Category: Travel

We left an hour late for Cape Town on Sunday, but made it in just fine on Sunday afternoon.  I was so warm and sweaty in Johannesburg that I replaced my heavy jeans with lighter pants .. and I stuffed the heavy winter jacket and scarf that served me so well in Iceland into one of my suitcases before re-checking it.  It is summer in Cape Town and here in Stellenbosch with  temperatures at 81°F/ 27°C.

We have landed in Johannesburg.  One more leg on my journey to make, to Cape Town.  I cannot write more; I have to run to the gate!

I am at London-Heathrow airport’s Terminal 1, a little bleary-eyed.  It sounds great in theory to have a hotel room to catch a full night’s sleep but then there is jet lag, and rowdy young Icelanders at all hours outside the hotel at a popular all-night hot dog stand.  Were they celebrating the winter solstice? I wondered.  Or just a Friday night celebration?   With the daylight time so short, the distinctions of evening, night time and morning are completely blurred. Even so, I did get a few hours of sleep in a very comfortable bed.  Then at 5 am, I went downstairs to check out and get on the bus that picked me up.

I made it to Sea-Tac airport, and checked in, through security.  I have a flight just under 8 hrs ahead of me to Reykjavik where I will sleep over one night. Then on to London and South Africa.  I get to Reykjavik on just about the shortest day of the year, with the winter solstice upon us. At this time the daylight in Reykjavik lasts all of 4 hrs and 7 mins!  The temperature is around freezing (0°C/ 32°F), so not ‘too cold’.  Still, I picked a hotel in downtown so that I don’t have to venture too far in the cold to see some of the city.

I’m home from Denver .. a crazy day at work it was, squeezing in as much as I can before caught the cab downstairs.  At Seattle airport at 7 pm the cab driver gave me a big smile; he finally made it to the front of the line after he started his shift at 6 pm; so I was his first passenger for the night.  (Man! At least I don’t work the night shift, I thought).  He dropped me at The Chieftain pub on 12th Ave, and in I went luggage and all to join Bryan, Gary, Steve and Ken for their Wednesday night beer, and just to say hi and good-bye to everyone.  I leave for South Africa on Thursday with a stay-over in Reykjavik.

I see the Fed said it would start to taper their bond-buying to $75 billion a month from $85 billion.  And in the waning days of 2013, the US Senate approved a tiny two-person (Paul Ryan and Patti Murray) budget deal.  First time since 2009 the USA actually has an approved budget. There is a ‘doc fix’ in there : postponement of a nearly 24% cut in Medicare pay for physicians from Jan 1 until April 1 – in fact, they get a 0.5% raise during that period.  I guess we have to pay the doctors, right?  But extended unemployment insurance benefits are set to expire December 28, which will leave 1.3 million people without benefits and hit another 800,000 in the coming weeks.  Not good, but for how long should one get unemployment insurance?  More than 6 months?   This budget deal also has military retirees chip in a little bit of their existing benefits.  Is that fair?  Life is full of tough decisions.

It was so nice outside tonight that I went for a walk instead of sitting on the stationary bike in the hotel’s gym. Here are some pictures, of the Colorado Convention Center here in downtown Denver, and of the Denver City and County Building, dressed up in Christmas lighting.

One last Monday to get up early, and then that’s it for 2013, I thought this morning as I got up.  And maybe TSA at Seattle airport knew that : they made me stand in the regular security line today (gasp) : the one where the traveler has to take his/ her computer and liquids out of carry-on bags, and take jacket and shoes off.  (Usually I get to go through the Pre-check line, where that it not needed .. but that designation has to appear on one’s printed boarding pass).  At least it has warmed up really nicely here in Denver.  The forecast calls for temperatures in the 60s here (15+ °C) on Tuesday and Wednesday.

I felt right at home as we arrived into a wet and foggy Seattle tonight. No snow, no ice, and 45°F/ 7°C. My flights from Denver to Seattle are not too long, but sometimes I get ‘cabin fever’ and I cannot wait to arrive so that I can stretch my legs. And gone are the days that there is even one open seat on the plane (at the times of the day that I fly). There have been dramatic changes since the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 was signed into law.

From Wikipedia : In 2011, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer (who worked with Senator Kennedy on airline deregulation in the 1970s) wrote: What does the industry’s history tell us? Was this effort worthwhile? Certainly it shows that every major reform brings about new, sometimes unforeseen, problems. No one foresaw the industry’s spectacular growth, with the number of air passengers increasing from 207.5 million in 1974 to 721.1 million last year. As a result, no one foresaw the extent to which new bottlenecks would develop: a flight-choked Northeast corridor, overcrowded airports, delays, and terrorist risks consequently making air travel increasingly difficult. Nor did anyone foresee the extent to which change might unfairly harm workers in the industry. Still, fares have come down. Airline revenue per passenger mile has declined from an inflation-adjusted 33.3 cents in 1974, to 13 cents in the first half of 2010. In 1974 the cheapest round-trip New York-Los Angeles flight (in inflation-adjusted dollars) that regulators would allow: $1,442. Today one can fly that same route for $268. That is why the number of travelers has gone way up. So we sit in crowded planes, munch potato chips, flare up when the loudspeaker announces yet another flight delay. But how many now will vote to go back to the “good old days” of paying high, regulated prices for better service?

I made it in to Denver on the very early morning flight.  My colleagues from Dallas had to wait until Monday night to travel out, due to iced-up roads and runways.

From flydenver.com : Cloudscape has been recognized by the Public Art Network as one of the top sculptures installed in 2010. The clouds, which are hollow structures made of corrugated metal and cellular plastic, range in size from 16 to 40 feet, and are mounted on a steel base along the western side of outbound Peña Boulevard to greet people arriving in the Mile High City. Lavery took his inspiration for the sculpture from Colorado’s vivid sky and sunsets.

We get to go home on Thursday nights instead of on Fridays the next few weeks : a welcome change in the travel schedule. The snow had stopped here in Denver by Thursday morning.  It was difficult to get around, though, and took an hour’s drive out to the airport (normally under 30 mins).  The roads are not completely clear of snow and ice, and we left later in the afternoon. Our driver is from Casablanca in Morocco, and speaks his English with a French accent.  (French and Arabic are the major languages in Morocco).

Late Thursday night update :  We thought we were settled in and ready to go, but no. The captain announced that there’s a slight amount of smoke in the cockpit, from some electrical fault.  We’re going to leave the airplane and fine another one.  So we boarded the second plane, but then it still had to be de-iced, which took another 20 minutes (I’m not complaining, I’m just saying!).  It was midnight by the time I made it in.

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!