All posts by rksmith

Having A Cold in Manila

General

I’ve arrived in Manila, cold and all. The flights were most uneventful. The luggage arrived. The lines through immigration were very long, it was very hot and humid, and most folks were cranky. By 1 a.m. I was in bed for a few hours. I went into the office but was having so much trouble with coughing and hacking that I came back to the hotel to put this cold to bed. It’s about 9:40 p.m. and I’ve got a meeting in about 20 mintues. After that it’ll be back to bed. Tomorrow should be a much better day.

Thunderstorms roamed the skies over Manila this afternoon and some of them were quite loud — enough to wake me up! This is the rainy season in the Philippines so rain is definitely to be expected. Clouds produce nice sunsets and this was the picture out the window of my seventh floor hotel room at about 6:30 p.m. this afternoon.

Narita International Airport

General, Travels

The flight from Portland to Narita (the airport serving Tokyo, Japan) was mostly uneventful. The airplane was about a year old, but several of the seats in Business Class didn’t work correctly, including mine. The footrest didn’t work correctly on my seat. The woman in front of me could put her seat down, but it wouldn’t go back up. It took several folks to get the seat mostly back up for landing. The flight was full — both in Business Class and in Economy. I’m now in the Northwest lounge in the airport waiting for my connecting flight to Manila. It’s about 5:20 p.m. Tokyo time (2:20 a.m. Pocatello time) and my flight is scheduled to leave in two hours. I took a short nap on the way over, but I’m pretty tired right now. It’s time to be in bed and I’ve got several hours to go before that will happen. Even then it’ll be a short night’s sleep!

The weather here in Japan is very nice. Partly cloudy with temperatures in the mid 60’s. The lounge is pretty crowded with people making connecting international flights. These flights start in about a half hour and the lounge will start emptying out and by 8 p.m. it’ll be empty. The big difference from the last time I was here is that the wifi is now free in the lounge. That is a nice improvement! It used to cost about $5 for a couple of hours of connectivity. The landing today was to the south, so we came in over Tsuchiura and Mt. Tsukuba was visible in the haze in the distance. Lots of good memories associated with this airport and Japan. The airport terminals have changed enormously from when we left in 1998, all for the better. Both terminals now appear to be open, so that eternal project may be coming to an end. In a couple of years my business trips will come to an end as I retire. That’s one part of retirement that I’m not looking forward to!

Portland Airport Once Again

General, Travels

I’ve arrived in Portland from Salt Lake City. My opportunity to move to a different seat did not marterilize. We waited, waited some more, and the front door didn’t close at the time it should have closed. Then a whole group of people came on, huffing and puffing. I guess their flight from out east was delayed and we were waiting for them. Every seat filled up except one middle seat near the front. I wasn’t about to move for that option!

I’ve caught something — it kind of acts like hay fever and kind of acts like a cold. On the flight from Pocatello to Salt Lake, everything cleard up and I kind of exulted, “This is hay fever!” However, that was not the case from Salt Lake to Portland. So maybe it is a cold. I’ve got plenty of meds with me, most of which don’t do anything other than mask the symptoms. If it’s a cold, it isn’t a bad one (yet). If it’s hay fever, it’s pretty bad. We’ll see what the next ten-hour flight brings!

This is my travel schedule:

Date Local Time MST Time Action Location Flight/Length
3-Jun 9:40 AM 3-Jun at 9:40 AM Leave PIH DL 3674
  10:34 AM 3-Jun at 10:34 AM Arrive SLC 0:54
  11:11 AM 3-Jun at 11:11 AM Leave SLC DL 1749
  12:05 PM 3-Jun at 1:05 PM Arrive Portland 1:54
  14:35 PM 3-Jun at 3:35 PM Leave Portland NW 5
4-Jun 17:00 PM 4-Jun at 2:00 AM Arrive Narita 10:25
  19:15 PM 4-Jun at 4:15 AM Leave Narita NW 19
  22:40 PM 4-Jun at 8:40 AM Arrive Manila 4:25
 
18-Jun 7:55 AM 17-Jun at 5:55 PM Leave Manila NW 20
  13:20 PM 17-Jun at 10:20 PM Arrive Narita 4:25
  15:25 PM 18-Jun at 12:25 AM Leave Narita NW 6
  8:35 AM 18-Jun at 9:35 AM Arrive Portland 9:10
  13:05 PM 18-Jun at 2:05 PM Leave Portland DL 1064
  15:49 PM 18-Jun at 3:49 PM Arrive SLC 1:44
  17:00 PM 18-Jun at 5:00 PM Leave SLC DL 3676
  17:57 PM 18-Jun at 5:57 PM Arrive PIH 0:57

Waiting For My Flight

E-Mail Musings, Travels

The Pocatello airport is very quiet this Saturday morning. My flight to Salt Lake City leaves in about an hour where I’ll connect with a flight to Portland, then to Narita, Japan followed by a flight to Manila. I’ll be there about 23 hours from now.

When I was checking in, the following conversation occurred:

A young lady came out of the back room and asked the lady checking me in, “Shall I take off my pants?”

“Please don’t, ” I said. “It’s too early to get my heart rate up that high!”

“Bet you don’t get that offer very often, at least from airline counter clerks,” the lady checking me in responded. I allowed as how this was a first for me. “Take them off,” said my check-in lady to the other girl, “and I’ll throw them up in a tree and pay you back!”

It turns out that these folks are having a weightloss contest and at 10 a.m. they will weigh in. The winner takes home the cash prize.

“So, you must know each other from the past. Are you related?” I asked.

“We’re cousins,” the checkin lady said. “Many years ago we were jumping on a trampoline and she talked me into taking off my pants so I could jump higher. Then she threw them into a tree and I had to get one of the boys to climb up and get them.”

The pants looked to be pretty bulky, I conceeded. They were airline-issued pants for working out on the flightline. “You should take every advantage. Go ahead and take them off!” She just laughed and went back into the back room. Dang!

The Grass Is Mowed … I’m Too Old For This??

General

When we were living in Colorado Springs, we had a fairly small grassy area needing to be mowed. Nina bought an inexpensive walk-behind mower (more adequately described as a push-along mower). We brought that here to Pocatello where we have about four times the amount of grass needing to be mowed. Last summer I hired a young man to mow the grass, but haven’t had an opportunity to talk to him about mowing the grass this year. But, there was no way that I was going to mow the grass again having to push that other mower around the yard. I mowed the grass before we left on our road trip and it had grown considerably while we were gone (helped by the fact that the sprinklers were set to run every morning). My brother Perry told me that he’d bought a new Troy-Bilt self-propelled mower with an electric start. I wasn’t so sure that I needed an electric start mower, but I definitely wanted a self-propelled machine. Yesterday I went to Lowe’s and came home with the same mower that my brother bought. I mowed the front yard yesterday, which wore me right out. I was very happy for the self-propelled aspect of the machine. The only problem with it is that the speed the mower propells itself is set by how hard I squeeze a small handle. It’s easy to squeeze too hard and have to run to catch up with the mower! Tonight I mowed the back yard. It was definitely easier than previous times mowing the yard! This has already been a worthwhile expense. Maybe it’ll help entice our young man to mow the yard again this year? I hope so! I’m too old for this and Nina’s knees aren’t made for the walking, either.

As a result of the past two nights being taken up with lawn mowing, I’ve not done anything more with pictures. Maybe tomorrow??

We’re Home!

General

older than me

We’ve arrived home after eighteen and a half days on the road. We arrived in Soda Springs last night about 5:30 p.m. and spent the night there. My brother Perry and his wife Chris along with my sister Eileen were there for the holiday. We had a lot of fun visiting, talking, and eating. Perry roasted the chickens on the grill using his beer-can basters (Diet Coke with Lemon, actually). We enjoyed the stay. We arrived in Pocatello about 5:30 p.m. today, dumped the tanks, and put pretty much everything away. We’ll head for bed in a few minutes and we’re back to full reality tomorrow.

We drove a total of 5,276 miles, mostly on nine and a half driving days. We got as far east as Easton, Pennsylvania and as far south as Paduca, Kentucky. Gasoline prices ranged from $2.579 per gallon in Green River, Wyoming to $3.079 a gallon in West Chester, Pennsylvania. The average price was $2.756 per gallon for the trip. We had a great time and really enjoyed the trip.

The town of Chesterfield, Idaho holds their celebration each year on Memorial Day. The town doesn’t really exist anymore — I’ve some pictures that I’ll put in in a few days that’ll tell some of the story — but mother, Eileen, Nina, and I went over to Chesterfield for a few hours this morning. The Holbrook Store closed its doors in 1955 and is now being renovated. As we came up on the store and the gas pumps standing outside, mother remarked that there was indeed something in Chesterfield older than she was…. They even matched in color!

Addendum: My brother pointed out that I had mis-named the place we went on Monday — twice — and got it right once. We were in Chesterfield, Idaho. For many years we lived in a neighboring township to Chesterland, Ohio and I’ll plead a fatigued brain for the slip. I’ve corrected the place name!