ams

6 hours ahead to 3 hours behind

On Woensdag (Wednesday), we left Amsterdam for Reno. Well, we attempted to leave Amsterdam for Reno. The daily Usairways flight from AMS to PHL was full and rather than roll the dice on one flight we figured a safer bet would be to roll the dice on two relatively full flights out of Frankfurt. And if we didn’t make these flights? Hey, we get to spend the night in Germany! Fortunately, we had three days to meet my folks and grandparents in Reno. This was Wednesday and we were to meet them Friday. We bought two tickets for the ICE train to Germany. It’s a high-speed train that tops out at 175MPH between cities! Although the room we were in held six, we only shared it with one lady who played Sudoku in German. Sudoku is the international language of road warriors. Upon arrival in Frankfurt, we only had an hour before the first of our two options for the states so we sprinted straight for the ticket counter. This flight was to Charlotte and from there we had a […]

My childhood “Boy named Sue” moment

In grade school, we wore navy blue pants and white dress shirts. The boys had triangular collars, while the girls wore the rounded ones that little Catholic school girls wear. There was an unfortunate era when my sister and I wore the same size shirt even though we were two years apart. And, of course, there was that day. One of those days that sticks with you forever and came back to me the other day when I was trying on used sweaters at an outdoor market in Amsterdam. “This is a girl’s sweater,” I said to Susan. “Oh no, it’s not. It looks good on you,” she answered. “Irrelevant how it looks, the buttons are on the wrong side.” Back to grade school. The unlucky day must have been around 5th grade, and it was made clear to me by my teacher that I was wearing a girl’s shirt. She asked, of course, in front of the class, “Are you wearing your sister’s clothes?” The class turned and erupted in laughter. “Stork-dork’s wearing a girl’s shirt!” So my question

Assimilation

The whole houseboat is IKEA! We’re in a neighborhood a bit outside of Central Amsterdam. Although it’s only a 30-minute walk or an easy tram or bus ride into the center of it all, we are far enough away to feel more local. Buying a cup of coffee yesterday down the road, a man asked, “Did you guys just move in?” “Nope, here for three weeks though, we’ll see you soon,” I say “Cope back,” He answers, “We have great food.” This windmill is down the road. Day one – Philly to Amsterdam. Departed at 6pm – landed at 830am. Our trip started in Philly thumbing our way onto an eastbound flight to Amsterdam… Although there were still a few seats in the back open, we dropped a hundred bucks on the upgrades to sit up front. Awkward though as passengers walked by to their seats in steerage making comments about the first class ‘accommodations.’ “Could you imagine spending a thousand dollars more to sit up here?” They didn’t know about the dessert choices. I kept reading my complimentary copy

The summer of fun just got ‘funner’

With her off for the summer, I ‘bid’ to have some weeks off with her. I was awarded six weeks from the end of June through early August. Eager to kick the summer off, I asked for—and was granted—a drop of a trip at the end of June that leads up to my vacation. Now, I have the last ten days of June off, effectively extending my six-week vacation by an additional ten days! Our plans include a few days in upstate New York with her family in an area she discovered on the show “Cash and Treasures.” We’ll follow that with three weeks on a houseboat in Amsterdam, where we plan to relax, see some good shows, and enjoy great food. Then, we’ll top it off with a week in Reno with my family, running around dude ranches and the like. And then—still a few weeks at home in the new house!

I’m thankful for warm lemonaide and chicken.

A four-day trip the week of Thanksgiving took me to Columbus, Ohio. Since I was to spend the holiday alone in the hotel, S. decided to drive up from visiting her grandparents in Pittsburgh. She had our cousin Troy with her, so we figured we’d play in Ohio for the night and let him see what a glamorous life in a hotel is like. A friend in Columbus was going to take us out for dinner until the “what do you plan to do for dinner” conversation started up in the cockpit with my first officer. He also had some friends in Columbus and said he planned on meeting up with them for dinner. My co-pilot was from Uganda, and the friends he mentioned were also from Eastern Africa. They planned on eating at a Somali restaurant he knew about that served goat. I could think of no better way to celebrate the holiday than with my vegetarian wife, some goat, and a bunch of Africans. I asked if we could join them and if we needed to wear anything

What’s on my dock

As friends make the jump from windows to mac – I often get asked what mac apps to use? Where are some good places to get software? What’s in your dock? Here is what is currently in my dock… some programs I use often – others I recently downloaded and need them visable so I remember to try them out. Most are free… I left out the standards “I” Programs. Itunes and whatnot. My Dock djay – Uses Itunes tracks with two digital turntables.. not sure what to do with it. But’s it’s fun to play with. Now I really have two turntables and a microphone. quicksilver – A quick app launcher. the precurser to ‘spotlight’. It works much faster than spotlight and has many plugins to make the program dig deeper into your computer. It searches bookmarks and address book entries as well as Ichat logs. appzaper – They had it free one day. It’s a great way to delete apps and makes a cool sound when deleting. Like uninstall for windows in that it deletes many of the

LOST AND FOUND POETRY AT 37000 FEET

I took a walk to the back of the plane in flight today to pee. This is something I try not to do too often, and it’s called the “Walk of Shame” for good reason. First of all, it requires getting up. After sitting for so long strapped to an airplane seat, that’s pretty tough to do, not because of muscle atrophy or sleeping blood vessels, but because you get so damned lazy and lethargic. To make the trip, though, you have to get a crewmember up front to fill your seat while you’re gone. The doors are bulletproof now, and they figure it’s best not to have one guy locked up front by himself with the other in the back. They always want two bodies up front at all times—so if one passes out dead, the other can still open the door. The awkwardness of leaving the cockpit and walking by all the folks, with them wondering who in the hell is flying the plane, is the big reason why I don’t care too much for taking the “Walk

Scroll to Top