A Unique Luncheon Experience

General

The invitation from a compatriot here in Manila was for a “unique farmhouse luncheon”. Of course, that deserved acceptance. It was indeed unique. The farm was only a short distance from the entrance to the Industrial Park where our plant is located. It was indeed a farm, although it didn’t seem to be very busy. We drove past horses, goats, and lots and lots of gamecocks. A big business in the Philippines is raising fighting roosters. Apparently on this farm it is also a big business. The main farm house buildings were lovely. They have a large swimming pool, several buildings connected by walkways and pathways, and a large recreation area. The owner opened up one of the buildings a few years ago as a place for a pleasant, peaceful lunch. Eating is by reservation only and only in small groups — 2-8 people. The menu is fixed in advance (and doesn’t have a lot of variety). There are a couple of waiters in the dining room, otherwise no one is around. It was very pleasant.

The menu today consisted of a light coconut juice drink, a very nice salad, followed by a seafood pasta, then pork, rice, various squashes, and a light cookie (with green tea for those interested) for desert.  The place isn’t air conditioned, but the weather in Manila right now is very nice. I’d guess the temperatures were in the low 80’s with a light breeze and low humidity. It was very nice to be out of my too-cold office in the plant! The only noise was the crowing of the roosters out in the farm area.

The roosters are raised to be very aggressive. Consequently, they cannot be together in a pen as they’d quickly kill each other. So each rooster has his own “house” and roost. The house is a couple of pieces of plywood in an A-frame shape with a pole on the top sticking out a ways. A rope is tied through the pole and onto the leg of the rooster which limits the radius that the rooster can roam, keeping it away from other roosters. However, the other roosters are close enough that they provide a constant stimulus to each other. That makes for a lot of rooster crowing and strutting. That was interesting as long as I didn’t think about the end purpose of these roosters….

The trip is going well and I think I’ve made the time change. I had some important items stolen from my luggage somewhere along the line. My Minolta digital SLR camera and lens was taken. A folder of CD’s, including all of my Lord of the Rings CD’s and a number of software CD’s was taken. I was bringing an iPod Shuffle over for one of the people here in Manila and that was taken as well. I’m pretty unhappy about that and hopefully I’ll be able to get some reimbursement from insurance somewhere for the loss. The loss of the software means that I don’t have any picture processing software on my new company laptop, so I can’t post any pictures. That’ll have to wait until I get home.

Dead Tired In Manila

General

The completely uneventful flying experience ended in Manila right on time. My luggage arrived (although my digital camera has been pilfered from the suitcase!!) and I was in the hotel by midnight. Now I just have to deal with the jetlag. I was up at 6:15 this morning and after breakfast caught the 7:15 shuttle to the office. The day has been busy with meetings and in a couple of hours I’ll catch the 5:30 pm shuttle back to the hotel. I think then I’ll crash for the evening … or at least for a while. There’s a meeting at 10 p.m. that I should be attending on the phone. We’ll see if I can actually make it to that meeting.

The weather here is actually quite nice. It’s about 85 today with hazy sunshine and fairly humid (but not oppressive). Hopefully that’ll persist until the weekend. I’ve no idea what to do on the weekend, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something interesting to do. Meanwhile, I just want to go to bed.

Leaving Portland

E-Mail Musings

The NW flight to Tokyo’s Narita airport has started. From the number of people here at the gate area, this flight will also be full. Lots of folks not only leaving Portland but also leaving the US. After boarding and turning this phone off, I’ll not have any other coverage until I arrive in Manila and my Blackberry starts working.

This phone won’t work again until I get back to the US on the 20th.

Nobody’s Going To Pocatello

E-Mail Musings

The airplane arrived from Salt Lake on time at 9:10 am — and empty. Only the flight crew were on board. No one wanted to go to Pocatello this morning. On the other hand, sixteen of us left Pocatello on the outbound flight.

The Salt Lake City airport was very busy. Lots of people coming and going. The flight in the gate next to my flight to Portand was headed for Spokane. I guess lots of folks wanted to go to Spokane today as the flight was oversold, which is different than overbooked. More people had checked in for the flight than there were seats. Further, there isn’t another flight to Spokane today. The last offer I heard was $600, a flight to Pasco (wherever that is) at 12:30 pm and a free car rental to drive the rest of the way. That offer will probably go up some more. They needed four volunteers as well. I suspect people don’t very often compete for seats on flights to Pocatello!

This flight to Portland had two coach seats open and 118 claimed. People definitely are wanting to go to Portland as well. Another cramped airplane.

Pocatello Airport

E-Mail Musings

I’ve got about 90 minutes before my flight from Pocatello to Salt Lake — the first leg of the trip to Manila. Because I don’t want to leave a car here at the airport, I had Nina drop me off before she went to her 8 am meeting. The airport is very quiet, even for Easter Sunday. Sky West (Delta Connection) is now the only airline serving the airport and their only destination from here is Salt Lake. Even the Airport Manager is leaving the airport to take the same job in Idaho Falls. That also doesn’t bode well for this airport.

There are a number of problems with this airport. It was originally an Army Air Force training base in early WWII. So it’s got a couple of long runways, which is a benefit but requiring more maintenance and upkeep cost. It is too far from town and with Pocatello’s abysmal public transportation, there are no buses that come out to the airport.

The airport also serves as an aerial attack base for fighting wildfires. That may come in handy this summer which is likely to be a significant fire year since there was so little snow this past winter. That is, if the air tanker fleet is allowed to fly this year.

I’ve caught a cold. This is the third one this year so far. I’ve come down with a cold just before every big business trip since January. So far this one has been fairly light. Will that last?

Pennsylvania and Washington

General

We had a very good visit with Dawnmarie and Kirk and their family in Pennsylvania. We flew back on Monday, April 2nd and got home safely, but dead tired at about 11 p.m. The trip, while very quick, was a good visit. Somehow we need to figure out how to get more time to visit our family all over the country.

On Tuesday, Wendy, Aaron, Kendra, and Aidan arrived in Pocatello for a couple of days. What a lovely treat! Kendra is closing in on her thirteenth birthday and is a delightful young woman. We did a lot of visiting and talking during the day and a half that they were here in Pocatello. They left on Thursday (far too soon) and have arrived safely back home. I guess it’s now our turn to go up there!

I’ve posted pictures from Pennsylvania as well as from Kendra’s visit in the Picture Album.

Manila Trip Flight Schedule

General

This is my flight schedule to Manila, departing on April 8th (Pocatello time in parenthesis):

Date Leave Time Flight Arrive Time
8 Apr Pocatello 9:37 am (9:37 am) DL 3674 SLC 10:30 am (10:30 am)
  SLC 11:35 am (11:35 am) DL 1222 Portland 12:34 pm (1:34 pm)
  Portland 2:35 pm (3:35 pm) NW 5 Narita Tokyo 4:55 pm +1 (1:55 am +1)
9 Apr Narita Tokyo 7:05 pm (4:05 am) NW 19 Manila 10:50 pm (8:50 am)
20 Apr Manila 8:05 am (6:05 pm -1) NW 20 Narita Tokyo 1:10 pm (11:10 pm -1)
  Narita Tokyo 4:00 pm (2:10 am) NW 28 San Francisco 9:15 am (10:15 am)
  San Francisco 12:50 pm (1:50 pm) DL 854) SLC 3:41 pm (3:41 pm)
  SLC 4:45 pm (4:45 pm) DL 3676 Pocatello 5:45 pm (5:45 pm)

The times in the above table are in the local time of the destination. In Parenthesis I’ve put the Pocatello time. If the date if different, then that is indicated by a +1 (next day) or -1 (previous day).

Deer — As In “Oh Dear!”

E-Mail Musings

We were loading up to go to the morning session of Conference when the phone rang and Pam (Nina’s sister) asked for additional directions to Dawnmarie’s house. As she was talking, she exclaimed “Oh dear! Oh my!” That was followed by a couple of thumps and then silence. Eventually she responded that her car had been hit by a deer. The animal had literally jumped into the driver’s side of the car, leaving a couple of big dents in the car and taking the side mirror with it as the deer bounded away.

I’ve really enjoyed this conference. We’re in the final session, watching and listening to the session with some nine other members of the New Castle Branch. Dawnmarie and Kirk’s children are a delight to be with at conference. Modern technology has made Conference a different experience over the years.

I grew up watching Conference on KSL TV at home. In those days Conference was three days long. In the April Conference, one of those sessions was always on April 6th, even when there was a gap of a day or two when the 6th was in the middle of the week. In the Fall, the baseball World Series always came during Conference and I remember when the TV switched from Conference to Yankee Stadium instantly when “Amen!” was said in the closing prayer to pick up the final Series game in the middle of the third inning. I don’t remember who won, just that at 2 pm, the TV switched back to Conference. When I was 12, I then went to the chapel at 7 pm on Saturday evening to listen to the Priesthood session which came in on the telephone.

Years later when we were living in Ohio, we would take all of the children to the Stake Center. By then Conference was held on the first Sunday in April and October and on the immediately preceeding Saturday — two days instead of three. The proceedings still came in on the telephone. A great innovation came when each Stake was sent a set of slides with the pictures of the General Authorities so we could see a picture of the speaker projected on a screen while he was speaking.

Then came the next step. The Saturday morning session was taped and sent out by airplane to cable TV stations who would broadcast that two-hour session on Sunday morning as a public service. Eventually some stations would pick up the video feed and show the Sunday morning session as it was broadcast from Salt Lake City. Then we would go to the Stake Center for the other sessions. I am still in awe of Nina’s faithfulness in marshalling the children and getting them all to the sessions of conference. Some of that seems to have gone down a generation as we see some of that same devotion to Conference in our children and grandchildren.

Now in almost all parts of the United States we can watch Conference from the comfort of our homes. I have come almost full circle. Almost, because while I still go to the Stake Center for Priesthood Meeting, the proceeding come in over a satellite video transmission rather than by telephone.

What will come in the future? I can imagine holographic images where it will seem that the speakers and the choir are right in our room. Will we then go to the Stake Center for that experience? Will it then go full circle back to our homes?

As usual, the music of this conference has been beautiful. The Tabernacle Choir has provided the music at all sessions except Priesthood Meeting where the music was by a choir from BYU. The closing song was the Sibelius hymn “Be Still, My Soul” with different words, “I Love The Lord”. I would love to hear that arrangement again. It was very moving.

Our visit is coming to an end. It has been a good weekend, a lovely baptism, and a delightful conference. It was also punctuated by a deer! No lions, no tigers, no bears, Oh Dear!