the views, we needed some hot tea, so we found the Tea Shop. Bug likes the "Pirate Tea", my favorite is "Russian Caravan."
We wanted to find the "Leprechaun" Bed and Breakfast that we'd stayed at years ago, but got lost, and found ourselves near the Ferry Dock. So we joined the line and waited for the "Rhododendron"

My Son's Trip Home

the final post from my Melbourne trip:

Benefits of arriving at the airport early:

I packed my garment bag Friday night, and placed boxer shorts and dirty socks in the extra pockets in the garment bag (to make room in other bags for purchased items). I set out my other bags and items, and packed them on Saturday morning. I planned to be in a taxi at 8am and arrive at the airport by 9am.

Plan - the best way to sleep on a plane trip is to be tired when you get on it. I went to bed at 2am and woke up at 6am. It also helps to have a light breakfast sans coffee. Minimal food now equals hunger later, and hunger increases tiredness.

I woke up at 6am, ate a light breakfast, packed my bags, and stepped out of my hotel room at 8am (on schedule). The taxi arrived at the airport at 8:35am (ahead of schedule). The Muslim taxi driver from eastern Africa asked me why no Jews were killed in the September 11 attacks in NYC at the WTC. Shocked

Note From the editor: Check out this Book.

I find QANTAS airlines and stand in line. I ask the lady in front of me if this is for QANTAS and for the flight to LA. She says 'yes.' She was on flight QF 93 to LAX, and it was leaving at 10:25am.

That was cool. I thought I was on flight QF 25 which left at 10:50am, so I must have mixed up the flight number. My flight was now leaving 25 minutes early, and I was ahead of schedule. Everything was cool. Flight QF 25 was leaving 3:50pm, or something like that. I didn't pay attention, because it wasn't my flight.

I get to the ticketing counter and give the lady my passport. She told me that I was scheduled for flight QF 25, which had a stopover in Auckland, NZ. (A stop in Auckland was never on my original itinerary.) Did I want to take my original flight (which is delayed) with a stop in Auckland, or did I want to fly on the earlier flight? I wanted the earlier flight.

She found room in a middle seat, and I asked about the Tourist Refund Service (TRS = tax refund). TRS was after Customs, and TRS would need to see my purchases. Eek! My purchases were in the checked bags. The lady told me that there was another Customes office at the bottom of the Movelator (moving sidewalk that goes up/down between floors). She said she'd look for an aisle seat while I went downstairs to Customs. I ran, got the receipts stamped, and ran back. The lady checked my bags and I continued to Customs.

I found a queue for Customs, went to TRS and got my refund (sent to my credit card), and continued. The gate had called for everyone to board, so I brought up the tail of the line on the boarding platform.

I had nice neighbors (young married couple going to the U.S. for the first time - Disneyland). I watched Hoodwinked, Over the Hedge and most of V for Vendetta. I took an Ambien and slept.


LAX
I arrived early, and found some extra flights going to DFW. I put my name on the standby list for a flight at 9:19am (it was already 20 long). I went to the restroom, washed my face and under my arms, applied fresh deodorant, and put on a fresh shirt that I placed in my backpack just for this reason. FRESH!!! I went to Starbucks for a half-caff iced latte. This was a long/slow line. I got my drink and returned to the gate. I looked at the standby list, and it showed 1 PLU/E. Oops. I went to the counter and asked about my standby status. The lady said she'd been calling my name forever. I said I was sorry, and that I couldn't hear her when I was in Starbucks. She made me wait while she checked for an available seat. I was the last person on the plane.

I arrived in Dallas at 2:30pm, seven hours ahead of my bags. My ticket from LAX-DFW was AA 2454, when it should have been AA 2450. My bags arrived on AA 2450 (baggage claim at A-28), as they were supposed to. I went to baggage claim C-15, because that's where AA 2454 was supposed to go. Deborah at C-15 had a line of people looking for their bags that didn't show up, so she passed out the 800 number. I called and asked where my bags were supposed to arrive. My bags were waiting at A-28. YAY!!!


Lesson
It helps to arrive extra early at the airport.

More From Melbourne

(All times are based on Dallas time.)

« on: July 21, 2006, 20:57:54 »

Melbourne, Ozzyland

I just checked into the hotel room. Today is tomorrow. The time in Dallas is 8:50pm on Friday, 21 July 2006. The time in Melbourne is 11:50am on Saturday, 22 July 2006. So I guess Melbourne is 15 hours ahead of Dallas.

Being as I left Flower Mound around 3pm on Thursday (Dallas Time) to go to the airport, and it is now almost 9pm on Friday (Dallas Time), it has been over 30 hours since my last shower. This log is postponed until further cleanliness.





« Reply #1 on: July 22, 2006, 18:12:06 »

Airline Review:
I love flying with QANTAS.

In-flight entertainment (all free, all on-demand):
10 Games
10 Radio Stations
60 Movies
100 TV Shows (ranging from 15 travel guides to 50+ minute shows like CSI)
250 CDs

The control is in the arm rest of the seats. Telephone and text messager (credit card is required), game controller (like Nintendo), channel selector for entertainment. One can pause, rewind and fastforward through movies and TV shows. The screen is maybe 6" x 8" and can mainly be viewed straight on; it's difficult to view the the screen from the side. I watched The Castle (Australian movie, comedy) and some travel guide shows.

Dinner was nice; I had the Cadbury's Hot Chocolate instead of coffee or tea.





« Reply #2 on: July 22, 2006, 18:48:53 »

City Review: (part 1)
Melbourne is awesome.

I picked up a lot of tourism brochures and sorted through them by available dates. Then I'll pick out which events I go to. The first is a Singapore Expo at the NGV International (National Gallery Victoria), which is this (Sunday) afternoon.

I bought a weekly Metcard, which is for the local public transportation.



« Reply #3 on: July 23, 2006, 17:11:38 »

Melbourne is beautiful. It's winter here, and it's nice. The climate is cool, not cold. The city is beautiful enough to forgive the Aussies for driving on the wrong side of the road. I've learned some lessons, and still learning others.

Examples:
Lesson learned - I'll cross streets at the intersections, preferably with a crowd. I tried crossing in the middle once after checking that the street was clear. I looked in the wrong direction.

Lesson not learned - I tried returning to the hotel, which is south of downtown. I caught a tram and went into downtown. Wrong direction. This turned out to be really good. Maybe you've heard about the choreographed water fountain displays, like in Las Vegas. I saw something better - a choreographed fire fountain display. It was awesome! There are about half-a-dozen columns in the display. I think they are 30 feet high, and you can touch them at the base. The fire is at the top, and I felt the heat. I walked 60 feet away, and I still felt the heat.


BTW, I visited the NGV yesterday. I left Indonesia Day early and toured other parts of the gallery. Most of it is free; the Picasso display had a charge. I paid and saw it. Way cool! It was Picasso: Love and War, 1935 - 1945. It was about Picasso and his lover/muse Dora Maar. She was a photographer (1907-1997) and a hoarder. They were only together for ten years, and she kept everything. Her photographs of Picasso's Guernica as he created it influenced his choices during the process. He made choices to support it's presentation in gray-scale, instead of just color. Guernica is roughly 12' x 24'. The audio tour mentioned it was almost 8 meters long.





« Reply #5 on: July 25, 2006, 02:32:06 »

The flight was definitely sweet. It makes me look forward to the return flight. I was even luckier that I had a window seat with nobody next to me. I got the whole armrest. You may not realize just how valuable it is until you are on a 14 hour flight. Grin

The International terminal at LAX was good. I had a 5-hour wait, so I got to people-watch. I especially liked the flight attendants for the other airlines. I don't know which airline this was (Asian), but the female flight attendant uniform was purple, and the skirt had a slit up the side of the thigh. I don't care which airline it is, or the destination; I just want fly it once and find as many reasons as possible for pressing the call button.


City Review:
I walked south to St Kilda (Saint Kilda). It's a suburb of Melb, and my hotel is on St Kilda Road. My destination of Barkly Street and Acland Street is about 2700 meters from the hotel. It's a pretty cool scene. Acland Street reminds me of Greenville, Lower Greenville, or Deep Ellum, only it's short. I left the hotel at 6:15pm and returned at 8pm. I had dinner at McDonald's. It was an "El Maco." It tasted like a Big Mac, and it had sour cream and "taco sauce" instead of Thousand Island.

Melb and my location south of it:
It's like a big town with a small town feel; a mix of England (old-world feel and accents) and California (coastal feel and modern architecture). I was informed that the public transportation in Melbourne (great) is kind of unique to Melb; Sidney and other large cities in Australia don't have anything as good.

Right is Wrong:
I'm never driving in Australia. I look both ways (three times) before crossing a street at an intersection, and keep looking both ways while I cross. I keep thinking of how I would plan a trip with the public transportation, and I have to start over because I imagine catching the Tram on the wrong side of the street.


Traveller Skillz:
Number 1 - being able to walk through a crowded downtown sidewalk, obviously looking like an outsider and easy mark, and keep looking/walking forward without acknowledging the guy calling "hey" twice to get my attention.

Number 2 - reading a map, but it's not as important as Skill #1.





« Reply #6 on: July 25, 2006, 05:37:39 »

I was informed today that Rugby is not the same thing as Australian Rules Football. Soccer is Soccer, and Football ("Footy") is Australia Rules. The TV stations have a minimum of four channels for Footy, and only one for Rugby. I watched a game of Footy last night. It's interesting. A guy runs with the ball until he is tackled and brought to the ground. He passes the ball to a player on his team by rolling it backwards on the ground under his foot. This guy continues forward. The ball can only be passed to another player who is behind the ball carrier. The only way to pass the ball forward is to kick it. This is risky, because the other team could intercept. The game I watched last night had a lot of running, tackling, and passing to the rear. A summary that I watched this morning was almost all kicking forward. Maybe this was rugby. Footy is played on an oval field, and so is cricket. I don't know about rugby.





« Reply #7 on: July 25, 2006, 14:33:06 »

Damn. I had a dream about ARF last night. Not that I was watching it, but that after my return to the states I was asked to demonstrate the game for all of us in Larry's back yard. With a real rugby ball and real tackling. Ouch. No more TV for me; I'm staying with movies and sightseeing.

The main play is between three guys: one guy running with the ball and two guys tackling him. Everybody else is standing back to give them room. The opposing team doesn't try to intercept unless the ball is kicked, or if an opponent happens to be inbetween two players when the ball is thrown backwards.





« Reply #9 on: July 26, 2006, 03:06:05 »

What I learned today:
Rugby = running and tackling.
Footy = emphasis on kicking.





« Reply #10 on: July 26, 2006, 17:32:17 »

It's difficult for me to stay out late. 8pm is the limit. I went to sleep one night at 10pm, and the following day I was tired at 6:30pm. And I still wake up several times between midnight and 6am.

I'm planning a day trip on a bus tour to a place northeast of Melbourne. It's called Healseville Sanctuary. I'll probably see some platypi, koalas, and kangaroos. I'll get to ride a train do some other stuff. Leave at 8:40am, return at 5:30pm. The cost is $151, and I have a coupon for 10% off. I'll probably do this on Saturday, then go to movies on Sunday.




« Reply #12 on: July 27, 2006, 07:18:06 »

what I learned today
Australia has a population of about 20.6 million. Sidney has about 4.5 million, and Melbourne has about 3.5 million. Melbourne has the tallest residential building in the southern hemisphere. I saw it as I walked toward downtown for dinner; it's impressive and pretty. Australia is debt-free, and the fire display is hourly; we saw it at 6pm, 7pm, 8pm, and 9pm. Some displays are shorter than others.


Australia
Area: 7.7 million sq km (2.9 million sq miles)

USA
Area: 9.8 million sq km (3.8 million sq miles)

A flight from Melbourne to Alice Springs (closest large airport to Ayer's Rock) takes three hours. That's like Dallas to Chicago. Australia is 78.6% the size of USA when it comes to area.





« Reply #13 on: July 28, 2006, 07:45:34 »

Melbourne is clean. At least the major public areas are clean. It's enjoyable to walk from downtown to the hotel.

I did something bad this evening. I have a list of things to avoid so I can pay off my debts. Starbucks, bookstores, La Madeleine (I dig their omelettes). I didn't think to include clothing stores. I walked past a shop window near Chinatown in Melbourne and saw a sign that said "$29." It was on a shirt. I looked at store signage and it said "Formal Hire," which means rental clothing. I stepped in to ask about the price, whether it was a daily rental rate or the sale price. It was the sale price. I asked what time the store closed - 7:30pm. It was 7pm, so I had half-an-hour to try on shirts. I left at 8:30pm with nine shirts. ... and some other stuff. My main consolation is that $29 AUS is less than $22 USD. My other consolation is that I'm on vacation with travel, hotel, and meals paid for. And my other other consolation is that I'm about to be reimbursed for previous travel expenses, so I've got money to spend.





« Reply #14 on: July 29, 2006, 02:35:12 »

I did some more shopping in a new part of town - South Yarra / Prahran / Chapel Street. Now I'm back in the hotel, debating whether to do laundry now or later. Decisions.

Tipping is rare. What we would usually add on for gratuity is already included in the price. Restaurants, haircuts, room cleaning, taxis - no tipping.

I decided to do laundry, then maybe I'll go out later.

Rugby is played on a rectangular field. Australian Rules Football (ARF) is played on an oval field, as is Cricket.

ARF allows the ball to be thrown forward to another player. ARF has four goal posts, equally spaced in a straight line. The ball is kicked through to score points. Between the middle posts gains 6 points, between the outside posts gains 1 point, and bouncing off the two middle posts is equivalent to kicking the ball through the outside posts.

I haven't seen any Scrums in ARF. A Scrum is when the ball is unclaimed, and the referee sets it on the field. The teams huddle into one big circle, with each team taking half of this circle. As far as I can tell, they push and somehow try to claim the ball that is on the ground. It's like a spider with a 15' diameter and 40 legs that cannot decide which direction it wants to go. I've only seen this in Rugby.

In ARF, the referee bounces the ball on the field so it goes really high. Then each team tries to secure the ball for their side.

In Rugby, when a player throws the ball in from the side, he will throw it really high. The players will lift one of their own high into the air to catch the ball. It's amazing to watch.

Both sports appear rough. I think it's amazing to watch either one. I watched a game of ARF this morning, and it's a high-scoring game. I think it was 160 to 123. The 123 was the highest losing score of the season.





« Reply #15 on: July 30, 2006, 05:11:50 »

I walked 7 to 8 miles, ate some authentic Mexican food, bought another shirt, and went through the Melbourne Aquarium.

Walking - I bought bandages on the way back to the hotel. My feet hurt, especially my right heel.

Mexican food - It still stands that I eat better/tastier Mexican-inspired food when I'm travelling than when I'm at home. Montreal and Melbourne. Who would have thought, besides the people that started the restaurants where I enjoyed good food?

The newest shirt - $29 AUS includes the tax. Conversion is $0.754 USD for $1 AUS, and Texas sales tax is 8.25%. The effective price of the shirt before tax is $20.20. It's a great set of shirts at a great price, though still not the best sale I found. (Six shirts for $9 each at Bachrach.)

The Aquarium - Neat! I closed it. It has four levels, and your path is directed. My favorite is the Main Oceanarium and Deep Water Trench. (They are connected.) They have three Grey Nurse Sharks and five Seven Gill Sharks. The Seven Gill Sharks are the most prehistoric of all sharks. Other sharks have five gills, though shark fossils show that they used to have seven. The Seven Gill Sharks don't have the dorsal fin, though they still have the fin on their back which is closer to the tail.

The Aquarium also has rays in the same tank. You don't know how amazing these things are until you watch a seven-foot diameter black disk with a white belly and a tail swim over your head.

The octopus was the last display. Yes it was a tiny tank compared to the Main Oceanarium, but the octopus was active. Have you ever watched an octopus go from being as smooth as an apple to being as rough as a prickly pear in a few seconds? Or go from dark rust red to white in one second? It's freaking amazing! I saw both of those and more. I've seen (on television) an octopus look like and swim like a coral snake (long and skinny with black and white stripes), turn sideways and look and swim like a lion fish (red and white with poisonous spines and fins), and go flat and sand-colored like a flounder.

And then there is the frozen giant squid. It's encased in a block of ice. (I looked above the block and saw frost, so I know it's not acrylic that was made to look like ice.) From the tip of the bell to where the tentacles start is about four to five feet long. The tentacles are folded over so it doesn't take up as much space. The pupil of the eye was about 2-1/2" in diameter, and the white area made about at a 7" diameter. These things swim between 500 to 1500 meters deep; I'm not going past my ankles when I go to the beach. I don't want to meet one of these things alive.


Further proof that I'm never driving in Australia - I had a dream last night that I was driving in Melbourne. I couldn't figure out why other cars were driving toward me in the same lane and honking at me. Then I realized that I was in the wrong lane.


Further clarification regarding ARF - the players must kick the ball through the goals; they cannot carry it through.





« Reply #20 on: August 4, 2006, at 06:29:22 »

I found out today that I shopped enough for a tax refund from Australia.


So I shopped some more.


But this time it wasn't for me. ;)


I went to a new part of town called Lygon Street. It's north of the Central Business District (CBD), which is the official name for downtown Melb. Lygon Street has a lot of nice restaurants. The restaurants have sidewalk seating, usually with awnings and plastic windows to block the wind. And heat lamps to keep everyone warm (too warm for me). The sidewalk seating is next to the street, and restaurants have their menu on a free-standing blackboard or something similar for people to look at. The menu is by the entrance to the main part of the restaurant, and you have five to six feet of sidewalk between the building and the tables. So you're trying to walk past a crowd of people who have gathered to read the menu so they can decide whether or not to dine at this restaurant (either inside or outside), and you can't walk around them because you have tables in the way, and once you wiggle your way through this standing crowd of a half-dozen people, you still have to deal with traffic coming head-on that doesn't understand the meaning of "single file." It was fun.

It's 9:29pm on Friday, and my flight is tomorrow morning at 11am. Do I pack my bags tonight or tomorrow morning?


P.S. - I'm still not driving in Australia. I was in the CBD waiting for a Tram back to the hotel. I'm standing on the sidewalk watching cars drive past. The cars closest to me are going from my right to my left. No problem. I see one car on the far side come from the left and go to my right and I freak out. He's going the wrong direction! Wait. No, he's not. He's driving where he's supposed to be. I took two taxi rides today, one on Tuesday night, and one last night. Someone else was driving, so I stayed calm. But there was still some part (like being in the left lane) that looked totally weird.


I don't know what I just did, but it was cool. I'm using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.6, and I just selected some text and right-clicked so I could copy it. The menu appeared, and so did something else. I had a square magnifying glass under my cursor. It made everything (text and images) 25% larger. Sweet!

Hah! Double right-click brings the magnifying glass.

My Son is in Australia

My son is in Melborne on an assignment for his company. This is from an email about his trip there and his first day in "Melb."

I am south of downtown Melbourne ('Melb' for short). So far I am loving it.

Travel Review:

The second hardest part regarding yesterday (see below for the first hardest part) was the schedule. It started with a 10:40pm flight out of LAX (12:40am Dallas time). I ate dinner, then watched a movie or two until I couldn't keep my eyes open. I took 5mg of Ambien and woke up 4 hours later. (It's supposed to be good for 7 to 8 hours.) I took another, and woke up 2-1/2 hours later. I stayed up, played some checkers (won every time) and watched more movies. We landed and I went through customs. I arrived at the hotel before noon, checked in, and had one goal: stay out and about until 8pm so I can get accustomed to the local schedule. I didn't realize how difficult that was going to be.
I hopped on the Tram and went to Flinders Station (south end of downtown Melb). At the time I only had a Metcard Day Pass and wanted a Weekly Pass. I bought one, then went walking/shopping. I decided that I needed a watch since my mobile phone would only show me Califoria time. (How screwy is that?) I saw a store for Swiss Watches and crossed the street. Swiss Watch is not the same as Swatch, which is what I wanted; I kept walking. I found a Swatch store just after 2pm and left wearing my purchase. I needed food and coffee so I could stay awake. I passed McDonald's and looked for something local. My map showed a Greek section, so I went there. I had two lattes and a spanakopita (delicious). I left around 3:30pm and walked to Federation Square, which is a civic center with a tourism information shop. (I learned that from the Melbourne travel guide on the flight.) At 5pm I decided to give in to fatigue. I felt like I was a pedestrian vertigo, so I caught a Tram back to the hotel. I tried to stay up, so I watched TV until 7pm. I took 5mg of Ambien, and woke up at 1am. Went back to sleep and woke up at 3am. Went back to sleep and woke up at 5am. Went back to sleep and woke up at 7:30am. I got up and went to breakfast. I realize that I need 10mg of Ambien, and that I need to avoid drinking two lattes four hours before trying to sleep.
The hotel TV has ten stations. These are numbered uncomplicatedly from 1 to 10. A minimum of five channels are dedicated to sports, mainly rugby.
The first hardest part regarding yesterday was taking off my shoes after having worn them for more than 30 hours. I would have burned my shoes if it hadn't been a toxic hazard for the kookaburras.

Love,
E

I just wanted to eat my muffin.

Last week I conducted a customer demonstration of a 777 with one of our Asian customers. This customer is one of our toughest to work with because they are methodical to a fault. Their procedures actually interfere with understanding and testing the systems. What is normally a two and a half hour flight, stretched into almost a five hour flight. This tries my patience.

At the "post flight" meeting I didn't let my fatigue show, but it was there. When all questions are answered and a plan to handle the discrepancies that we've found, are established, I excuse myself from the conference room, congratulating the customer pilot and everyone else for doing a good job. (I'm sincere in this, no matter how it goes, it's a challenging task.)

I'd skipped the box lunch during the flight, so I was hungry. There were some left over pastries available. I grabbed a muffin, and walked across the parking lot to our office. I'd gone a short distance when the customer pilot called to me. He came up to me, and I thought, "What now?" He took my hand thanking me for my help. He wouldn't let go. He told me when he'd be back for the next flight, he wanted to fly with me again. He was still shaking my hand. With a stale muffin in one hand and the other captured, I was wondering, "What's going on here?" We talked for a while, then I was finally able to extricate myself. I have to remember that, what for me, is routine, for him is an epiphany. Mixed feelings. I was doing something right and I missed it.

Little League Hero

Warning: Treacly Grandkid stuff to follow.

My twelve year old grandson has done quite well this season in the Little League Baseball. He made it to the All Star Team and worked very hard to move up to second baseman. Two days before the All Star Playoffs, he took a hit across the bridge of his nose by a low hit ball. It slightly dislocated his nose, and opened a cut where it hit. For a few moments, he was stunned. The parents rushed to him and were impressed that he didn't cry. He's like that.

The next day, at the urgent care facility, the doctor suggested that he not play. He cried. He's like that.

Saturday, we watched him play in the tournament.

This is a boy that Hemingway would be proud to have for a son. I know this Poppa is proud to have him for a grandson.

How to adjust your rear view mirrors.

I've tried explaining this to people, but was never convincing. Maybe this will get the job done.

You Never Know What Form Art Might Take

Rock Stacking

I Can Live With This

Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti

Take My Photo's, Please!

This Site wants you to use their stock photo's, and only asks that you provide a link to them.

High Altitude Photo's

This is a slide show of a student project to launch a ballon to an altitude above 60,000 feet.

So Much Music, So Little Time

One of the nice features of Pandora is that you can email one of your personalized stations to a friend. With a couple of more steps, you can post your stations to your journal or web page. Just send the email to yourself, then open your mail and copy the URL to the appropriate location.

Here's a station I built around Jane Monheit.

Here's one based on Natalie MacMaster.

Besides Pandora, there are a couple of more sites that offer interesting music.

GarageBand.com offers indipendant music and free downloads.

Falling You has some amazing ethereal music available to stream or download.

What are your favorite sites?

Firefoxflicks

A very cool commercial by a Firefox fan. He did this for free to show his support for Firefox.

Hawaiian Sanctuary becomes a National Monument

This is good.

Here's a little inspiration.

More Chickens

Another Joseph Campbell Quote

The ego that sees others as "Thou" is different than the ego that sees others as "it."

From Wandering Visitor

The Music Genome Project

We had the chance to attend the Town Hall meeting with Pandora.com founder Tim Westergren at Seattle's Experience Music Project. If you are not familiar with Pandora, you should check it out.

The Music Genome Project now has more than 400,000 songs in the database and over 2 million subscribers.
Pandora.com has only been online for six months. That's a staggering growth rate!

• (Side note: Legally they can only allow US residents to subscribe; they use zip codes to verify residence. According to their demographic statistics, Hollywood, zip code 90210, has 4 million residents.)

Here's a summery of the meeting along with some of my thoughts in Italics:

They are working on the Classic music genome and will have it available soon.

Near and dear to their hearts is giving unknown artists a chance to be heard.

If you seed a station with an artist, expect to go through a process of sorting out the different styles that artist has used. Imagine (pun intended) seeding a station with the Beatles.

They are aware of the tendancy of a station to morph into "mush" over time with the use of thumbs up and down.

• If you want a station to stay close to a style, seed it with a song instead of an artist and avoid the temptation to adjust it with thumbs up and thumbs down. You can add a track to your favorites if you want to capture it for future study.

The business plan, for now, depends mostly on advertising, with Amazon, iTunes, and paid subscriptions, helping. Tim mentioned that if you link to Amazon from their site and purchase music, they get a percentage, but if you stay on Amazon and buy anything else, they also get credit.

• They're not profitable yet.

A long range goal is to have universal access to their music.

• I think this is a long way off, but I would love to be able to listen to my stations on my commute.

• It occurred to me that they have a huge database of what we, the subscribers, are listening to, the same way Google knows what we're searching for. This disturbs me a little, but not enough to quit using Google or Pandora. The potential for database mining seems very high to me. I also worry that some deep-pocket, like Yahoo, will buy them out.

I'm not an expert on this service, but, if you have a question or a suggestion about them, please leave a comment.

RC Plane video on YouTube

This is worth watching.

In Memorium

The F-101, "Voodoo", was the second of the so-called Century Series fighters. Starting with the F-100, "Super Sabre" and ending with the F-110, "Spectre", which was later re-designated the F-4, "Phantom II". As you can see from the photo, the rudder and pitch control are on a tail boom behind the engines. Just forward of the tail boom and above the engines, are five fuel "cells" plumbed together to make up the fuselage fuel tank.
To refuel the aircraft, a fuel truck would make a sealed connection to the body of the plane and pump fuel into these cells at a moderate pressure.
(You can watch a similiar operation from the windows of the waiting area of the airport terminal.)
Since the hose connection is air tight, the cells must be ventilated. They accomplished this with ducting from the top of the cells that are connected with "T" fittings so that fuel vapors and air could exit at the back of the tail boom.

In October, 1980, I was into the second day of Air Defense Alert at New Orleans Naval Air Station when the phone rang. Not the "Bat" phone, just a regular land line. New Orleans was not our home base. We deployed there from Houston for a 48 hour shift. We would take off from Ellington Field, have a short training session then recover to the Navy base. I answered the phone, and was told that two of our squadron members had been killed that morning on a training flight. At the time, all we were told, all that they knew, was that the plane had nosed into the ground just a moment after taking off. There was an unconfirmed report of an explosion before it hit the ground. Greg was the front seater, and Jerry was in the back. The eight of us in New Orleans, four crew members and four mechanics, stayed close to the phone for the rest of the day. The thoughts we all had centered around the loss of our friends and the questions of How? Why?

Weeks later,after the investigation, we got our answers. The fuel vent at the tail of the plane had becomed clogged, allowing the refueling pressure to force a clamp, securing a"T" fitting, loose. This let a small amount of fuel to collect in the tail boom. A perfect mixture of fuel and air, all that was needed was ignition.

We never found out what the ignition source was. Something, maybe the afterburner, touched it off. The explosion severed the tail boom. The horizontal stabilizer and the rudder were no longer a part of the plane, pitch control was gone, the nose dropped, and it flew into the ground.
There was some evidence that suggested they had tried to eject, but there was not enough time and altitude. What was also clear, was that this condition had been in place for a very long time. This plane was a time bomb. We had all flown it. In fact, I had flown it the day before the accident on the flight that took me to New Orleans.

Krupa on the Tom-Tom

I'm not that big a fan of Big Band era music, so when Benny Goodman's "Sing, Sing, Sing" started playing on the local Jazz radio, I almost switched it off.

After a minute or two, it started getting to me and I wasn't sure why. About half way through it, I knew. There was a drummer banging away on the Tom-tom that was relentless. He turned out to be Gene Krupa.

Krupa does, what I found out later, to be the first extended and most famous drum solo ever recorded. If you've never heard this, you owe it to yourself to listen to it at least once in your life.

I defy anyone to not get caught up in the beat.

Recorded in 1938, you can listen to it here or watch a cool video here. I now have a copy of Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall and the track runs twelve minutes!

Everyone Loves Cirie

Me, too.
That would be Cirie Fields from Survivor Panama.
In an interview, she said that she had been underestimating herself for 35 years. That resonated with me.
It's almost a universal human condition. Sometimes we break out of the pattern by joining the military, signing up for something like "Outward Bound" or choosing some kind of adventure that puts us to the test.
Yogi Berra said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." I think he meant, choose adventure.

Pandora Update

Reference to my previous post about the music streaming site, Pandora.

I've had a couple of friendly exchanges with the "Listener Advocate" at Pandora support desk and have learned a few new things about how it works.
Here are excerpts from our emails:

Q: I'm a little curious what happens when I seed widely different genres into the same station, for instance, Diana Krall, and Gipsy Kings?

A: If you seed a station with Diana Krall and Gipsy Kings, you should get a station that plays "sets" of matches by each one. One set of 4 Krall-esque songs, and then one set of 4 Gipsy-esque songs.

Q: So now, the next question is, what if you enter two not so widely different artists, Joni Mitchell and Jane Monheit, for instance?

A: If you seed a station with similar-sounding artists, your station will be a lot more homogeneous. I personally have both types of stations; ones that whip around wildly, and ones that stick to a specific style of music.

A general understanding of their system can be gleaned from their FAQ, and a very thorough
review of their project can be found here.

I mentioned that I checked out two web sites in the previous post, but I didn't mention the other one. It's Protopage. It is a kind of Widgets for your browser. It only works with Internet Explorer and Firefox. I've tried it on Safari and Opera and sure enough it didn't function. I mention it now, because I was able to add a web page widget within Protopage that has the Pandora site embedded in the page. It works just fine, but I'm still not ready to give an unconditional endorsement to Protopage. Pandora is definitely thumbs up!

A World Tour - Sort Of

In the Fall of 2004, four of my coworkers and I started on an adventure that would take eighteen days to complete. It would involve a trip around the world, but not in the usual sense of east to west. This trip was north to south, almost pole to pole.The map shows where we went, but to get a proper idea of what we did, you need to lay it out on a globe. Our task was to prove the long range reliability of a new and stretched version of the Boeing 777. We left Seattle on Oct 20, and flew south along the coast, then turned north to a tiny island in the Aleutian chain. We spent much of this flight with one of our two engines shut down -- on purpose! We landed at Cold Bay, taxied to the end of the runway, turned around, and took off again without opening a door or shutting down the engines. Our next destination was Tokyo, again most of this was flown with an engine shut down. If a jet engine could have a soul, these engines should. I've always been partial to General Electric engines, but these give me goose bumps. During this trip, we would be flying on one engine for over 28 hours! Before this adventure was over we would make stops in Dubai, Teipei, Singapore, Mauritius, Perth, Sidney, and Recife, then one final push back to Seattle. This will be something of a photo travel log of this trip.


Tokyo:
We arrived late at Narita, after 16 hours of flight time. The interior of our plane was like a cross between an RV and a computing laboratory. Except, it didn't have beds and it didn't have showers and it didn't have a kitchen - - well it wasn't that much like an RV. A normal cabin would be outfitted months later. We had sleeping bags, and foam or blow up mattresses on board, to get rest when we could, but it's just enough to get by. After landing, there were about twenty five of us, engineers, pilots, and mechanics, packed onto a too small bus for a very long ride to our hotel in downtown Tokyo.

The next day was for rest, but sightseeing took precidence. After a tour of the Tokyo Tower we went to the Ginza. It's what I think Times Square would be like, crowds of busy people, all moving quickly with somewhere important to go. I liked it very much, and insisted we find a local place for lunch.





Singapore:
The next leg of the journey for me and one other pilot was a commercial flight to Singapore where we would wait for the rest of the crew to bring the plane from Taipei. We used a method of crew leapfrogging so that pilots and mechanics could be in place and rested, to begin a series of repeated flight rotations scheduled as rapidly as a crew change would allow. The plane didn't get any rest.
Singapore was warm and humid. In fact, that was why we were there, to demonstrate that cold-dry to hot-humid cycles could be tolerated. By now, jet lag and long days had caught up with me, so my sightseeing consisted of strolls through the nearby shopping district and an outing for lunch at Raffles. Singapore is very modern with a huge amount of western influence. There were, of course, McDonalds and Starbuck's, but there were also many other recognizable American places, like Subway Sandwiches and Tony Roma's.



Dubai:
An "Oh, God:30" wake up call on Oct 28 for an early departure from Singapore to Dubai. This is absolute desert on the banks of the Persian Gulf. The only thing breaking up the uniform sand, is man made buildings. There were about thirty of us, so it took a long time to clear immigration and customs. The UAE, of which Dubai is a part, is very westernized. The region has close ties with the United States. When I was there, I thought, "Maybe there's hope."
We visited the "Burj Al Arab" Hotel . To get a tour, we were charged for tickets to get in, but they also allowed you to credit the price of the tickets against shopping at the hotel; more souvenirs! After exploring the pool area, and admiring the high tech fountain in the lobby, we took a cab to the Dubai Hard Rock Cafe for supper. I'm indifferent to it, but my co-workers seem to enjoy a chance to get some comfort food, burgers and barbecue. Of course it's cool to collect t-shirts from Hard Rock Cafe's from all over the world.




Mauritius:
Our next destination was a very welcome break. Mauritius is in the Indian Ocean, about a thousand miles east of Mozambique, with Madagascar half way between. Mostly agricultural, tourism from Europe is a big part of the economy. It felt, to me, very much like Hawaii. The rooms were four to a villa, with the villas widely scattered over the grounds. A beautiful pool was just steps from the lagoon beach.

The Shandrani Hotel provided canoes, kayaks, and power boats to give skiers a short pull around the lagoon. First come, first served, but it was free. After a day of rest, swimming, and photography, we had a fresh seafood supper before retiring for the night. The next day was all PR work. We opened the plane to tours by the "Air Mauritius" executives and employees. We expected around a hundred people, but got four times that many. Everyone was conscripted to help answer questions by the visitors. We were a hit! I found out after we left, that we made a splash in the local paper, partly because we pulled a "Look, Ma, no hands" stunt when we took off from a convenient intersection of the taxiway and runway, instead of backtaxiing to the very start of the runway, blithely ignoring a thousand feet of usable runway. With our performance, we didn't need it! That got their attention.



Perth:
What was about to happen over the next four days, I'll remember forever, and will, no doubt, bore my grandkids, and anyone else who will listen, to tears, for the rest of my life. From Mauritius, a seven hour flight took us to Perth, Australia. Australians are every bit as fun and hospitable as their reputations indicate.We had the quickest and easiest customs process yet.
One of the first things I was aware of while exploring Perth and Fremantle, was that "I could live here!" Perth was bigger than I expected. Their population is about 1.5 million. Fremantle is a boat ride from Perth, and is preserved as a historic harbor from the last century. Uh, no, check that, the one before the last century. Tourism is big. It's a good place to buy a didgeridoo and opal jewelry. No, I didn't buy a didgeridoo, yes, I bought some opal earrings for C. It was their Spring, and the temperature and sunshine were perfect. A lot more walking and picture taking on that day and the next.
But wait! There's more!




Ayers Rock:
We, of course, didn't land on Ayers Rock, but we saw it in a way that few have. Our next leg of the journey was actually two flights, one from Perth to New Caledonia, then a short back track to Sidney. Well, by now, a four hour flight was short! The stop in New Caledonia was just like the one on the Alaskan island, land, turn around and take off again. What happened on the flight from Perth is the most amazing thing I've ever experienced. Our test conditions called for a simulated catastrophic engine failure, rupturing the pressure vessel. That means that we pretend the engine blows up, damages the wall of the cabin, and we lose pressurization. Now, if you are a white knuckle flyer, don't panic, this almost never happens. =insert steely eyed killer grin here=
Here's what that meant to us. Leave Perth, and climb to 30,000 feet, cruise for a while, then shut down the engine, and rapidly descend to 10,000 feet. Once we are at low altitude, we are no longer under the control of any air traffic service. No one can see us on radar, no one can talk to us unless we use the satalite phone system. We're on our own. By the time we made our descent, we were over the red outback, pointed at the heart of Australia. This is where I start channeling Nevil Shute. We will fly over Ayers Rock, now known as Uluru, and Alice Springs.
When we approached Uluru, everyone grabbed a camera and scrambled for a window. Without much persuasion, the crew at the controls banked the plane so we could get a better look and eventually made a couple of turns around the rock. Since the top is over 1000 feet above sea level, we came within nine thousand feet of it. In the picture, you can see a road encircling the formation, with vehicles, buildings and a small town at the top. This is the second time I've seen Uluru from the air. Someday, I'll see it from the ground....


Sidney:
Another place I could live! Imagine the scenery of Seattle and the climate of San Diego. Over twelve hours after leaving Perth, we arrived in Sidney to another warm welcome. It was dark when we checked into the hotel, so we all met in the bar on the 24th floor of the Shangri La Hotel.
The nighttime view was spectacular. The next day was my turn to be the "Designated Pilot" at the PR event. When I could break free of my duties, there was no way to rejoin my companions, so I had the cab driver make a detour by Bondi Beach on my way back to the hotel. I was still in my uniform, so I only spent a few minutes taking pictures. This is headquarters to one of the famous lifesavers clubs. Once back at the hotel, it was a short walk to the harbor. This is THE harbor. The opera house is right there, just as impressive in person as in the pictures. I took a boat tour of the harbor and got a few more pictures.
But wait! There's still more.



Recife:
We might as well set a record while we're at it. Made the papers again. Our next leg was 17,314 kilometers (10,690 miles). 18 hours, 25 minutes from lift off to touchdown. No one had ever flown from Australia to Brazil before. By the way, lets tag the Antarctic circle, too. We flew due south from Sidney, down to Latitude 65 south. Then east, uh, west, wait.... I'm confused. We turned left! Now we're on a beeline for the Straights of Magellan. Beneath us is the outer reach of the south polar ice sheet. Icebergs just barely show up as bright white flecks. Once we arrive over the southern tip of South America, it seems like we would turn left to fly up its east coast, but a turn is not necessary. It's a trick of "Great Circle" navigation. But fly up the coastline, we did. Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, Uruguay, then Brazil. We overflew Rio, and could make out Sugar Loaf through the scattered clouds. Recife is located just on the north eastern shoulder of Brazil, just before the coastline bends back to the west. More beaches, more pictures, more souvenir shopping, more sightseeing... ho hum.
No, I never get tired of it. On the drive from the airport to our beach front hotel, we saw the slum areas, that convinced us to stay away from the interior of the city. This is, again, a recreation area for Europeans, as well as Americans. The cost of living, or vacationing, here is so low that it compensates for the extra airfare.
We had a day off to rest up from the long flight and to get ready for one that will be almost as long. Mostly, I just walked the beach, some of us took a cab to a mall-like shopping area, then, later that night, we went to a "Gaucho" style restuarant. The emphasis is on roasted meat served on a sword-like skewer. We all ate way too much, but had a lot of fun.



Home:
One last early checkout for another long flight home. Not a record, but extraordinary, never the less. Fourteen hours from Recife to Seattle, across the mouth of the Amazon River, we touch US airspace over Florida, only six more hours, and we'll be home, and we're all ready!