Category: Travel

Chris Burton is vice president for global sponsorships at the technology company SAP, and writes in the New York Times about his extensive travels around the world .. also that he has racked up 6,343,603 miles on Delta Airlines.   Which made me wonder how many miles I have. Well, I added it up for the three airlines I travel most frequently on, and it comes to 1,316,314 miles.

Then there’s Tom Stuker, the real-world equivalent of George Clooney’s character in the 2009 movie ‘Up in the Air’ that logged 10,000,000 flier miles on United Airlines.   United named a Boeing 747 in his honor.

Jet A is jet fuel : the stuff that modern jet airplanes burn in their engines.  Jet A specification fuel has been used in the United States since the 1950s.  In the rest of the world Jet A-1 is used. Wikipedia says the primary difference is the freezing point : Jet A’s is −40 °C (−40 °F), Jet A-1’s is −47 °C (−53 °F). There is also Jet B which is a fuel in the naphtha-kerosene region, a blend of 30% kerosene and 70% gasoline, with a freezing point of −60 °C (−76 °F).  It is for use in very cold temperatures (those expeditions to Antarctica?).

Anyway : my project team compadres and I were very happy to go home after a long week of reviews that were well received.   A project such as ours at this stage is at an inflection point : the team has to report back to the sponsors and show what has been designed, and what the system will cost to construct.   And they might just say : Whoa! That’s too much, we cannot let you go forward.  But we are OK and should get the green light to go ahead.

I got to wake up more than an hour later this Monday morning, since I was on the 6.40 am flight to Denver instead of the 5.15 am*.  Even so, I ended up almost missing this later flight. The taxi driver showed up very late at my house, and that ate up all 20 mins of the spare wait time I allowed before boarding.  But there I was, sitting on the plane at 6 am watching the light rain come down, and shortly after that we were on the way to Denver.

*The 5.15 am flight was cancelled due to a shortage of planes that made it to the West coast on Sunday night. There was a large storm system making its way through the Midwest on Sunday.

Two of my colleagues and I had dinner at the Little India restaurant on Thursday night. On the way back to the hotel we walked through a part of downtown that featured the Shag Lounge, and Tarantula Billiards, among others. And – we were asked twice for money on the street. The first guy wanted a dollar (we gave him one), and then there was a woman with a child in a stroller that told a long story of bad luck and a broken car, and that she needed money for a little gas for the car. We gave her some money as well.

It is Veterans Day here in the USA .. a day that started out in 1918 as Armistice Day after the end of World War I.

I still traveled out to Denver, and there was a lot of blue sky here, but it is getting chilly as night falls.  It was down to 0°C/ 32 °F tonight when we walked back to the hotel from the office.

I had some spare time on the way to the airport in my rental car on Friday, and I accidentally ended up stopping at the Denver Art Museum.  I had to : the buildings an outdoor artwork there are quite eye-catching as one approaches it.

I went for a quick little jaunt around the city with my rental car that I have tonight, and here are some of the sights I took pictures of.

 

It was 29 °F  (-2 °C) when we arrived in Denver on Monday morning at 9 am .. and we may see snow flurries tomorrow.   It’s a good thing I packed my gloves and woolen skull cap hat (it is for keeping my ears warm, though – not my skull).

The strict rules for turning off electronic gadgets are set to be relaxed by the FAA. (Check out the nice graphic by the Wall St Journal).  Voice calls are still not allowed : a good thing in my opinion.  Fliers are split 50-50 on the question if blabbing on the phone should be allowed.  It ‘adds to the noise pollution in the cabin’ says some, and I agree.  Some inconsiderate (oblivious?) passengers don’t need phones to talk loudly all through the flight, of course.  Time to deploy those 33 dB noise reduction rated earplugs, or Bose noise-canceling headphones!

The shooting incident on Friday at Terminal 3 in Los Angeles (LAX) airport that left a TSA agent dead shattered the sense I had that airports are safe inside the security zone.  Yes, it’s illegal to bring a firearm anywhere inside an airport building, but of course that does not help to stop anyone bent on shooting people.  In this case TSA agents were targeted. They are not armed, so the shooter got into the secure area and all the way to the food court by the departure gates before getting shot by police. He confronted one passenger with his assault rifle, asking if he was TSA, and then moved on. What was the motive? Who knows? Does it really matter? Another 50 or 60 people will be killed across the country this weekend in gang violence, domestic disputes, by mentally ill people and in accidents, pointed out Tom Ridge, the first head of the Dept. of Homeland Security, in an interview on CNN.  We are our own worst enemy.

Here’s a poster from the hotel advertising the hotel restaurant and bar, called Pi (as in the mathematical symbol).  Check out the happy hour* that runs from 3.14 pm to 6.28 pm : very geeky. I’m not so sure that think and drink go well together, though!  Those blocked ‘Br’ and ‘Ba’ are chemical symbols, for bromide and barium respectively.

*Happy hour means you get your booze at half-price, or at least at a discount.

I’m in the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Denver : not very fancy, but comfortable and newly refurbished.   Hey, and they have oatmeal for me in the morning.

P.S.  It’s official.  We received the good news today that we (my firm, PwC) beat out 5 other competitors in our bid for the work at Union Gas in Ontario province in Canada (the one I made two trips for up to Toronto).

There were no mountains or landscape in sight when I work up this morning after falling asleep on my early morning flight.   And sure enough, we never saw the sun all day here in Denver : unusual for a city with the reputation of the most sunny days in the country.

Once I looked into the background of the train station/ plaza/ hotel complex that is under construction at Denver airport, I discovered that there had been a lot of trouble with its design.  Check out this cool animation from the Denver Post.   The original design from star Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava had to be modified somewhat after he withdrew from the project.

It is nice to check out of the hotel at the end of the work week away from home.  No matter what happens at work, there will come a time where you say : now I have got to go.   I have been staying in the comfortable but old(er) Warwick hotel here in downtown Denver, but will move over to a Hilton Garden Inn hotel from next week on.   Maybe I can get my oatmeal on the run there in the mornings? Time will tell.

I’d better enjoy coming home this Thursday night, because for the next several weeks we are going to have to stick around until mid-day on Fridays.   We are pushing hard to get all the design work for our project done before the disruptions of Thanksgiving and Christmas (good disruptions nonetheless!) are upon us.   The year 2013 is running out on all of us.  Yikes !

It’s good that it’s a short walk from the hotel to my office building.  It has suddenly become cold here in the mornings (29 °F/ -2°C).  And : there some snowflakes  in the air coming down from by lunch time.  Nothing that stuck on the pavement or streets, though.

 

I was on United 244 as is usual these Monday mornings.  We left on time at 5.40 am but the pilot had some turbulence to deal with at the landing in Denver.  I noticed four or five emergency vehicles next to the runway, which made me wonder if there was a concern that some airplanes could skid off the runway.

On Saturday morning we did a little tour of historic downtown Ellensburg (the established in 1883). We stopped for a short time at the Kittitas County Farmers Market as well. Then we went to Central Washington Univeristy’s Tomlinson Stadium for a football game.  The CWU Wildcats took on Dixie State University (from Utah) in its annual Homecoming contest. Homecoming is the tradition of welcoming back alumni of a school.

 

Bryan and I drove out to Ellensburg on Friday (two hours and some from Seattle, depending on traffic).  Bryan’s dad Dale received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from his alma mater in Ellensburg, Central Washington University.