Recently in Travel Category

Right now I'm on a Southwest flight from PDX back to SJC after a great trip to see Bryan and Katie's wedding. Bryan, of course, is better known as Dr. Bryan J. Rice, high muckety-muck of X-ray lithography for SEMATECH, and, not incidentally, one of my oldest friends. I've known him since my senior year in high school, when we had the good fortune to have the same physics class/ We spent countless hours together working on cars, studying at college (he got his bachelor's in computer science and a masters' in physics in the same amount of time it took me to get a bachelor's alone!), and generally palling around.

David and I left San Jose Friday evening and flew into PDX, where we picked up our rental and headed for the Hotel B. The bride's sister had recommended it; its primary virtues were its low rate ($40/night on Priceline, although they're exaggerating if they think it's a three-star property) and its proximity to Bryan's house, where the wedding was to be held. Overall it was nothing special: the rooms were adequately clean and reasonably well-maintained, except for the incredibly squeaky floors. On the other hand it's right across the street from the Hillsboro airport, which just happens to have a large contingent of helicopters that fly pretty much all day. For most people that would be an unwelcome nuisance but for us it was a bonus.

First thing Saturday morning we headed over to Pine State Biscuits. Summary: A++++ would eat again. In fact, if I lived in Seattle, i"d drive to Portland just to eat there. In fact I"m considering planning a trip up from Morgan HIll to eat there. Turns out they were recently on the Food Network, and i can see why. Large portions, delicious biscuits, and the best stewed apples-- tender without being mushy, and not sickly-sweet-- I've ever had. (Plus the waitress pictured here kept calling David "darling" and batting her eyes at him.) After being thus filled, we headed over to Powell's, another reason why i feel like a future visit to Portland is in order. What a fantastic place! David and I each got a few books. I would happily have bought more, save that I lack time to read them all (I did get the 2009 edition of "The Best American Science Writing", the 2007 version of which I thoroughly enjoyed). I figure I can squeeze that in.

Then, the wedding. Bryan really put on the dog for this event; his backyard was groomed and manicured within an inch of its life, and it was absolutely perfect for the ceremony. The weather, which had been yucky-but-typical in the morning, improved markedly, with clear skies, a light breeze, and plenty of sunshine. I took video of the entire ceremony, but haven't had a chance to edit it yet. In the meantime, here are some pictures to tide you over. We had a lovely dinner and got to meet a few of Bryan's co-workers from Intel, as well as seeing some familiar faces from his family. I'm really glad we were able to attend, even though I'm sorry Arlene had to miss it. (but I get to see her and the boys this week! yay!!)

Today was quiet; we found the Brookwood Ward in Hillsboro and went to Sacrament meeting, hit Pine State again (figuring, correctly, that eating there would cover us for both breakfast and lunch), and went back to the hotel to get David's forgotten retainer. At that point, we decided it would be more fun to take the Portland MAX light rail to the airport, so I returned our car at the airport (remember, it's right across the street!) and we trained it back to PDX. Tonight for dinner it's pasta-in-a-bag, followed by the last part of "Torchwood: Children of Earth," then up and at 'em tomorrow.

Today I got a chance to see a dear old friend, Chris Larsen. Chris and I were roommates in college, but the last time I saw him was at his wedding in 2002 (see here, here, and here). I've had several business trips planned to the Bay Area, but each of them has been cancelled for some reason or other. This was the first time that I was actually going to be in the neighborhood (sort of), so we'd made plans to link up. He came down and met me after church.

For lunch, we hit the Persian Grill. I noticed it yesterday when at the laundromat, but it was closed until dinnertime. I had the makhsoos, which was excellent (I also tried the spiced yogurt, which wasn't bad). As we were talking, I said something about Perrysburg and a man at the next table overheard us-- he's from Perrysburg, and his friend is a former Toledo resident. It's a small, small world!

We then drove the 17 Mile Drive. The weather was fairly poor-- around 55°F with heavy fog. We couldn't really see much of anything until we got near Spanish Point, and even then there was so much overcast that the sea and sky blended pretty much seamlessly. I got a few good pictures of the beach and water, along with the below shot of the Lone Cypress. along the way, we had a great time talking about energy policy, nuclear reactors, the economics of coal-fired power, and the EPA. In other words, just a garden-variety conversation :)

After 17 Mile, we headed over to Cannery Row and hit Ghiradelli's for some ice cream. Chris tried to talk me into ordering the Earthquake, a $30, 8-scoop concoction. Wisely, I declined (though I did ask if they had one I could photograph for the kids!) Chris had his laptop, so he showed me recent photos of his family. I retaliated by whipping out my iPhone and subjecting him to pictures from our whale watching trip and our recent spring break visit to Louisiana. We walked around Cannery Row for a while, still talking about abstruse technical topics, then visited at my apartment for a while. I issued an advance invitation to come visit us in Seattle, and he kindly volunteered to be a trail and mountain guide for the boys and I so we can visit some of the excellent scenery in central California. All in all, it was a great visit, long overdue. I look forward to the next time I get to see him!

What a month May is shaping up to be.

First, I'm teaching a series of classes at the US Navy's Center for Information Dominance, as part of a very cool experimental program on improving the ability of expert systems to teach. The program is named Skynet Digital Tutor. Read up on it here. For the duration, I'll be teaching from 10a-10p each weekday. Jim said it was good fun, though, so I'm looking forward to it, except for being away from my family for two whole weeks. That's the longest I've been away since 2000, and honestly I don't like it one bit. Thankfully we have phones, web cams, and so on, so it won't be as though I'm cut off from them completely. In the meantime, I stocked my apartment with yogurt, microwave popcorn, and fresh fruit, so I'm good to go.

Next, I get to go home for about a day and a half, then it's off to TechEd USA 2009! I'm doing a session on OCS 2007 R2 deployment and management. Because I need a demo playpen, I'm building one in Hyper-V using OCS 2007 R2 and Exchange 2010 532.09, a later build than the public beta. It's been fun to set up a clean environment from scratch, as opposed to the complicated environments we've been building for various demos and launch events.

After TechEd I have three whole days at home, then it's back to Seattle to teach the UM portion of rotation 3 for the Microsoft Certified Master for Exchange class. I'm really looking forward to this, as it will be the first time I've delivered my new version of the material. After that, I'm sure I'll be ready for some time off (though hopefully by then we'll be ready to start househunting! No offers yet, though.)

Last year, INTERACT was a fantastic physical conference held in San Diego (a hard location to beat!) This year, Microsoft's changed things up. There are separate, and mostly concurrent, events in Reading, UK, Boston, and Redmond, plus an online virtual event. I flew in yesterday and am now in the middle of an Exchange high availability session. There are two parallel tracks: one covering Exchange 14, and one covering OCS 2007 R2 topics. I'm mostly attending the Exchange sessions, but there are some pretty nifty OCS sessions as well.

The weather's been weird since I got here; yesterday as I was driving to the Microsoft campus, I drove into a good-sized hailstorm. The hailstones were small, but there were enough of them to perceptibly whiten the ground. Fortunately it stopped hailing before I had to get out of the car!

I'm preparing a series of blog posts on various topics that I'll post over the next few days. Some of these posts have some really exciting stuff in them that hasn't been publicly disclosed yet, so stay tuned!

The LDS Church's annual General Conference is this weekend. So is our trip to Louisiana. What to do?

Normally we watch the conference broadcasts in the comfort of our living room. This is easy because Dish Network, DirecTV, and U-Verse all carry BYU TV, and we've found that in extremis connecting my laptop to the TV and watching their live Internet stream works fine too. None of these, however, will work well in the van as we drive south.

Enter ooTunes, an iPhone application that can stream live radio stations over the Internet. It supports Windows Media streams, which not coincidentally are the kind that BYU Radio uses. I tested it this morning and it works quite well, even over a cellular connection. So, problem solved: we'll plug the iPhone in to the van's input jacks, launch ooTunes, and listen to conference as we roll. (As a backup, I've already told the U-Verse box to record it, just in case-- there's too much good stuff in conference talks to miss them!)

I can't believe I've forgotten to blog about this, but apparently I did: we're moving to Seattle.

When: it depends on when our house sells. It's on the market now. We've had a few showings, with good feedback thus far. In fact, as I was writing this, we got notice of another showing tomorrow, and we have an open house on Sunday. Houses are selling better in Perrysburg and Sylvania than in the overall metro Toledo area, so we'll have to see what happens. We might get a buyer tomorrow, or it might be in 2010. This uncertainty would normally be driving me CRAZY but it hasn't been too bad (see below to find out why).

How: we don't know yet. Ideally the house here would sell before the kids start school in the Seattle area (so, before about 1 September); that way we could move without the disruption inherent in a mid-year move. We'll probably do the U-Pack thing again, at least for most of our furniture, then hire a real mover for anything fragile or valuable. That's probably the best balance between cost, hassle, and breakage. As of right now we're planning to drive cross-country to actually get there, but we'll have to see what the weather's like when we get ready to go. Matt and I want to hit the C.M. Russell museum's bison exhibit on the way if at all possible, and according to Tim and Julie there are lots of other cool things to do en route.  

Why: this is a simple question, but with a complicated answer. We moved here in 2002 to be closer to my parents after my dad had an unexpected blood clot that hospitalized him; Tim being here was an unexpected bonus. We quickly grew to love Perrysburg. People here have a great sense of community, our local church ward is full of wonderful people, the schools are excellent, and it's a vibrant place with excellent services.

Over the last 18 months or so, though, I've gradually developed the realization that it would be best for 3Sharp if I were in Redmond more often, even permanently. After Dad's accident, Mom decided to move down to Louisiana, and with Tim gone too, much of the initial reason to live here was gone. Arlene and I started talking about the possibility of moving several months ago, but neither of us took it seriously-- we agreed to put off a serious exploration until after New Year's Day. So, we did, and all was well.

I thought about moving, and made some desultory (and, frankly, rather lazy) attempts to pray for guidance, but to no avail. Shortly after the first of the year, we had a Sunday School lesson that covered Doctrine and Covenants section 9. I was already generally familiar with the principle: the Lord expects us to do the legwork, examine alternatives and options, and make decisions using the brains He gave us. We can always seek confirmation of our decision, but that's not the same as asking Him to tell you what to do. That was the missing ingredient.

So, I went back and started really thinking about it seriously. What were the pros? (Where to begin? Much less travel for me; great opportunities for growth for the whole family; proximity to the temple; beautiful scenery; new things to explore; a really diverse environment for the boys, a whole new part of the country to explore, more gluten-free foods...) What were the cons? (Housing costs, obviously, plus the upheaval of dragging everyone across the country, particularly for Arlene) On balance, I decided that the pros outweighed the cons, so I told Arlene what I'd been thinking about. She too had been giving the idea a more serious look. Once we started praying about it, it became clear that moving was the right thing for our family to do-- but that it would happen when it happened, not necessarily on our schedule.

Where: somewhere on the east side of the metro area. Our office is in Redmond, so I'd like to be reasonably close to it. There are some great bargains in Snoqualmie and other nearby areas, but I don't know if I'm ready to take on a 30+ minute commute each way after nearly 11 years of commuting from the breakfast room to my office down the hall. I'll be in the office some days and working from home some days, so that will help make the transition easier. We've been making heavy use of Redfin to look for houses: partly because it's effective, and partly because it's fun to window-shop.

More news when there is news-- now I have to go clean up my office before the showing tomorrow.

First impressions matter sooooo much. Here's what I saw when I approached the car; obviously it's been parked near Big Bird's nest a little too long.

Other than that, it was a good experience. It was fun driving a hybrid, and the car location was perfect for what I needed. I will definitely use Zipcar again.
Update: not long after I posted this, I coincidentally got an e-mail from someone in the Zipcar Seattle office asking how my first Zipcar rental went. I sent her a link to this post, and within two hours I got an e-mail response telling me that she had dispatched someone to pick up the car and get it cleaned. With that kind of responsiveness I'll absolutely use Zipcar in the future.

This is very helpful advice, though I don't know where it came from: always fly first class.

I've been a Hilton man for a long time. They have a good variety of hotel brands, and I've had great luck with earning and using HHonors points for award stays. Normally, when I visit the Redmond/Seattle area I stay at the Embassy Suites Bellevue. It's close to the Seattle temple and Deseret Book, and it's a good central location for my needs (plus I love me some free hotel breakfast!)

However, two of my last three area stays have been at Marriott properties and they've got something going on I really like: a breakout box that lets me plug my laptop into the 42" TV and watch movies or TV shows that I choose from my laptop. This is a huge win in my book, especially given that all-too-many Hilton properties still have junky 27" analog sets with fuzzy sub-VCR-quality pictures.

Hilton still has some major advantages in my book, like the fact that they don't charge for in-room Internet access. I'm definitely more open to Marriott stays as a result of their TV hookup, though, especially when I can stay at the Marriott Redmond Town Center, which is quite close to our office (and Matts'!).

I've been a Hilton man for a long time. They have a good variety of hotel brands, and I've had great luck with earning and using HHonors points for award stays. Normally, when I visit the Redmond/Seattle area I stay at the Embassy Suites Bellevue. It's close to the Seattle temple and Deseret Book, and it's a good central location for my needs (plus I love me some free hotel breakfast!)

However, two of my last three area stays have been at Marriott properties and they've got something going on I really like: a breakout box that lets me plug my laptop into the 42" TV and watch movies or TV shows that I choose from my laptop. This is a huge win in my book, especially given that all-too-many Hilton properties still have junky 27" analog sets with fuzzy sub-VCR-quality pictures.

Hilton still has some major advantages in my book, like the fact that they don't charge for in-room Internet access. I'm definitely more open to Marriott stays as a result of their TV hookup, though, especially when I can stay at the Marriott Redmond Town Center, which is quite close to our office (and Matts'!).

Via USA Today, this note on the Huntsville airport: not only is HSV expanding, but they've got contingency plans for a "sudden-growth scenario" like the arrival of a low-cost carrier. On the other hand, TOL has lost all its Delta service, meaning that I'll be making the drive to DTW much more often (well, at least until the DL-NW merger). This is probably a pretty good symbol of the overall difference between the local economies in both cities.

Via USA Today, this note on the Huntsville airport: not only is HSV expanding, but they've got contingency plans for a "sudden-growth scenario" like the arrival of a low-cost carrier. On the other hand, TOL has lost all its Delta service, meaning that I'll be making the drive to DTW much more often (well, at least until the DL-NW merger). This is probably a pretty good symbol of the overall difference between the local economies in both cities.

Tim sent me a link to these beauties from APC, which feature a built-in charging system to let you quickly charge all your junk without taking it out of the bag. I was all set to order one (to replace my trusty PATRIOT, which has done yeoman service for two full years, a new record for me). That is, I was ready until I saw this article about new "checkpoint-friendly" laptop bags. The very thought of going through a checkpoint without having to remove my laptop and plunk it into a filthy plastic bin blows my mind. To be sure, I should wait until I can get a checkpoint-friendly bag with an integral charger.

Tim sent me a link to these beauties from APC, which feature a built-in charging system to let you quickly charge all your junk without taking it out of the bag. I was all set to order one (to replace my trusty PATRIOT, which has done yeoman service for two full years, a new record for me). That is, I was ready until I saw this article about new "checkpoint-friendly" laptop bags. The very thought of going through a checkpoint without having to remove my laptop and plunk it into a filthy plastic bin blows my mind. To be sure, I should wait until I can get a checkpoint-friendly bag with an integral charger.

Everyone's heard of "normal" theme parks like Walt Disney World and Six Flags. How about a theme park that lets you (and your kids!) drive heavy equipment like bulldozers and front-end loaders? I give you Diggerland. Time to start making those summer vacation travel plans (well, not really, as it's in the UK... but still, it'd be worth the trip.)

I'm on the plane, headed home after a quite successful UC Metro event. A good time was had by all :)

While I was in Reading, I stayed at the Hilton St. Anne's Manor, Bracknell (which is actually in Wokingham, go figure). It's an old manor house that has been converted to a hotel, and quite nicely at that. The hotel sits on about 25 acres of land, including both wooded and open spaces. On arrival, the desk clerk upgraded me to a room in the "Buckhurst Club" area of the hotel; apparently that's where they put HHonors members. My room was quite nice, with a small patio that looked out onto the (grass) tennis courts. When I arrived, there were three fat rabbits outside my patio, munching happily on the lawn. However, the air conditioner didn't work. Normally this would not have been a problem, except that the kind souls who prepared my room had turned on two halogen lamps, apparently early that morning. Between that and the fact that the room faced south, the room temperature was about 85°. I slept on top of the covers with the door open; after an undistinguished hotel breakfast the next morning, I headed out, asking the clerk to fix the air conditioner during the day. I got back to the hotel about 11pm after visiting the local mall cinema to watch Iron Man (summary: it's made of win!), but the air conditioner wasn't fixed. The surly night clerk sent one of the housekeeping staff to look at it, and she concluded that--sure enough-- it was broken. As a result, I moved to another room, just as nicely outfitted as the first but with working air (and, thankfully, no halogen lamps). The staff quality varied pretty widely, from ignorant and surly to helpful and pleasant, but the weather and grounds made up for that. In the photo below, if you look closely you can see my laptop on the table under the umbrella... sure a lot nicer than working in some drab office somewhere.

Tuesday was uneventful: I got up, went to work, taught, and went back to the hotel.

Wednesday I repeated the pattern, at least until the class was over. I had intended to stay at the London Temple accomodation center, but they close the doors at 7pm. By the time my class was over, I had to catch the 5:35 train to Gatwick, which put me there right about 7pm. Instead, I booked a room at the Hilton Gatwick: the last-minute rate was cheap, and I hoped that I'd be able to easily get to the terminal in the morning. It turns out to be quite a hike from the terminal to the hotel, but then the same is true of the Sofitel, so no big deal.

The Hilton itself was quite nice-- just a basic airport hotel (albeit with terrible, fuzzy TV reception). They upgraded me to the "executive floor" (ha!), with a small lounge with a nice variety of drinks and snacks. I wanted a real dinner, though, so I roamed the airport shopping area, looking for food, and found a place to have a panini while watching the UEFA Cup final. I then discovered that Marks & Spencer had a small "Simply Food" convenience store, where I bought some snacks for the boys and... drum roll... a two-pack of scotch eggs.

Let me describe the joy of scotch eggs. First, you boil an egg. Then you wrap it in minced sausage (spicy is better, of course), bread it, and deep-fry it. Delicious! Unfortunately, the custom is to eat them cold; Simply Food keeps them in the cooler, and I didn't have any way to heat them up. However, they were still delightful. I'm glad I finally got to try them. (I also had fish and chips while in Reading, but I understand they don't really taste right unless you eat them out of wax paper at the seashore.)

At lunch on Wednesday, I told the class attendees that this was my first visit to the UK. This sparked a lively conversation about how my expectations matched up to the reality, and what surprised me. So, in no particular order, a few thoughts:

• Everywhere I went, I saw electricity-saving devices like speed-sensitive escalators and individual light fixtures with motion sensors. However, nowhere did I see any water-saving devices like automatic faucets. (And speaking of faucets: for some odd reason, many of the restrooms I saw lacked dividers between urinals, but had floor-to-ceiling walls on the toilet stalls... a little TMI to brighten your day!)
• At the hotels, airports, and shops, I was surprised to see how many jobs were taken by immigrants from Eastern Europe.
• I loved the ubiquity and ease of public transport, although it seemed rather expensive. The office park where I was teaching had a free bus that ran between the offices and the town center (where the train station is), and the train system was easy to figure out and use.
• Shops and businesses close much earlier than I had expected. For example, there's a large mall near Gatwick (well, it's in Croydon), but it closes at 5pm. Hard to get much shopping done on that kind of schedule.
• In the mall, on the train, and on the street, women tend to dress better than they do in the US. Not so much for the men, however.
• Over and over I heard how unusual the nice weather was. That's a bit scary.
• I was very surprised to find out that this is not only legal but widely available in England.

I'm on the plane, headed home after a quite successful UC Metro event. A good time was had by all :)

While I was in Reading, I stayed at the Hilton St. Anne's Manor, Bracknell (which is actually in Wokingham, go figure). It's an old manor house that has been converted to a hotel, and quite nicely at that. The hotel sits on about 25 acres of land, including both wooded and open spaces. On arrival, the desk clerk upgraded me to a room in the "Buckhurst Club" area of the hotel; apparently that's where they put HHonors members. My room was quite nice, with a small patio that looked out onto the (grass) tennis courts. When I arrived, there were three fat rabbits outside my patio, munching happily on the lawn. However, the air conditioner didn't work. Normally this would not have been a problem, except that the kind souls who prepared my room had turned on two halogen lamps, apparently early that morning. Between that and the fact that the room faced south, the room temperature was about 85°. I slept on top of the covers with the door open; after an undistinguished hotel breakfast the next morning, I headed out, asking the clerk to fix the air conditioner during the day. I got back to the hotel about 11pm after visiting the local mall cinema to watch Iron Man (summary: it's made of win!), but the air conditioner wasn't fixed. The surly night clerk sent one of the housekeeping staff to look at it, and she concluded that--sure enough-- it was broken. As a result, I moved to another room, just as nicely outfitted as the first but with working air (and, thankfully, no halogen lamps). The staff quality varied pretty widely, from ignorant and surly to helpful and pleasant, but the weather and grounds made up for that. In the photo below, if you look closely you can see my laptop on the table under the umbrella... sure a lot nicer than working in some drab office somewhere.

Tuesday was uneventful: I got up, went to work, taught, and went back to the hotel.

Wednesday I repeated the pattern, at least until the class was over. I had intended to stay at the London Temple accomodation center, but they close the doors at 7pm. By the time my class was over, I had to catch the 5:35 train to Gatwick, which put me there right about 7pm. Instead, I booked a room at the Hilton Gatwick: the last-minute rate was cheap, and I hoped that I'd be able to easily get to the terminal in the morning. It turns out to be quite a hike from the terminal to the hotel, but then the same is true of the Sofitel, so no big deal.

The Hilton itself was quite nice-- just a basic airport hotel (albeit with terrible, fuzzy TV reception). They upgraded me to the "executive floor" (ha!), with a small lounge with a nice variety of drinks and snacks. I wanted a real dinner, though, so I roamed the airport shopping area, looking for food, and found a place to have a panini while watching the UEFA Cup final. I then discovered that Marks & Spencer had a small "Simply Food" convenience store, where I bought some snacks for the boys and... drum roll... a two-pack of scotch eggs.

Let me describe the joy of scotch eggs. First, you boil an egg. Then you wrap it in minced sausage (spicy is better, of course), bread it, and deep-fry it. Delicious! Unfortunately, the custom is to eat them cold; Simply Food keeps them in the cooler, and I didn't have any way to heat them up. However, they were still delightful. I'm glad I finally got to try them. (I also had fish and chips while in Reading, but I understand they don't really taste right unless you eat them out of wax paper at the seashore.)

At lunch on Wednesday, I told the class attendees that this was my first visit to the UK. This sparked a lively conversation about how my expectations matched up to the reality, and what surprised me. So, in no particular order, a few thoughts:

• Everywhere I went, I saw electricity-saving devices like speed-sensitive escalators and individual light fixtures with motion sensors. However, nowhere did I see any water-saving devices like automatic faucets. (And speaking of faucets: for some odd reason, many of the restrooms I saw lacked dividers between urinals, but had floor-to-ceiling walls on the toilet stalls... a little TMI to brighten your day!)
• At the hotels, airports, and shops, I was surprised to see how many jobs were taken by immigrants from Eastern Europe.
• I loved the ubiquity and ease of public transport, although it seemed rather expensive. The office park where I was teaching had a free bus that ran between the offices and the town center (where the train station is), and the train system was easy to figure out and use.
• Shops and businesses close much earlier than I had expected. For example, there's a large mall near Gatwick (well, it's in Croydon), but it closes at 5pm. Hard to get much shopping done on that kind of schedule.
• In the mall, on the train, and on the street, women tend to dress better than they do in the US. Not so much for the men, however.
• Over and over I heard how unusual the nice weather was. That's a bit scary.
• I was very surprised to find out that this is not only legal but widely available in England.

I'm in Reading to present one of the UC Metro events, and I have to start setting up the lab first thing Monday morning. That means I had to fly in on Sunday, but my flight arrived in the morning and I didn't want to just hang around Reading. Solution: make a side trip into London, where I'd never been before, and see some sights. I only had about eight hours, and I didn't want to do anything too expensive; in fact, in the spirit of it being the Sabbath I wanted to focus on low- or no-cost activities; I definitely wanted to see Westminster Abbey and attend Sacrament meeting at a ward somewhere in the Metro area. Here's how it all turned out.

I started the day by arriving, thankfully uneventfully, at London Gatwick on DL 58 from Atlanta. Nice flight, decent sleep, decent food. No one at Delta, ATL, or LGW mentioned it, but it turns out that the Sofitel Gatwick is an arrivals lounge for Delta. Translated, that means I got a free shower and free Internet access, both of which I took advantage of before dropping my luggage at the Excess Baggage shop in the North Terminal, then taking the tram to the South Terminal to catch the Gatwick Express. This was partly a good move. The Gatwick Express part, that is; I should have left my bags in the South Terminal version of the Excess Baggage shop, but more on that later.

The Express, as its name implies, whisks one from LGW to London's Victoria Station in about half an hour. There's not much to see along the route, although I was somewhat surprised to see a trailer park, looking very much like its American equivalents, somewhere along the way. I didn't have any concrete plans of exactly where I wanted to go, except to church, so when I got to Victoria Station I grabbed a Tube map, bought an all-day Tube pass, and started trying to figure out how to find a nearby ward.

This would have been trivial with the iPhone, which actually has a real web browser. However, it also has a well-known habit of making spontaneous data connections, and I didn't want a jillion-dollar bill. I also needed my Treo's ability to keep my calendar and contacts up to date over the air, so the iPhone stayed home. This meant that I couldn't (despite my concentrated attempts) use Pocket Internet Explorer to find a ward; instead, I had to find an Internet cafe near Victoria and look there. I quickly found the Wandsworth Common ward, and arrived there via cab about 5 minutes after Sacrament meeting had started. It was wonderful to be able to attend and take the Sacrament, and the whole experience was quite familiar (even given the unusual accents). However, the demographics of the ward are quite different to what I'm used to in Ohio: the Wandham Common ward had about a third the overall attendance, with relatively few men. Lots of women, many with small children, and a good proportion of different ethnicities (there's a Spanish-speaking ward too, which I didn't really expect).

On the way back towards the City, I decided to walk to the Clapham Common Tube station. This was made more complicated by my inability to read a map; I walked the long way around. In this case, taking the long way around a 220-acre parcel of land ended up costing me an extra mile or two of walking, but it was OK because I was able to enjoy seeing all the people using the Commons as a park. I saw people playing Frisbee, soccer, rugby, cricket, and softball, along with lots of (mostly pale) people lounging on the grass and enjoying the sun. I was a bit surprised by how many people were in the park-- it was packed-- and by how much trash there was along the outer boundaries of the park. No doubt it takes the sanitation crews all week to deal with the excess of garbage produced on the weekends.

I eventually made it to the Tube station and started meandering around trying to figure out where to go next. Did I mention my map-reading problem? It was made worse by the fact that I bought a "London A-Z" atlas. This was very useful for finding a particular street, but fairly useless for finding landmarks (e.g. the American embassy) if I didn't already know their general location. I decided to skip the Tower of London, as the promo brochure I picked up said it took 3-4 hours for a full tour. Instead, I made my way to the London Bridge area, where I saw the bridge itself (see proof below) and had a delicious Cornwall pasty for lunch. From there, I went to see the Royal Exchange, wandered around the Bank Street area for a while, and took the Circular Line to Westminster.

Naturally, the first thing I saw was Big Ben. A short walk took me past the Parliament complex and to Westminster Abbey. It's hard for me to imagine exactly how old London is. In the US we tend to think of anything dating back more than 100 years or so as historic, but the Abbey has been there for much, much longer. Unfortunately, the church itself is closed to visitors on Sunday except during services, and there were none scheduled during the time I was there. I made do instead with a walk around the grounds, which were (as you might expect) both lovely and crowded. (Check out this overhead view, which clearly shows the cross-shaped structure of the Abbey in a way that ground-level photos don't.) The Westminster grounds have the fattest pigeons I've ever seen, as sleek-looking as dolphins and iridescent as WD-40 on water. They are also utterly unafraid of humans.

I walked through the Victoria Tower Garden and along the river until I got to the Vauxhall Bridge, then crossed over and walked back along the other side. Because it was late in the afternoon, the setting sun was backlighting the things I wanted to take pictures of, so no joy there. I did have a lovely walk, though. The Thames has a much faster current than I expected. For some reason (I blame Jane Austen) I've always thought of it as a slow-moving, somewhat lazy river, but not so (at least not near the bridges!) I crossed back over at the Lambeth Bridge, near the London Eye, which I briefly considered riding. However, because the lighting would have made it impossible to get a good picture, I decided against it. Instead, I bought an ice cream cone. At least, that's what the sign said, but perhaps the nice lady who sold it to me made a mistake, because it tasted like it was a semi-frozen Cool Whip cone-- not exactly what I expected, but still welcome due to the warmth of the day (there were announcements on the PA in several of the Tube stations cautioning people to drink plenty of water because it was a hot day).

As I was eating my ice cream and walking past Big Ben, it started chiming the hour! This was one of the coolest serendipitous things I've ever experienced.

Next, I walked up Birdcage Walk and past the lovely St. James Park. No surprise, it was full of people too. Birdcage Walk has a splendid set of shade trees, so it was a delightful walk to Buckingham Palace. By that time, unfortunately, my camera battery was deader than a doornail because I forgot to charge it after letting Tom take wedding pictures. Sadly, I didn't get to take any pictures of the Victoria Monument or the gate guards.

After my walk, I was too tired to bother going by the American Embassy, especially given that I couldn't take any pictures of the Marines there; instead, I walked back to Victoria Station and took the Express back to Gatwick. The North and South terminals are separated by a tram, and I had foolishly left my bags in the North Terminal, so I had to take the tram from South to North, retrieve my luggage, take the tram again, and then catch the train to Reading. I tried to buy a Gatwick-Reading ticket a few weeks ago online, but the web site wouldn't sell me one without a UK billing address. The train wasn't an express, so it took about an hour and a half to make 30 miles or so between the two stations. Then it was into a cab, to the hotel (more on which later), a quick dinner, and reading in bed (yay Kindle!)

Wow.

My mind is being blown by some of the things the Exchange team is showing us. One of the best things about being an Exchange MVP is that we have a really good rapport with the product group. Some groups have bad intra-group relationships, and others have friction between the product group and the MVPs. In this case, though, the product team does a stellar job of soliciting and accepting feedback, and it's been to both our benefits. Can't wait to talk about some of the things they're showing!

(and funny side note: the space bar on my MacBook Pro is sticking, so I keep typing compound words like "keeptyping" and "productplan". This makes me feel vaguely German.)

This week, I'm getting ready to attend INTERACT2008, Microsoft's new community event for unified communications. I think of it as a replacement for the long-departed and much-missed Microsoft Exchange Conference (MEC), but it's not really the same thing. INTERACT is more focused, with a much higher technical session level. Press aren't invited, but MVPs and other community influencers are. There should be a large presence from Microsoft's engineering teams, which is always good. The whole event is structured around trying to reinforce the growing MS UC&C community and help it grow-- a worthwhile goal.

I'm presenting two sessions and proctoring a hands-on lab. The sessions are both on UC development: one on the APIs you can use across various parts of Microsoft's UC product line, and one on Exchange Web Services. The hands-on lab is really cool: it's a distillation of the two days' worth of labs that 3Sharp built as part of the UC Metro project for Microsoft. If you come do the labs, you'll be getting the same training that Microsoft provides its ISV partners. If you're going to be at INTERACT, drop me a line and let me know.

Technorati Tags: 3sharp, Exchange 2007, Unified Communications, Unified Messaging

So, I left my partner meeting early today to get home before the snow. First we arrived early but had to wait about half an hour for an open gate. Then I found that I'd lost my drivers' license, so the fine folks at Alamo wouldn't give me my rental car without it. They called me a cab, only to find out that it was some random guy (not a licensed cab) who already had a fare... in downtown Detroit. Somewhere along the way, I also managed to lose my headphones. Plus I missed supper. Grrrr.

So, I left my partner meeting early today to get home before the snow. First we arrived early but had to wait about half an hour for an open gate. Then I found that I'd lost my drivers' license, so the fine folks at Alamo wouldn't give me my rental car without it. They called me a cab, only to find out that it was some random guy (not a licensed cab) who already had a fare... in downtown Detroit. Somewhere along the way, I also managed to lose my headphones. Plus I missed supper. Grrrr.

On my most recent trip to Seattle, Avis gave me a Dodge Charger. It was in the SE Plus trim, which means it had the V-6 engine and satellite radio (which didn't work, of course). It's an aggressive-looking car, so I was hoping that it would be fun to drive, too. I put about 150 miles on it during my trip, in a mix of about 50% in-town driving and 50% Interstate cruising. The verdict: meh.

Sure, it was fun to drive. The default engine gave it enough pep to merge into Seattle traffic without difficulty. However, it didn't have the punchy feel I was hoping for. No doubt the V-8 Hemi-powered version would do better. The interior felt cheap, with lots of slabs of chintzy-looking plastic. The seats were excellent, and there's good forward and side visibility for the driver. Rear visibility is not so good, though.

This particular car had about 27K miles on it, and it was already suffering from a notorious Chrysler problem: hip-hop braking. I've owned six Chrysler vehicles over the years, and all of them have had problems with warping of brake rotors before their time. Hitting the brakes on this car from 45-65mph caused a noticable bouncing sensation. Not very confidence-inspiring.

The most notable thing about the car: when Devin, Kevin, Tim, PaulF, and I went to lunch, the rear-seat passengers couldn't reach the door locks to let themselves out. The locks are actually behind the plane of the rear seat, so you need to be able to reach over your outboard shoulder to unlock them-- and that wasn't possible with 3 people in the back seat. It's the next best thing to child locks!

So, while I didn't mind getting this particular vehicle, it would be OK if I didn't ever drive another one.

So, I've been trying to get to Voice Ignite for a while now. Tim got to go to Orlando in December, but I couldn't go because I was busy. Missy got to go to Barcelona last month, but I couldn't go because I was busy. Now Devin and Kevin are going to Sydney, which is only just about my favorite city in the whole world, and I can't go... because I'm still busy! I just saw that there are now dates for Kuala Lumpur and Paris, neither one of which I can go to because (chorus) I'm busy! Maybe Scottsdale...

(And if you're wondering what I'm doing: how about a two-day, hands-on event that covers all the details of writing applications using Microsoft's APIs for Office Communication Server 2007, Office Communicator 2007, and even the AJAX-based Communicator Web Access? Ping me if you want to know more.)

Technorati Tags: 3sharp

Check out this cool video of a mid-80s Lincoln Town Car driving behind a 707. Don't try this at home (or at TOL, which has lots of freighter-conversion 707s taxiing about).

Well, OK; I'm not rocking it yet, but I have big plans. The Ravens-Pats game is on TV; my dinner's on the way, and I got to ride MARTA from the airport to my hotel. I'm ready to bring my A game to the session tomorrow!

This is the first time in a long time (like, nearly 15 years) that I've been to Alexandria twice in one year. We were there earlier this year for a great family reunion; this time, sad to say, I was visiting my seriously ill grandfather in the hospital. Despite the reason for the visit, it was great to see everyone-- Ray, Dan, Ashley, Melissa, Grandmaw, Betty, Clayton, Laura, and Chris were all there. Ashley is only a few months away from graduating from high school; Melissa and I had fun learning how to balance chemical equations (OK, not really; I don't think she enjoyed it much); I watched Oprah with Betty (cracking wise all the way)  and Chris cooked two splendid meals. Last night, I had the first fried trout I've had in at least 20 years, and as a bonus he cooked the best hush puppies I've ever tasted. Tim arrived last night, so we got to visit for a bit (and he told me about his new blog, which has some hysterical pictures so far.)

BTW, the Alexandria airport is terrific! The terminal is beautiful (although there are no concessions in the gate area), and there's free WiFi. I only wish the Toledo airport were as attractive, clean, or well-maintained.

A few notes gathered during my trip, now that I'm on the way home (yay!) I got up early, finished packing, and ran into my friend Rick Taylor at breakfast. We had a great chat about the perils of raising kids (he has two girls and a boy about the same ages as our three boys). He also told me that Joel Oleson got to go to a sacrament meeting in Barcelona, and I confess to being a bit jealous.

First, airport security in Barcelona is a far cry from what we see in the US. My boarding pass underwent a cursory check, but no one checked my passport. At the screening point, no one asked me to take off my shoes or remove my laptop (though I did have to go back through the metal detector because my watch and class ring together were enough to set it off.) There were no shouting uniformed bullies, and no screening for liquids. This might be because of a casual attitude towards security at this one airport (security at Amsterdam is much more US-like), or it might be a more realistic assessment of the actual threat.

Second: my KLM flight BCN-AMS was delayed by about 45 minutes, but no one at BCN seemed to care. I thought I could call Northwest to get protected for my AMS-DTW leg, but once you check in, only the airline operating your first segment can modify the ticket. No one ever made announcements about the flight status or delay time, and two of the three gate agents I spoke to didn't know how long the BCN-AMS flight was supposed to take. I guess that's better than getting bogus announcements every 15 minutes, as sometimes happens on Comair. I just barely caught my AMS-DTW flight. Good thing AMS is uncrowded and easy to navigate. I never would have made a 30-minute connection at CDG, for example.

Third, intra-Europe business class isn't what you think. I was seated in seat 2C, in what would be "domestic first" in the US. The seat pitch and size are identical to the coach seats, and seating on the 737 is 3-3, just like in coach. The difference? One, there are no complimentary upgrades (at least as far as I can tell) so it's only about half-full. Second, they serve your choice of two hot entrees, plus hot bread. I had a grilled chicken breast with mango and pepper coulis, trout tartare, and a small square of chocolate-banana cake. All were delicious, way better than domestic US first-class food-- and all this on a two-hour flight. (Extra bonus: KLM 737s have in-seat power using regular outlets.)

Fourth, the video-on-demand system on NWA's A330 is really slick. I watched the Simpsons Movie (laughing my butt off the whole time) and was able to start and pause it when I wanted-- almost as nice as being in my living room with ye olde Tivo.

Finally, I'm looking forward to having a couple of weeks without any air travel.

Birthday bonus: NW lost my bags. Thanks, guys. (The FA did offer me a birthday bottle of champagne, though, so I guess that outweighs the temporary hassle of being bag-free).

For dinner, I went out with a group of MS folks to a local restaurant called 7 Portes. It's been here since 1837, if that tells you anything. Wow, it was good! Our table of about a dozen people shared four or five different appetizers, including jamon iberico (which I put on Catalan tomato bread to make a tasty open-faced sandwich), fried salt cod balls, and anchovies (skipped those!) I ordered something that was described as crayfish-- turns out their web site menu has it right in saying langoustines. I was mildly surprised to see giant non-crawfish on my plate, but they sure did taste good. The food overall was excellent-- everything I had was top-notch. I am now a huge admirer of jamon, which is illegal to import into the US. More's the pity; I know lots of people whom I think would enjoy it.

As always, I have more stuff now than I did when I left home, so I'm in the midst of packing it all for my return tomorrow. BCN-AMS on KL, followed by AMS-DTW on NW, followed by a quiet evening with my family-- I can't wait!

I'm typing this from Danny Bohm's session at IT Forum in Barcelona (he asked me to sit in to help cover Forefront for Exchange questions.) While I have a minute, I wanted to jot down a few of my impressions of Barcelona and IT Forum.

First, if you don't speak Spanish or Catalan, you're probably going to have trouble outside the normal tourist spots. I tried to shop for a Christmas sweater for Arlene yesterday, and it was an equal mix of hilarity and frustration. I can speak pidgin Spanish thanks to my French fluency, but that doesn't help much with people who primarily speak Catalan. Everyone I've encountered has been very friendly, which helps a lot, but before my next visit I'm going to brush up on both languages.

Second, it would be much nicer here if the sun came out. The show is at CCIB, which is right next to the water. It's beautiful, but the overcast and haze remind me a little too much of Seattle. It's been around 60 degrees F, which means that lots of the locals are bundled up in scarves, big jackets, and so forth. (Boots are incredibly common here, both for men and women-- a little surprising.) I'm hoping to see the sun on the water at least once before I leave.

The event itself has been lots of fun. Ask the Experts last night was very well attended, as was my session today; I had probably 250 people (in a room with 300 capacity). It's fun seeing and hearing the variety of attendees, from pretty much every country you can think of in the Western hemisphere. Danny's session is in a big rigid tent that, on the inside, looks like a traditional meeting room. It's nifty. 

The event support was great: my speaking room had a clock, a cue box that showed red/yellow/green lights from the staff to indicate my remaining time, and an excellent AV setup. It's much nicer than the setups I'm used to at other Microsoft (and non-Microsoft) events in the US. There are some other aspects of event support that are drastically different here, too, like the snacks (lots and lots and lots of fruit, plus other stuff) and the large designated work areas for attendees (called delegates here).

There's a large mall, the Diagonal Mar centre, right next to the CCIB. I went there shopping yesterday and bought some treats for the kids. I stopped for dinner at Sagardi, but couldn't find even one thing on the menu that sounded appetizing. I hit Canas y Tapas instead and it was OK; I'm not sure what I'll have tonight; I'll post an update sometime between now and the time I get home.

Right now I'm in the Northwest WorldClub at O'Hare, waiting for my KLM flight to Amsterdam (and thence to Barcelona). This show, IT Forum 2007, is the first time I've been invited to present at a Microsoft event in Europe, and the process has been quite a bit different from that of the US shows. The content development process is somewhat different, and the logistics folks have done a very good job of taking care of signup, reservations, and the like. Unfortunately I'll only be there for a very short time, so I won't be able to work in much sightseeing. In order to get an upgraded seat, I had to fly DTW-ORD-AMS-BCN, which isn't exactly convenient. However, I scored seat 1K on my flight, which means I should have a great view of downtown Chicago on the flight out. Counterbalanced against that is the fact that KLM's 747s don't have in-seat power. Since it's Sunday, that's OK, as I won't be working anyway. Tomorrow is another story altogether, though.

If it’s October, that must mean it’s time for... spring?!

Normal people are just starting to enjoy the autumn, but the Exchange Connections staff is preparing for our Spring 2008 show (April 20-24, 2008 in sunny Orlando!) As part of that process, I’m issuing a call for session proposals.

A few ground rules:

• You need to submit at least 3 abstracts, but I encourage you to submit more than 3 to give us more flexibility in choosing sessions.
• Speakers will be chosen within a few weeks of the closing date, which is currently 10/19.
• All selected speakers will have their travel expenses (air + hotel) reimbursed; in addition you’ll be paid a stipend of $400 per talk.

What kind of talks should you propose? Anything having to do with Exchange (including DR, security, migration, and best practices), Live Communications Server/Office Communications Server, or related topics. The more technical, the better! (If you plan to repeat sessions from a previous event, please make sure you update the title and abstract to reflect the latest in the Exchange world.)

Please, no vendor “pimp sessions”. If you work for a software or hardware vendor, feel free to propose technical sessions that aren’t focused on your product. If you work for a PR firm, your principals are welcome to submit technical sessions.

To submit sessions, please e-mail me and I'll send you the instructions. We're using a SharePoint-based tool that takes much of the work out of the submission process. Please do not e-mail me abstracts!

Technorati Tags: Exchange 2007, ExchConn, OCS 2007

We recently stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn attached to Albany Medical Center. I felt it necessary to write a letter to Hilton Hospitality's CEO. See below.

This may turn out to be sad news. I was no fan of Anderson's reign at Northwest. I had hoped that Jim Whitehurst would get the nod, but instead rumor has it that he's resigned effective immediately.

I'm sitting in the middle row of my minivan, working on a proposal and checking my e-mail while we're rolling down the Ohio Turnpike. My iPhone is doing a great iPod imitation, and we'll be in Syracuse for dinner. Life is good.

I had a great conversation with American Airlines' Doug Backelin, manager of in-flight communication and technology; I wanted to amplify Glenn Fleishman's piece from earlier this week. We talked at some length about American's plan to deploy AirCell's technology for a 2008 test. Doug emphasized that the 2008 test is just that-- a test to see how well the equipment works in production, how it integrates with the airplanes, and how customers respond to it.

My first question was why American thought that this system would be more successful than Boeing's Connexion effort.

We'd planned Saturday to be a big day, and it was!

We started with breakfast at the hotel, then we drove down to Provo to give the boys a quick tour of BYU. Of course, we don't know enough about BYU to make it a real tour, so instead we went to the campus bookstore. Each of the boys got a T-shirt, Tom got a hat (which he hasn't taken off for longer than an hour or so), and Arlene bought some craft stuff-- mission accomplished. After BYU, we swung back up I-15 and stopped at the Ikea store long enough to get me a refill of Swedish salt licorice. I still prefer the little licorice mints I got when in Norway, but Ikea's a lot closer. One more craft-store stop and then it was time for a break at the hotel.

After the hotel, we loaded up the car (and cameras) to head out to Antelope Island State Park. Despite the 95° heat, the boys were all in good spirits, and why not? The entrance to the park is a 7-mile-long causeway that connects the island proper to the mainland. As we expected after reading the park brochure, there were masses of birds flying around the causeway area; once we got onto the island proper, we hit the beach. We discovered that skipping stones in a lake that ranges from 4%-33% salinity (seawater is about 3%) is challenging because they tend to bounce right out when you skip them. We also discovered clouds of brine flies nesting on the rocks of the beach. It was really something to see the clouds move in unison when disturbed-- sort of spooky, actually.

We hadn't told Matt, but Antelope Island is home to a substantial herd of buffalo (err, bison). We drove over to Buffalo Point and took the trail up to Buffalo Point. It's only about 650' AGL, but it was quite a hike for Matt and Tom. They're now bona fide mountain climbers, and we have pictures to prove it. Sadly, the restaurant was closed so we couldn't have a buffalo burger. We did drive around the loop road in an attempt to see the herd, which was parked up on a ridgeline with no road access. One old bull was right near the fenceline, so we got a good look at him. That made everyone so happy that we had to stop at Dairy Queen on the way home :)

Interesting news from the PR wire: AA has signed up with AirCell to provide in-flight WiFi. This echoes Boeing's sadly-cancelled Connexion service, with a few differences: AirCell will use a three-antenna system to let selected 767-200 aircraft communicate with the ground. Interestingly, although the release itself doesn't say this, the PR rep who sent it to me said that "This test is for text data only, voice capable products are not included." Thank goodness; I sure don't want to listen to people yapping on their WiFi phones (or Skype, or whatever) on a transcontinental flight. The service test won't start until 2008, but I plan to check it out if I can. (No word yet on whether AA is forcing AirCell to change their name to "AAirCell".)

We got to Vernal and found the Holiday Inn Express with no trouble. There are 10 or so hotels in Vernal, and all of them were full except for this one. It turns out that the natural gas industry is booming in Vernal, so all of the hotels are normally full. This Holiday Inn just opened, so they had a few rooms left for about double the normal price of rooms at other hotels. Since the alternative was to sleep in the car, we checked in then met Brandon and Celeste. Brandon's now working for an oilfield services company, and Celeste is a schoolteacher during the school year and a forest-fire crew dispatcher during the summer. We only saw her for a few short intervals during our visit because this is the height of fire season, with several active fires in her region.

Our first stop was the Utah Field House of Natural History, a beautiful museum with some fantastic dinosaur models. There's a lot of detail on how fossils are formed, along with some excellent fossils and a number of partial and complete dinosaur fossils. After the Field House, we went on to the Monument proper, passing Brandon's former ranch and a gift shop that has a dinosaur that you can sit on-- this was quite popular with the three dinosaur wranglers in the back seat.

At the Monument, we saw a number of fossils, plus a neat cave that contains a number of ancient petroglyphs. Almost every 60 seconds, Matt would exclaim "Look! I see a dinosaur bone!" or something along those lines. We drove down to the bank of the Green River and skipped stones for a while, then made our way back to Vernal for a short break / rest period. Then we went to the Johnsons' house for a barbeque featuring beef from their family herd. David and Tom rode four-wheelers. In fact, I took Matt on a short ride down the street, so everyone except Arlene had a turn. When the boys weren't riding, they were hitting golf balls or playing Guitar Hero II with Brandon's little brother. The steaks and company were great, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Friday morning we had breakfast at the Lamplighter, then picked up Brandon's boat and went to Red Fleet Reservoir, which I'd never heard of. It was the most beautiful place I've ever seen: 650 acres of lake nestled between stunning multi-colored cliff walls. No one was there, so we had the lake all to ourselves. One of Red Fleet's claims to fame is its set of fossilized dinosaur tracks, which we got to see up close. This sent Matt to new heights of dinosaur-spotting ecstasy (well, to be fair, the other two were just as excited). Then we fired up the boat and went tubing. Matt and Arlene wanted no part of it, but David and Tom loved it. Brandon and I took turns driving for about an hour. We had just broken out the kneeboard when we noticed a big squall line moving in from the west; Tom got in one kneeboard ride (in which he got up, no small accomplishment for a boy his age), then we had to take off. We made our way back to Salt Lake uneventfully, then ate dinner at the Melting Pot, a first for the male members of the family. If you haven't been there, it's essentially a fondue restaurant: you get a cheese course, an entree, and dessert, all of which you dip in various sauces, cheeses, and so on. It was quite good, and even Matt, who has recently decided that he's a picky eater again, was able to find stuff he liked.

Wow, I needed a vacation! On Tuesday, I flew from Seattle to Salt Lake City; Arlene and the boys flew from Toledo and met me at the airport. We'd reserved a room at the Embassy Suites downtown, which is about a mile from Temple Square. By the time we got to the hotel, it was about 8p, so we just had dinner at the hotel restaurant, the Plum. The food was OK; nothing particularly special, and certainly expensive for what we got.

Wednesday morning we got up and made the trek to Temple Square. We tried to take the TRAX train, but it took me so long to get tickets that I missed the train-- it left after Arlene and the boys were aboard. They met me at the next stop, and we walked the rest of the way. Temple Square itself, as always, was great. When we went into the Tabernacle, they were doing an acoustics demo-- the presenter drops a couple of straight pins into a wooden box, and, sure enough, you can hear it throughout the building. We had originally planned to see a Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearsal, but there were none scheduled.

We met up with a friend of mine who runs the Church's messaging operations and he gave us a behind-the-scenes tour of the area, including the tunnel system that runs underneath the square. We also got to go on the Conference Center stage, which was really neat. Although I'm comfortable with public speaking, it's hard to imagine speaking in front of 21,000 people-- some of those seats look very, very far away.

Wednesday night we had dinner at Rodizio Grill, a Brazilian churrascaria that's one of our all-time favorite restaurants. Given that its menu centers on meat, it was a big hit with the boys. Tom and I tried a chilled strawberry soup that was quite good, and Matt (to my surprise) really liked the spicy chicken breast.

Thursday morning we got up and hit the road to see our friends Brandon and Celeste in Vernal, a small town in eastern Utah that's chiefly famous for being near the Dinosaur National Monument. The drive to Vernal is absolutely stunning, with lots of mountains and beautiful stratified rocks; the route goes through Park City, then on to Heber City, then through the Uinta National Forest. The high point of the drive is at Daniels Summit, 8020 feet above sea level; my favorite was the mesas, some of which have absolutely flat tops. I kept looking for Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, but didn't see them.

When we got to Vernal, the real fun started.

I'll be at TechEd 2007 in Orlando from today until Wednesday. I'm presenting Wednesday afternoon (2pm, SEC323, about how Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange works). I also have a ton of things to see and people to meet; my first stop will probably be the TLC to see the Tanjay, Catalina, and RoundTable devices that MS will be showing off. See you there!

Technorati Tags: Exchange 2007

I got a mailer from the "Hilton New York Family" offering special [sic] rates for a variety of Hilton properties in New York City. They offered a special set of Broadway packages, including theater tickets to Wicked, Jersey Boys, or other shows, with a wide range of dates. Unfortunately, the URL they list on the flyer is wrong (www.hiltonfamilynew-york.com/broadway): it comes up blank. Remove the "/broadway" and you'll find that the URL they give points to a domain squatter. Try www.hiltonfamilynewyork.com and you'll get the right page (or you could just go here).

Funny stuff: a long FlyerTalk thread on jokes to play on airline employees.

My friend Ken is an anesthesiologist (and a professional photographer, but I digress.) Last night, we were talking, and I mentioned that I was heading to Boston for a quick trip. He said he was a little envious of my travel schedule, and I told him that there wasn't really anything to be envious of. Here's the proof in the form of my day's schedule:

When I found out that I needed to go visit a customer in Bradford, Pennsylvania, Arlene and I decided that it would be fun to take the kids and go to Niagara Falls and to Palmyra. Bradford wasn't very exciting, but I got my work done, and that's the important part. Anyway, we left Bradford on Tuesday and drove the short distance (~110 miles) to Niagara Falls; we crossed the Peace Bridge, cleared Canadian customs, and made our way to the Embassy Suites Niagara Falls-Fallsview.

I'd used some (well, actually a lot) of my accumulated Hilton points to reserve a room, but the hotel doesn't allow you to reserve falls-view rooms as award stays. The reservations clerk offered to let me reserve a falls-view room for CDN$100/night, but I decided to take my chances.

At check-in, I politely asked the clerk whether any upgraded rooms were available; she hunted for a couple of minutes and produced the key to room 1012, which had just a smidgen of a view of the falls. Not much, but still nicer than I expected; the room also had a great bathroom with a large Jacuzzi and a separate shower. Unfortunately, it also smelled funny, but we figured the smell would dissipate overnight, so we took the incline railway down to the falls area, where we walked along taking pictures and seeing the sites. (Bonus video: Tom and Matt chasing seagulls.)

When we returned to the room, we figured out what the smell was: a mix of deodorant and cigarette smoke. After spending the night there, Tom's asthma had flared up, so the next morning I asked the hotel to move us to another room. The clerk forewarned me that she'd have to move us back to a city-view room, but that was fine by us since that's what we'd paid for.

(A couple of quick hotel notes: parking is CDN$20/night. It might be available at the casino next door for less. The lobby and elevators were always crowded, and waits for the elevators sometimes stretched to 5 minutes. If you're having the hotel breakfast, get there before 9am to avoid long lines, though they usually move fairly quickly. There's a coin laundry on the 10th floor that's well worth the CDN$2/wash.)

We headed off to Marineland, where Arlene and I had had such a good time on our prior visit. We visited both of the shows: one with some sea lions and a better, longer one with dolphins. In the second show, David was picked as an audience volunteer; he got to "visit" one of the dolphins (see the video). Marineland also has buffalo, which we visited for Matt's sake. His new #2 favorite animal is the beluga, but we all thoroughly enjoyed everything we saw.

In the meantime, I tried calling Tom's doctor to get a prescription for his Xopenex. Guess what? Canadian pharmacies (at least the ones I called) won't accept prescriptions from US doctors. I'd always thought that was the big deal about buying drugs from Canada; obviously I missed something. Anyway, after a quick but late lunch, we walked across the street to Cirque Niagara, which I already reviewed.

After the circus, we went back to the hotel to get our new room assignment. We picked up the keys to 3318, went up to our floor, and saw that the room (at the end of the hall) had a city-view window in the sitting room. However, when we opened the connecting door to the bedroom, we were treated to an eye-popping view of Horseshoe Falls (and the Konica Minolta tower, right next door). I guess it was the hotel's way of saying "sorry we kept your son from breathing", but it was awfully nice nonetheless.

We went down and had dinner at the Keg, one of the on-property restaurants. They had a gluten-free menu; the food was excellent and the service was quick. However, they keep that place cold, so take a sweater. (I should also note that the hotel's breakfast buffet is quite good, with plenty of gluten-free stuff, and getting a free breakfast for our heavy-eatin' boys was a definite plus).

Thursday we loaded up the car and drove to Palmyra, about 120 miles from Niagara Falls. We took a leisurely tour of the Hill Cumorah (where, sadly, there was a groundskeeping crew at the Moroni monument, making it a little less spiritual than I was hoping for), Grandin's printing shop (where the boys all fell in love with the sister missionary, Sister Mulehstein, who led our tour), and the Sacred Grove. Arlene and I really enjoyed the Grove; I'm not sure how much the boys got out of

it, but they seemed to enjoy the overall experience. We stopped in Batavia to buy a new cooler, then went back to the hotel, dropped off the van, and went to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner. Mistake! It was expensive, the food was mediocre, and they didn't have any gluten-free food (save Arlene's salad).

Friday we went on the Maid of the Mist and over to Clifton Hill, where we let each boy pick out a stop. Matt chose the Spiderman ride at the Marvel joint. Tom chose the Guinness museum, and David chose the SkyWheel. I took Matt to the funhouse as a bonus. (Arlene wisely chose a different attraction; I think she got the best deal).

We tried to watch the fireworks Friday night from our hotel room; normally they're launched over the Horseshoe, but when winds change they sometimes launch between the two falls, and that's what happened. We couldn't see anything, but we were all exhausted, so it wasn't a big deal.

Saturday we drove home through almost incessant rain. We took the northern route through Hamilton, London, and Windsor; the scenery doesn't vary much, but there was little westbound traffic, so we made good time.

Short review: it was fantastic! They have a Concorde (see below), a fully restored SR-71 with a drone and a start cart, some really beautifully restored WW II warbirds (including both Corsair variants), and a really nifty air traffic control exhibit. I enjoyed the Barry Ross art show as much as I thought I would, and surprisingly David liked it too.

The panorama below is of the museum's Concorde; I shot with a Nikon Coolpix S6 using its panorama assist mode. I then used a Mac program called DoubleTake to stitch the panorama together. I'm really pleased with how it turned out and will be registering DoubleTake (and taking more panoramas-- sure wished I had thought to take one of the Blackbird while we were there!)

Today marks a really special event: I'm taking David on a business trip with me, something I haven't done for several years. He's accompanying me to Seattle, so I can meet with some folks at our Redmond office. He doesn't know it yet, but we'll also be stopping at the Museum of Flight-- I've always wanted to see it, and now I have an opportunity. I'm especially excited about the Barry Ross art exhibit. Ross illustrated the "I Learned About Flying From That" column in Flying magazine for many years. If you're not a Flying reader, you may not know that ILAFFT is a monthly reader-submitted column that talks about dangerous experiences that pilots got themselves into, so his illustrations tend to be filled with peril. Should be a good show.

Of course, David being David, he's equally excited about flying, eating airplane snacks, staying in a hotel, and seeing my partners-- we'll have a great trip!

I thought I should jot down a few things I learned from my recent trips before I forgot them. First, South Africa really does use those whopping big power adapters. Connectors to make a standard Euro or US plug fit them are fairly easy to find, but you could save a few bucks by buying them beforehand. Don't be like me and buy the UK plug thinking that it looks the same-- the South Africa plug has three large cylindrical plugs.

Second, if you want to use a public phone at the Johannesburg airport, forget it. The only phones are at the Telkom kiosk on the upper level, and it closes well before the evening international flight bank. Take your mobile phone or use Skype (if, that is, you can get the airport wireless system to work with your laptop.)

Third, although the Amsterdam airport has lots of public phones, there are only two phones that allow calling card calls-- one near gate D41, and the other near the nexus of terminals C, D, and E. You should expect these two phones to have long lines of folks waiting to use them.

Fourth, if you're going to travel overseas, don't depend on Verizon's alleged world phone service. Their SIMs only work in Verizon-issued phones. Before my next trip, I'll be making other arrangements.

Fifth, when you see people complaining about the battery life of the MacBook Pro, they're not kidding. I averaged about 2:20 on each battery charge, which isn't even close to enough for productive use on long flights. I'll be much more careful about picking aircraft that have in-seat power in the future.

Sixth, don't read books about SARS on airplanes unless you want to be unsettled during the entire trip.

Another verrrrry long day. I got up about 0630 and started packing, then got a call from Louis van Noordyk, the Microsoft speaker who was going to do the event keynote. He wanted to know if I'd mind doing a unified messaging demo during the keynote. "Sure, why not?" I said. I rushed over to the event venue and found that the phone I was going to be using was a cellphone with a headset-- not exactly ideal for a demo, but certainly reflective of how Exchange UM will be used in the real world.

After the keynote, the rest of my sessions went very well, and I got lots of questions. As with the events in Lisbon and Oslo, many of the attendees had been thinking about how to deploy unified messaging, but they were surprised-- and pleased-- with the mobility and calendaring improvements. The max bandwidth available to the home is about 1024Kbps, and even that isn't common, so anything that improves bandwidth efficiency or time usage is of strong interest.

After the events, we took a cab back to the hotel. This seems odd, since it's less than a block's walk. However, both Louis and Isabel (the event planner) strongly cautioned us against walking, since part of that block is an industrial car park that's normally empty at night. Empty apparently means bad, thus the cab. From the hotel, we walked next door to Ocean Basket, a local seafood chain. I had a plate of grilled butterfly prawns, Nile perch (a relative of good ol' Lake Erie perch, with a similar flavor), and calamari. It was quite good, although by that point I was so tired I would have eaten almost anything.

Then it was off to the airport. JNB is a huge airport, but it wasn't at all crowded either time I was there-- I guess midday is their busy time. It's also a "quiet airport": there are no flight or boarding announcements, even at the gates. This really cuts down on the background noise, as does the lack of public phones. I wanted to call Arlene to let her know I'd made it to the airport, but with no phones, I had to resort to Skype and holding my laptop up to my ear.

Once aboard, I settled in and read the local papers until takeoff, then I went to sleep-- and slept until about 45 minutes from Amsterdam! I missed breakfast, dinner, movies, and who knows what else. Now I'm in Amsterdam at the overcrowded KLM lounge, trying to clean up my accumulated inbox junk and getting ready for my flight home.

Summing up: everyone I met in South Africa, from taxi drivers to hotel maids to the event attendees, was friendly and open. I got to try some new foods, including Hertzoggies, melktart, and kingklip (a really sweet, soft-fleshed fish; Glenn kept asking people "what kind of fish is kingklip?" I think he was hoping it would turn out to be catfish in disguise.) Our event was very successful, and though it was a very tiring trip I'd love to go back and see some of the famous sights (like the Kruger wildlife reserve and Cape Town).

Today (by which I really mean "the preceding 24 hours") was a pretty interesting day. After arriving last night, I met up with Glenn in the luggage area and cleared customs. South Africa allows you to import firearms, as long as you have a permit. Unfortunately, I left mine all at home. The airport is cavernous and was almost deserted when we arrived; most of the international flights arrive early in the morning. While waiting for luggage, I'd tested my Verizon "world phone" SIM. Of course, it didn't work. I then stopped off at the Vodacom booth to check the SIM. Nope, it didn't work in their phone either. Sensing a pattern, I borrowed Glenn's phone to let Arlene know I'd made it, then resolved to contact Verizon later.

We got to our hotel, the Mercure Midrand, about 40 minutes later. Unfortunately, it was dark, so we didn't see any of the city (except billboards-- which are no more exotic here than anywhere else). Midrand is a city of about 240,000 people nestled between Johannesburg and Pretoria. The hotel was about what I expected; it used to be a Best Western, so the small but comfortable room was no surprise. What did surprise me was the fact that the hotel is ringed with a 7' fence with an electric fence on top of that. Security-conscious bunch! That's to be expected given that the area of Midrand where the hotel is is primarily a commercial and industrial area. There are lots of folks about at night, and not all of them have good intentions. Surprisingly, some 200,000 of Midrand's residents live in two black townships comprising 7% of the incorporated land area.

Glenn and I struggled with the lobby's alleged wireless Internet before giving up. I wangled the desk clerk into letting me use his computer in the hotel office; with a little plug magic, I soon had my laptop open, called Verizon, and asked why my SIM wouldn't work.To abbreviate the discussion, the answer is "it only works if you have a Verizon global phone". Oops. Skype works fine, luckily, so I was able to call them in the first place.

I got up this morning about 0730, had a delicious hotel breakfast, and hooked up with the newly-arrived Jim McBee. Our first order of business was to get the right kind of power adapters-- turns out that the "type M" style that I'd bought were the wrong kind. We had a nice walk up the street to The Boulders, a shopping center whose chief claim to fame seems to be a very large collection of boulders on the lower level. On either side of the street, there were little stalls selling fruit, candy,various kinds of counterfeit goods, and other things that we weren't actually looking for. No one was unfriendly, but we did get some semi-hostile glares. At The Boulders, we found an electronics shop (no luck), a sort of WalMart-like discounter (no luck), and a car stereo store (bingo!) I bought some food for the kids (including some Simba potato chips and some assorted unusual candies).

The wireless Internet still wasn't working, so I rebooted the access point-- and voilà! that fixed it! For the rest of the afternoon, I worked, punctuated only by a visit from the local ward's bishop, Mike Perry. He was an absolutely fascinating guy-- he runs African Reptiles and Venom, a sort of one-stop snake superstore. Mike breeds and sells several varieties of reptiles, collects venom for use in antivenom sera, puts on corporate events and kiddie shows, and so on. We really enjoyed speaking to him, and I promised to look him up if I ever come back. In fact, I'd like to hire him; one of the team-building events he does is called "Fear Factor". The victim, errr, contestant gets to put their head into a glass tank full of (non-venomous) snakes, then retrieve a piece of fruit from the tank using their teeth. What a way to build esprit de corps: "start acting like a team or I'll bring Mike Perry back here again!"

For lunch, we went next door to Steers, a local fast-food chain, then it was back to the hotel for more work. We ended the day with a visit to the conference venue, which is huge! Jim has room for about 700 people in the room where he'll be presenting; I haven't seen my room yet, but it probably won't be that big. More tomorrow; now I'm off to bed.

Note to self: next time you get ready to go on a big trip, make sure you have your passport before you leave home. Yes, that's right: I woke up at about 3am this morning with the bolt-out-of-the-blue realization that a) I had forgotten my passport and b) I was approximately 980nm away from it. After puzzling over it for a while, I sent Tim a text message begging for help; he stopped by the house on his way to work and grabbed it, then met me at the Detroit airport. Fortunately, for this trip I'd booked MLU-MEM-DTW-AMS-JNB instead of my original MLU-ATL-CDG-JNB plan, or my goose would have been cooked. Now I have my passport, most of my stuff (missing one electrical adapter, which is survivable), and am headed to AMS to change planes!

Turns out that I need a new (or, more precisely, different) set of power adapters for South Africa. Amazon has a set of adapters for $9.99, so I snagged a couple. Taking a tip from Devin, I've put all my power adapters into a big ol' Ziploc bag so they don't scatter at the bottom of the bag.

Last trip, I forgot the USB headset I use with Skype. This time I was going to try using my Bluetooth headset (a Netcom GN6210) with the MacBook Pro; however, after I paired the headset, I kept getting Bluetooth audio failures. The strength of the GN6210 is that it also works with my desk phone, which I use a lot more than my cell phone because I get poor reception in the basement. I could replace it (or give it to Arlene to use upstairs), but I'll probably wait until I move up to the new attic office.

I also got a Verizon "world phone" SIM. At least in theory, this should let me take my US phone number with me when I travel, using Vodafone's GSM network. There's apparently no way to test that in the US because the SIM only works on Vodafone's world-wide network. I'll be taking my newly repaired JASJAR to use as a phone and for demos; I do one really cool Exchange ActiveSync demo where I throw the JASJAR's screen up on the projector using SOTI PocketController.

Amazon also supplied me with a PATRIOT from Wenger Triple Gusset Rolling Case w/ Removable Tote, a fancy name for what looks like a very sturdy rolling laptop case. It will hopefully accommodate both computers and all the other crapola I need to take on extended trips; I'm a little worried because it's way too thick to fit in the overhead compartment of CRJs, and I fly those a lot. I may end up reserving it for double-computer trips like the "Get Ready" events.

Unfortunately, I'm not packed, and I'm not even finished with the work I'm supposed to have done before I leave... guess I've been too busy shopping.

SAS has got, by far, the best in-flight magazine I've ever seen. Scanorama is beautifully laid out, funny, and with information about actual items and people of interest to visitors in Scandanavia. (One thing I really dislike about Delta's Sky is that they always write about random places; I'd prefer a magazine that will tell me something about the place I'm actually going).

When I got to AMS, I made a stop at the Rijksmuseum at the airport. This is a neat idea: an art museum embedded in the concourse of the airport. They're currently featuring an exhibit called "Really Rembrandt?" featuring pictures that were once thought to be Rembrandts but aren't, plus one ("The Oriental") that was first thought to be authentic, then a fake, then authentic again. Unfortunately, my plans to take a refreshing shower in the KLM Crown Lounge was thwarted by a combination of KLM's unclear policy on who gets lounge access and their ongoing inconsistency in enforcement. So, too bad. I'd been forewarned by FlyerTalk that the KLM lounge folks jealously guarded their showers, so it wasn't the end of the world. After that, getting to Oslo was easy.

I didn't know that there was a train (the Flytoget, or airport express train) connecting the Oslo airport with the Sandvika area, where my hotel was. I found that out after paying NOK 1180 for a taxi (that's about $165). It was a long taxi ride, but still, that's a heck of a fare. I was careful to take the train for my return to the airport (but more on that in a bit). When I got to the hotel (the Thon Hotel Oslofjord, part of a local chain) I found it to be a pleasant, open building right near several shopping areas (including a grocery store where I bought some Norwegian mystery food for the boys). As is the case with many hotels in Europe, the in-room Internet is wireless-only. This proved to be a problem, because both the reliability and performance of their net connection was poor, and that's all we had access to in the meeting rooms downstairs. I had lunch with Jim McBee, then spent the rest of the day working on some new and improved demos. The Sandvika chapter of Rotary met in the hotel that evening, but I was too busy with my demos to go to the meeting-- now I rather wish that I had gone.

I got up early Thursday morning for the roadshow itself. This time, I had to present an hour-long keynote plus my regular sessions. That definitely makes the day a bit longer. However, my new keynote demo of Exchange ActiveSync and the mobility policies in Exchange Server 2003 SP2 and Exchange Server 2007 went really well. I couldn't get the provided telephone to work properly, so I had to cut short the unified messaging demo, and I didn't have time to even attempt the demo of Exchange's new Local Continuous Replication feature. Too bad; it's a really cool demo. I was surprised to see how many people in the audience had Windows Mobile devices, though, so the EAS demo was definitely very well received. After the keynote, I had to hustle to my other meeting room to present my track sessions on Exchange mobility, unified messaging, and real-time communications. As in Portugal, the demo of Exchange UM (and particularly Outlook Voice Access) was a huge hit. During the day, I got a chance to pop in on Jim and Glenn to see how their sessions were going; they both reported smooth sailing and a fair number of audience questions. I enjoyed getting to see Glenn, since I normally only see him at Microsoft events.

One difference I've noticed about European audiences is that they tend to ask fewer questions in group settings. Overall, we had more questions in the Oslo sessions than we did in Lisbon, but still many fewer than I'd expect from an identical event in the US. I'm not sure why this is. However, the attendees were friendly and engaging, and fortunately they spoke much better English than I do Norwegian. (I'm going to try to learn a couple phrases of Afrikaans before I go to Johannesburg.)

Speaking of Norwegian: I think I liked everything about Norway, from the architecture to the pleasing mystery of road signs and food labels to the fact that it was still light at midnight. The weather was decent, the people were friendly, and I enjoyed the few glimpses I got of the city and countryside. Unfortunately, it was such a short trip that I didn't get to do even the minimal sightseeing I squeezed in in Lisbon; I'd like to take another trip to the region when I have more time to look around. (Oslo's about the same size as Toledo, but it's a heck of a lot more interesting!) It's clearly an expensive place to live, though; there's a hefty income tax, plus VATs on everything you buy, plus additional taxes on some items (like cars). I got quite a lecture on how wonderful Norway's social support net is from my cab driver, who somewhat ruefully admitted that his cab (a Mercedes station wagon) cost about $40,000 list but cost him about $78,000 when taxes were factored in. Wow.

My original return was supposed to be OSL-CDG-CVG-TOL, but I only had an hour to transfer planes at CDG-- and as anyone who's been there knows, that's not nearly enough time. I changed my flights to go OSL-AMS-CVG-TOL, with my first flight at 0655-- early, but still doable. Then yesterday, the airport radar at Stockholm's airport failed, and that caused a ripple effect of delays and cancellations-- so my convenient [sic] 0655 flight was cancelled and I had to take a flight at 0615 with a plane change in Copenhagen. No problem: I woke up at 0350, took a taxi to the Sandvika train station, and paid NOK 96 for a ticket on the 0424 train (which I just barely made!) A 45-minute train ride later, I was at the airport, which was pure chaos. Fortunately, I made the flight. The SAS Airbus 321 that I was on had a cool nose camera; they left it on in flight so you could see landmarks passing below as we flew along. SAS also served a delicious little deli-style breakfast box, with fresh, warm rolls, little containers of yogurt and juice, and small pieces of meat and cheese. Highly recommended! I ddn't get to see much of the Copenhagen airport; however, like the Oslo airport it was spotlessly clean, well-lit, and much more nicely appointed than the typical comparably sized US airport. Then it was on to AMS, which I can now navigate like a pro. I easily made my flight to Cincinnati despite the bad advice I got from Delta agent Erika R (she made me go to the NW transfer desk to check in, and of course NW was having none of that). Now I'm on my way home, although I won't actually be able to post this until I get there. Tomorrow I'm helping out at the boys' Scout day camp, and on Sunday I plan to do as little as possible!

And so, off to Oslo. It's traditional that I forget something on every trip. For Lisbon, it was my sunglasses. For this trip, it was my USB headset (which I use with Skype to make cheap international phone calls) and a camera.

My itinerary was a little unusual this time; I went DTW-ORD-AMS-OSL on the outbound, all on Northwest and KLM. The ORD-AMS leg was on a KLM 747-400 (in the "combi" configuration, which carries fewer passengers and more cargo than a standard 747-400). I was seated in row 2, just under the cockpit. It's amazing how much more you can see from this far forward-- I was so far in front of the wing that I couldn't see it at all from my seat. I was treated to a gorgeous view of the late-afternoon Chicago skyline as we flew over it.

How does KLM's business class stack up to Delta's? The two are similar in many respects; the seats are about the same size and pitch (though I found KLM's to be slightly more comfortable). After takeoff, the initial service on both includes a small dish of nuts. Delta heats the dishes, which definitely makes the nuts taste better. For dinner, my choices were tenderloin of beef with a bacon and cheese crust, a stuffed chicken breast, or teriyaki salmon (which I passed on only because of its spinach and shiitake filling). One touch I missed from Delta flights is the inclusion of a soup, which DL usualy makes available as both an appetizer and entree.

The in-seat video system is very similar to Delta's, although KLM seemed to have more recent choices. As a bonus, they provide noise-canceling headphones, but they use a funny plug so you can't use your own headphones with the IFE or their headphones with your own equipment. Alas. I watched part of Last Holiday during dinner and got a few good laughs.

Unfortunately. KLM doesn't seem to have power ports in their seats-- if I had known that I would have pressed to get on another airline! This wasn't a major problem, as I slept for about four hours; if I'd planned on working through the flight, though, that would have posed a problem. I'm definitely going to have to rethink my travel plans to Johannesburg (which involve going ATL-AMS-JNB-AMS-MEM on KLM) if I can't use my laptop throughout the flight.

I arrived in Portugal after a completely uneventful air trip TOL-CVG-CDG-LIS. Actually, my transatlantic leg was better than most; I sat next to an American expat who was working for Michelin. We had a fascinating conversation about working overseas, the differences between French and American companies, and various misadventures he had while adjusting to French bureaucracy. Speaking of which: when I got to CDG, I found that, as usual, Air France managed to add a delay to my schedule, but I was in such a good mood from my post-arrival shower at their lounge in Terminal 2C that I didn’t mind too much. (Note to self: remember that CDG isn’t air-conditioned and dress appropriately).

Along the way to the terminal, I found a small chapel that had a guestbook wherein visitors were encouraged to write messages or prayers. I wrote my testimony in French, which was kind of neat. Of course, it’s entirely possible that my rusty grammar will turn people off, but I was pleased that my habit of reading French-language church publications had enriched my vocabulary so much.

I got to Lisbon a few minutes late and headed to the arrival area to meet Devin, whose flight had arrived around the same time. I’d wanted to buy a prepaid SIM for Arlene’s old phone (which is now my outside-the-US phone), but there were none for sale at CDG. Fortunately, Vodafone had a kiosk right in the Lisbon arrival area, so we bought SIMs and took a taxi to our hotel. I can’t say that the taxi driver was the least friendly driver I’ve ever had, but he’d certainly rank in the top ten.

Despite his demeanor, though, we made it to the Vila Galé Opera hotel just fine. The hotel sits right near a large convention hall and next to the Bridge of 25 April (the linked photo was apparently taken from our hotel's front yard, or very close to it; the picture below was taken from a pedestrian bridge near the conference center). It was a nice enough place; as you might expect, there were lots of subtle and not-so-subtle differences from typical US hotels, including the fact that you have to stick your room key in a slot near the front door to turn on the room's electricity. All in all, not a bad place to stay.

We had a pleasant dinner at a restaurant right across from the hotel; there were actually a row of them in an area called Las Docas ("the docks"). The restaurant where we ate had a great menu that listed, among other delicacies, barnacles and spider crab skull. Though it was hard to resist (I mean, who doesn't love skull?) I had a steak, which turned out to be quite good. The service was fairly poor; I found this to be true of all the restaurants and other public venues (notably, the airport). People just didn't seem to care.

The staff at the conference center was exceptionally helpful; they got the telephone and network connectivity set up flawlessly. As a result, the 1200+ attendees got what they came for: an in-depth look at the new features in Exchange 2007, Office 2007, and Windows Vista. My presentation on Exchange Unified Messaging was a real hoot; I was driving the UM demo of Outlook Voice Access from my MacBook Pro and a telephone that had been patched into the room's sound system. The audience loved it when I told OVA to clear my calendar because I was going to the beach, and the demonstration of Live Communications Server's telephone control features went very well too. (As a bonus, I got to meet Exchange MVP Rui J.M. Silva and an Outlook MVP whose name I've regrettably forgotten.)

In the afternoon, after Devin and I got done, we went sightseeing / souvenir hunting. We walked several kilometres into town, where I spotted a cow (see below) from this year's Cow Parade and a very cool statue of Prince Henry the Navigator (note the elephants around the statue's base). We didn't find any souvenirs, sorry to say. However, we both noticed that the people on the streets looked somewhere between downtrodden and angry, in all but a few cases. Maybe it was just the area where we were.

I went back to the docks and had a great dinner of chouriço (sausage, baked in a dish with two cheeses on top) and lasagna at a restaurant called "Cosmos". Then I went back to the hotel, worked for a while, slept all too briefly, and took my next flight LIS-AMS on TAP Air Portugal. Good news: they have in-flight entertainment. Bad news: it was "Big Momma's House". Worst news: they play the movie audio over the cabin PA, in English, with onscreen Portugese subtitles. Man, I had those headphones on in nothing flat.

Even though I had a 90-minute layover in AMS, I almost didn't make my flight; I had to find a Delta gate to check in, and that took some doing. I was almost the last pax aboard my flight back to CVG, but after that, I had a smooth trip back home except that my new airplane laptop adapter doesn't have enough juice to drive the MacBook Pro while it's charging. Jim McBee told me his had the same problem, but I dismissed it as a one-off. Oops. Time for a new one, I guess.

Actually, it's time to get ready for going to Oslo tomorrow.

Delta had a big event in Atlanta last night. I couldn't attend (duh), but some of the folks from FlyerTalk who did attend posted their notes on the event, and some of the planned changes are pretty exciting; in particular, they're stepping up the frequency of aircraft deep cleaning, they're retrofitting song amenities (like in-seat in-flight entertainment) to their mainline fleet, and they're upgrading the business cabins for their international fleet. I hope these changes bear fruit!

Update: my favorite enhancement is definitely being able to get automated notification of flight delays. Reportedly, Delta's going to enhance this so that you can specify someone else to get your flight alerts-- I'd love that feature, as it gives me an easy way for Arlene to keep track of when to get me from the airport. Running a close second is this report that DL's going to stop buying CRJs and get the EMB-170/190 instead, which is about a million times more comfortable.

Pretty interesting postcard in the mail: Northwest (which has a huge hub just up the road at DTW) has been bought off by the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, which operates Toledo Express Airport. NW is offering some pretty nice perks. If you fly NW round-trip out of TOL, you get 1000 bonus miles, and can qualify for elite status in half the normal time, plus you get a mileage bonus: 8 roundtrips for silver, 15 roundtrips for Gold, and 25 for Platinum, with 50%, 100%, and 125% mileage bonuses. This is a pretty good deal, especially given that parking and terminal access at TOL are much, much easier than they are at DTW. As far as I can tell, you don't have to do anything special other than fly roundtrips TOL-xxx-TOL and use your NW WorldPerks number. Happy travels!

I was missing two pieces of hardware for this trip: an airplane power adapter (have one, can't find it) and a small portable wireless router. I didn't miss the adapter because I have a spare laptop battery; I did miss the router, though, because if I'd had one I could have worked on my hotel balcony. So, I now have a Linksys Compact Wireless-G Broadband Router WRT54GC on the way; Devin has one and recommends it, so I figured I'd give it a try.

If I can't find my power adapter, I know there are several now that take an Empower plug and have a regular two-prong, 110VAC outlet. That's the kind I want, since I can use it with whatever device I happen to have.

Getting out of France turned out to be more of an adventure than I wanted it to be. I arrived about 0845 for a 1005 flight, which I figured would be plenty of time. Unfortunately, when I went to the Air France check-in desk, they couldn't find my electronic ticket because when the helpful Delta TA in Detroit rebooked me, I'd ended up with a new number. After 15 min or so of fumbling, she directed me to the Delta desk. More fumbling ensued, then they produced an itinerary receipt. I returned to see Air France again and waited while my agent tried to reach the ticketing desk. When that failed, she walked me over to the ticketing desk; more fumbling, and I was the proud owner of a paper ticket for NCE-CDG. Apparently there's some lingering animosity between the respective computers at DL and AF. Paper ticket in hand, I went back to the AF check-in desk and checked in. A short walk took me to my departure gate, where I boarded. The first thing I noticed was the unfortunate fact that the plane stank like a locker room. The second thing I noticed was that, after our departure time had come and gone, we were still at the gate. It turns out that some of the folks in the back weren't in their seats; for whatever reason, the cabin crew didn't do anything about it. Once everyone was finally strapped in, we'd missed our arrival time slot into CDG, so we sat for another 45 minutes, departing at 1110. The rest of the flight was uneventful, but I really had to hustle to make my CDG-CVG flight.

Security procedures were essentially no different than they are at US airports; the French equivalent of the TSA is no more or less efficient or polite than the average in the US (excepting such places as EWR and SEA, where TSA is chronically rude, and MCO, where they're practically Italian in their efficiency).

Wednesday night, I fired up the ol' Citroen and drove to Monaco with fellow MVPs Jim McBee and Sue Mosher. We took le moyen Corniche to get there, a coast road that overlooks some beautiful scenes of the Meditarranean and more than a few fancy houses. (In Nice, given that a 700-square-foot apartment might set you back 120,000 euros or more, I can't imagine what some of these houses must have cost!) When we got to Monaco proper, we drove around the town a bit until we got to Parking les pecheurs, the big parking garage downhill from the aquarium. Sadly, the aquarium was already closed, but we had a nice walk around the area, followed by supper at Le Pinocchio, an excellent Italian restaurant.

The highlight of our outing actually came as we were returning to Nice. We'd decided to take the A8 autoroute back so I wouldn't have to drive the Corniche in the dark; we followed the signs in Monaco faithfully, but the road we wanted to take was blocked, so we had to go in the opposite direction. As a result, I got to drive about a mile of the course for the upcoming Monaco Grand Prix. I can now add "Grand Prix driver" to my resume and be at least partially accurate.

This was my first full day in Nice; I arrived mid-morning yesterday and got settled in to my hotel (le Palais de la Mediterranee-- extremely nice). For some reason, when I checked in at the DTW ticket counter, the DL TA called the international routing desk and changed my routing from DTW-JFK-CDG-NCE to DTW-JFK-NCE. This was a great optimization, as it got me 3 extra hours in Nice and saved me from having to change planes in CDG.

Yesterday I spent some time exploring the immediate area around my hotel, combined with a little shopping and a hunt for the nearest Carrefour. I found it, bought some snacks and a pair of shorts (which I inexplicably forgot to pack), and drove around to find the conference center where Exchange Connections is being held. For dinner, I met my friend Jim, after which I collapsed in an exhausted heap at the hotel.

Today was day 1 of the conference. I only had two sessions, and they were spaced well apart, so I got some work done in the speaker lounge. As you might expect, the convention center food was good (we're in France, after all) but not as good as restaurant food (it's a convention center-- what do you expect?) The sessions both went well, with lots of audience interaction. By the time I got done, it was late, so I stopped back at Carrefour for some ibuprofen, went back to the hotel, then walked around the pedestrian district some. It wasn't as crowded as it was last night.

A few random observations:

• There are lots of scooters here, and it's not a good idea to follow them through traffic unless you want to end up playing chicken with a bus. Trust me on this.


• Apple is maddening. I heard some songs I liked on the local equivalent of MTV. iTunes will show me the French version of the music store, and it will let me search for songs-- but I can't buy them. To make things worse, the prevailing price for a CD single with two songs on it is €4.99, or about $6.20. To make things worse still, don't even think that anyone will sell you an iTunes Music Store card in France-- even Carrefour, which sells iPods.


• Parking in downtown is very expensive, but forget about parking on the streets! Even with the little micro-cars people drive here (like the Citroen C4 I rented) it's a very tight squeeze.


• It's hard to beat French bread dipped in olive oil.

It's time for me to hit the bed; I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow.

An eye-opening article from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention: several people are thought to have caught mumps from flying on commercial airplanes with infected passengers. Yikes! Maybe I should take a surgical mask to wear next time I fly somewhere.

Wow, we had a blast in Appleton! We arrived mid-day Wednesday and went to Dad's condo for a quick tour. It's in a good location, well-built, and furnished with all the mod cons (including a robot vacuum that was a big hit with the boys). Once the hotel was ready for us, we went there and dropped off our stuff, then Dad and I had dinner with Chris Vogel at the Black and Tan downtown. The food and company were both excellent.

Thursday morning we got up and made the short drive to Green Bay to take the Lambeau Field tour. The only other pro football stadium I've been to is the Superdome, and this couldn't have been more different. Our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and friendly, and the history of the Packers and Lambeau really captured the older boys' attention (Matthew was mostly interested in the elevators).

We drove back to Appleton, dropped Arlene off at a quilt store, and located The Big Picture downtown, a nifty little IMAX theater where the boys and I ate a huge tub of popcorn and saw Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag. There's no such thing as a bad IMAX movie, this one more so because it was full of airplanes! For dinner, we went to Prime Quarter, where the deal is that you cook your own steak on their grill. This was fun; fortunately we got there just before the crowd hit.

Today once we get everyone together, it's back on the road-- through Oshkosh, where we'll stop at the EAA museum, then back to Perrysburg.

I wasn't sure if this was a review or a travelogue; I guess it's both. We left Sunday for spring break, setting out to drive the ~420 miles from Perrysburg to Lake Delton, Wisconsin. Why? Kalahari, that's why-- it claims to be America's largest indoor waterpark. After an unnecessarily long drive (thank you, Streets & Trips, for not telling us to avoid the Ryan Expressway in Chicago), we arrived at a huge building with a prominent sign that says "Kalahari". When we entered the lobby, the boys remarked on the carved wooden animals and other African-themed decorative touches; Arlene and I remarked on the big Krispy Kreme stand immediately next to the registration desk.

We'd reserved a Desert Room-- two queens with a pull-out sofa bed-- but at checkin, we were upgraded to a two-room family suite. This was a really nice touch, and it set the tone for our overall visit: every person we met was friendly and helpful, the facilities were spotless and well-maintained, and the waterpark... well, how can you not have fun with six waterslides, a big wave pool, and too much other stuff to list?

Each day, we'd have breakfast, hit the pool for a while, and take a break in the middle of the day (usually accompanied by lunch). On Monday, we went driving around the downtown Dells area, which is clotted with tourist-y stuff. Unfortunately, it was all closed; apparently high tourist season doesn't start for another month or so. We found a grocery store and stocked up on provisions. A good thing, too, as the Great Karoo restaurant was only OK in our collective opinion. One beef: food is very expensive here, even in the lobby shops ($6 for a caramel apple? Get real!) Overall, though, we had a delightful experience-- even Matthew, who's leery of most kinds of swimming-related activities.

Today we're headed to Appleton to visit Dad for a couple of days, and to explore. We've planned a trip to Lambeau Field and the EAA AirVenture Museum in Oshkosh. Arlene's taken a bunch of pictures, but I haven't had a chance to download any of them yet.

Well, isn't this sucky: Northwest is now charging $15 to book exit row seats on some flights. Want extra legroom? Pay up! I sure hope other airlines don't copy this "enhancement", although I admit that paying $15 extra for seat 6D is a decent deal for a long flight.

I figured I'd put in a plug for my chronicle of my last visit to Nice in 2000. I'll probably be going again in April, hopefully with better note-taking than last time.

When the United States bought the US Virgin Islands in 1917 for the then-astonishing sum of $25 million, I wonder if they knew what a bargain they were getting for their descendants.

We arrived in port at St Thomas about 6am, announced by the rumble of the bow thrusters. All four of us were excited to get off the ship and start investigating, so we had a quick buffet breakfast and hit the gangway. St Thomas gets about 2 million visitors a year (although this Wall Street Journal article says their total passenger traffic is down 19% since 2000), and that's easy to believe given how crowded the gangway area was. Anyway, we left the ship and caught a taxi to Charlotte Amalie, the capital city proper. More specifically, we went to the downtown shopping area, so named because, well, it's full of shops. On the taxi ride, we saw a cool sign painted along the fence: "No hurricanes for VI". I hope that turns out to be true!

Almost all of the shops in the downtown area are jewelry shops, but we saw a few other neat things (Arlene bought a great-smelling lemongrass candle with Bob Marley's picture on it, and you've already seen the pictures of Oprah.) Arlene admired the medallion on one of the taxi drivers who accosted us, and he said that "all the island people buy their jewelry at Gold Corner". Of course, that was like a challenge: find Gold Corner. Eventually, we did, right on the waterfront. Matt and I amused ourselves by taking pictures on the waterfront (see below for some samples). Arlene and Anita each found some Nice Things™, then it was back to the ship for a quick lunch.

We'd previously decided to tour with a local guide instead of booking through the ship. (This turned out to be a great policy for all our stops!) When we first arrived downtown, we hooked up with Timothy, who bears a resemblance to Andre Braugher (only shorter). Even on an island filled with friendly people, Timmy stood out; he took us on a wonderful tour of the island, with a hilarious running commentary (example: he was amazed that we thought iguanas were interesting, since they're as common as squirrels; when someone asked him if they were common on Aruba, he said "Hell no, because people there eat 'em!"). We stopped overlooking Magens Bay, but we didn't go there, since we'd heard that Sapphire Bay was both prettier and had a reggae band playing on Sunday. The beach was spectacular; there's no other word for it. Words don't do justice to the shades of blue in the water. Coki Point was pretty good too, although I preferred the beach at Sapphire. (Interestingly, we also saw some ducks at Sapphire-- not what I would have expected!)

Overall, it was a fantastic introduction to the Caribbean. We went back to the ship and had dinner, but I can't remember what I ate. One takeaway from this trip: I wish I'd kept a journal like Matt and Anita did so I had a better at-the-time record. As much fun as this blog is, it's not really a substitute.

Updated: Now, for some pictures that I'd previously posted separately:

The water at Sapphire Bay is unbelievable, and the reggae band was pretty good too.

My lovely wife in the tour jeepney (she's wearing the sunglasses that our son says make her look "rad")

Matt, Anita, and I with Timmy, our tour guide; overlooking the bay. Not shown: nearby iguanas or the chain-smoking Russian lady from our tour group.

Right near the taxi dropoff point in Charlotte Amalie, there's a man who calls himself One Love. His business is in showing off Oprah, his donkey, who wears lipstick and has painted hooves (too bad they're not in the picture). When One Love says "Gimme some sugar", Oprah obediently kisses his cheek. This was too good to pass up, thus the picture.

Arlene and I, at sunset on departure day from San Juan.

Now that we're back from our first cruise, I'm going to blog about it, more or less day-by-day. In December, our friends Matt and Anita told us they were going on a cruise, and it sounded like a fun idea, so we booked the same cruise: the Western Caribbean on the Golden Princess. We used VacationsToGo, which did a good job for us and got us what I thought was a great deal. (I've since seen other people mention CruiseCompete.com, where you pick the cruise you want so travel agents can give you bids-- maybe next time.) Princess has a pretty good web site, so we were able to figure out what we needed to do before the cruise. In addition, I sent them a letter to tell them about Arlene's gluten allergy.

We left here about 0500, picked up Matt and Anita, and headed north to the Detroit airport. Our flights were direct DTW-SJU and back; that made the most sense, even though NWA only offers one flight per day in each direction. We got to the airport about 2 hours before our scheduled flight time, which actually felt like 4 or 5 hours. Once we finally boarded, we were delayed about 40 minutes, then we eventually took off. The flight after that was an endurance exercise, nothing more.

When we landed in SJU, we headed to baggage claim, where we found a group of dancers in traditional dress. This was a great reminder that we weren't in Ohio anymore! After we got our bags, we made our way to the Princess boarding area. We'd bought airport transfers, so we boarded a bus while our luggage boarded a separate truck; it was later delivered to our cabin. This made the embarkation process much more pleasant.

Speaking of embarkation: it went very smoothly. We waited in line for no more than about 5 minutes, showed our passports at the counters, and were each issued a little blue plastic "CruiseCard". The CruiseCard unlocks your stateroom door, registers you as you enter and leave the ship in port, and lets you charge things aboard ship. We then boarded over the deck 4 gangway and made our way to deck 12, where our cabin was located.

The cabin itself (deck A, 212) was pretty darn nice-- it was actually bigger than I expected, with a small refrigerator, a queen bed (actually, two twins pushed together), a small TV, and a serviceable, if compact, bathroom. We put away our carry-on bags and immediately went looking for food, since we really hadn't eaten all day. We found the food court on deck 14; it's a buffet-style area with a central kitchen and dining areas on either side of the ship centerline. We usually ate breakfast there, with an occasional stop for a late-night snack. The food was decent; I wouldn't say it was great, but there was plenty of it, and it was nice to have so many choices. On our first visit, we met some wonderful folks from Canada: Arthur, his wife Crystal, and his mom Marguerite were on a cruise for Marguerite's 84th birthday. We saw them throughout the cruise and thoroughly enjoyed their company.

We spent the rest of the evening exploring the ship; for dinner, we ate in the Bernini dining room. The Golden Princess has three identical dining rooms, all served from the same kitchen. Princess has two dining schedules: their "Personal Choice" dining lets you show up any time you want, and you get a seat wherever they happen to have one. The more traditional schedule assigns you a fixed time and table, so you eat in the same place (and with the same wait staff) every night. This is what we wanted, so that we'd have the same wait staff; unfortunately, we originally put in the Personal Choice pool. Arlene contacted the maître d'hôtel, Francois Ferat, and he quickly arranged for us to have a fixed time and table... unfortunately, when we arrived in the dining room, there weren't enough spots at our table. Marcel Petcu, the head waiter in the dining room, quickly found us an alternate table and made sure that Arlene knew what dishes were safe to eat. (Marcel ended up being one of our favorite people on the trip; he had a great sense of humor and made us feel like honored guests every time we arrived). Dinner was delightful, although I confess that I can't remember what I ate.. but it was sure good!

The ship was scheduled to depart San Juan at 11pm. We knew it was time when we heard a strange rumbling; it turns out that the ship has bow thrusters, and that they induce a loud rumble throughout the ship when activated. We had no idea what it was, but since it stopped not long after we left the dock, we didn't pay it too much mind (until, that is, it woke us up the next morning, earlier than we liked!) The transit from San Juan to St Thomas is short-- only about 60 miles-- so the ship moved slowly. That made for a bumpy transit; I loved it, because it lulled me to sleep quickly. Arlene, Anita, and Matt didn't like it quite so well, though. After a good night's sleep, we woke up to the bow thruster rumble, had breakfast, and prepared to go ashore in St Thomas!

Arlene and I went on our first cruise this past week. I can't describe how wonderful it was, although I'll try over the next several days.

I didn't make it to the Seattle temple, sad to say, but I got a lot of lesser tasks accomplished during the 25 hours I was on the ground there! I managed to get my new Windows Mobile device resurrected, I finished a couple of projects that have been hanging over my head; I ate Dungeness crab macaroni and cheese (pretty good, on the whole; John dragged me to Hector's), and I was treated to a glorious sunset on our landing approach over the Great Salt Lake—an infinite number of shades of pink, orange, and gold limning the mountains and reflected in the water. Plus, I thought I'd get home at a semi-reasonable time. Unfortunately, when I got to DTW, National didn't have a car for me.

After a 45-minute wait, they scraped up a Tahoe, and off I went. I finally stumbled in to my bedroom at about 0245. Not my favorite by any stretch, but it was good to get home sooner than the typical redeye allows. My flight SLC-DTW was delightful again: friendly crew, comfy seats, shiny clean airplane.

Off this morning to Redmond for some meetings (or, more properly, sales calls, since I'm trying to drum up some new business for my team). This time, I'm flying TOL-CVG-SLC-SEA-SLC-DTW; this is a little bit of an odd routing, but it combines a fairly early arrival in SEA (plus Chick-Fil-A for breakfast in CVG) with a good return time home. (Unfortunately, my SLC connection is too tight to have a Dick Clark's pork chop. Oh well.) This morning at TOL, I was surprised to find that the TSA folks were requiring pax to take off their shoes. This is new, and unwelcome; TOL was one of the only airports I've encountered where de-shoe-ing wasn't mandatory. Apparently they got a new memo or something.

I just got back last night from my trip to Exchange Connections (more details here). I was originally scheduled to take Delta's redeye SAN-ATL-TOL, which would have put me in about 10a this morning. Arlene suggested checking flights into Detroit; I did and was pleased to see the new SLC-DTW service operated by ShuttleAmerica. I'd forgotten all about it, though it was discussed extensively on FlyerTalk. I rebooked my ticket over the phone; for some reason, DL's website wouldn't let me do it online. The first agent I spoke to said he'd updated my reservation, but he didn't, so I had to call back. Neither agent believed me when I told them that the Embraer 170s flown on this route (and SLC-CMH) had a first-class cabin, but the second guy reluctantly put me on the upgrade list.

I got to SAN on time, and had an uneventful (if cramped) CRJ flight SAN-SLC. In SLC, I finally got a chance to eat the famous pork chop dinner at Dick Clark's American Bandstand. It was outstanding (but then I was hungry because I skipped lunch). The onion strings were particularly good when dipped in the gravy, to boot. When I got to my departure gate, I found that only one of the 6 F seats had checked in; I was #3 on the waitlist, so I cleared easily. Interestingly, we pushed back with two empty F seats; although standby upgrades were for sale for $100, no one took the bait.

I was delighted with the whole SLC-DTW trip. The aircraft was well-lit, clean, and new; the seats were very comfortable, and the flight crew was attentive and friendly. I'll definitely try my next return from SEA as SEA-SLC-DTW; that gives me a solid half-day of work and still gets me home the same night, as opposed to my habit of taking the redeye SEA-ATL. (Interestingly, when I tried booking an itinerary with SLC-DTW, DL's website let me get on the upgrade list for that segment-- maybe yesterday's problem was transient.) We left about 20 minutes late and got into DTW about 30 minutes early, which was great...

until I made it to baggage claim and found that Expressions Limousine hadn't sent a car to come get me. Oops. I called them several times, but they were already closed, so I called National and rented a car to drive from DTW to home. I picked a Chevy Impala GTZ off the lot, mostly because I could see it had an XM Radio antenna on top. What a pleasant surprise! This is the first GM car I've ever driven that I would actually consider buying; it drove and handled well, had a nicely appointed interior without the usual crappy GM plastics, and felt solid and stable.

This morning, I called the Expressions folks at TOL to complain. They explained that the night-shift dispatcher was at fault, apologized profusely, and offered to give me my next TOL-DTW trip free. That's a nice offer, but I'm still nervous that they'll leave me standing at the curb again-- I'll keep it in mind, though.

So Northwest, the other airline with good local air service, just filed for Chapter 11 too.

No big surprise here; Delta filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this afternoon. I don't expect this to impact their normal operations, which is good 'cause I'm flying them later this month.

Live... from Sturgis... it's my dad!

Now here's an unpleasant development: Delta's cutting back their flight schedule to/from Toledo quite a bit. It's not so much that they're cutting flights, it's which ones they're cutting

Right now, we have 8 daily flights (departing 6:05a, 9:12a, 10:02a, 12:06p, 1:50p, 4:00p, 6:56p, and 8:20p) between Toledo and Cincinnati, and 4 flights a day between Toledo and Atlanta (departing 7:00a, 10:37a, 3:52p, and 8:06p). After September 1st, we lose the last two flights of the day to CVG and the last flight of the day to ATL. For me, that means my normal route of leaving late in the day for trips is now over with-- I can either leave in the afternoon or the very early morning, assuming that there are connecting flights.

For example, we just got a new client in New York City. I can leave at 4pm the day before, or I can leave at 6am and connect in Cincinnati and Richmond to get there at noon-- no good for a 10am meeting. Same thing on the return: a 7:30p LGA-CVG flight would formerly have gotten me home about 11p-- late but manageable. Now I have to leave LGA at 5:30p to make it home the same night, which means my one-day 9a-5p meeting just turned into two days. Thanks a lot, guys. (And don't get me started on the effects of this change on my West Coast trips.)

Wow. I never really imagined Rushmore as it was. It's much more impressive than mere photos suggest. We got up early and drove along US 16A to Rushmore; when we got there, it was overcast and cool, which was great for picture-taking. The pictures do a better job of describing the scene than I can, so here are a couple.

The FAA has updated their air traffic control (ATC) flight delay information page. The big news: you can now search for a particular airport directly from the page. Here's what things look like for Toledo, Atlanta, and Seattle. This is extremely useful for frequent travelers.

5,080 ft elevation
3,090 miles
1,100+ pictures
9 cameras
8 people
3 laptops
2 Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycles
1 unforgettable vacation

I'll be blogging the things I haven't already as soon as I get dug out from the huge pile of other demands on my time. What a great trip!

Today [ed: it was really Monday] was a long, but wonderful, day. I made an email run into town early in the morning, then we all saddled up for a trip out to Devil's Tower, Wyoming. It's about 120 road miles from here to there; the route goes through Deadwood, Lead (rhymes with "seed", not with "bed"), and Pactola Lake.

Deadwood was our first stop; we hit one of the local casinos for a bathroom, then went down Wall Street to the spot where Wild Bill Hickock was killed in 1876-- coincidentally, on August 2nd, the same day we were there. There was a terrific character actor cowboy who regaled the boys with tales of his gunslinging; we also saw something you'd only see in Sturgis: a hybrid VW Bug/motorcycle painted to look like a giant American flag.

After Deadwood, we got back on the road. Lots and lots and lots of motorcycles, of all shapes and sizes. Matt quickly discovered that some were tricycles, so we entertained him for the whole trip by playing spot-the-trike. We hit a short leg of I-90 through the town of Spearfish and into Wyoming; I was able to sneak in a couple of email sessions when we stopped for gas thanks to the local Verizon coverage.

Devils' Tower was amazing. Until you get up close, you don't really realize how big it really is, or how big the groove-like rock formations on the sides are. I found a guide company that offers climbing trips; they promise that with two days of training you can safely climb to the top. That's now officially on my list of Things To Do Before I Get Too Old. The scenery en route was astonishing too. We ate lunch at a roadside restaurant just outside the Devils' Tower park gate. Brief review: avoid.		Some random, beautiful hill on the road to Devils' Tower
The boys with Ranger Dave	The boys were fascinated by the Indian legends surrounding Bear Lodge (as it's known by the Lakota). One legend has it that a boy was chasing some girls, got turned into a bear, and raked the sides of the mountain in his anger at not being able to catch them. That particular story is Matthew's favorite. David learned a couple of other legends at the visitors' center, but I can't remember what they were.	Two views of Devils' Tower
Our next stop was Spearfish Canyon, which I'd never heard of before this trip. I'm sure ready to sing its praises now, though. Towering rock formations, two beautiful waterfalls (well, one, anyway; we didn't see Roughlock Falls), and a long, curvy road through the canyon and its surrounding areas. Dad and Tim (who rode the entire 270+ miles on his bike) were grinning from ear to ear at the scenery. Bridal Veil Falls was pretty, but there was very little water.

 

On the way back, we stopped at Pactola Lake. As we were getting out, a B-1 from Ellsworth AFB flew overhead-- that was neat because we don't see many of those back East. Apart from having an amusing name, the lake is beautifully scenic; as you go north, you come around a curve and see this broad vista of rock formations with a beautiful lake at the bottom. The lake is named for the former ghost town of Pactola, which was flooded when the reservoir was created. Arlene was in photo heaven; she got some great pictures.

Before we left, Mom and Arlene had stocked the crock pot with red beans and sausage; when we got back, we had a feast of red beans, rice, and pineapple. The boys played in the center of the cabin area until it got dark (after which a good-sized rain/thunderstorm rolled in) and we all went to bed.

Today was our first real day at the campground (more properly, the Rafter Bar J Ranch). We have three of their "comfort cabins": roughly 20' x 20' one-room cabins with a small bathroom, sink, microwave, and dorm-size refrigerator. There's one double bed and a pair of bunks, plus a small dinette table. Everything is clean and in good repair, and there's a great open courtyard where the boys can run around and holler-- quite a relief after 1200+ miles trapped in the car.

Mom had either mad-car disease or altitude sickness; she wasn't feeling well, so she missed the morning festivities. The rest of us got sort of a late start because we were all tired, but once everyone got moving we headed out to two nearby attractions: Old McDonald's Petting Zoo was first. It was, well, full of animals. Thomas was enchanted with the chicks in the incubator room, since you got to pick them up; Matt's favorite was probably feeding the goats (see below), although he didn't like it when they got too personal. David liked everything; he's been a real treat to have with us on the trip because pretty much everything suits him just fine.

Our second stop was Reptile Gardens, which was outstanding. We stayed to watch the alligator show, then spent some time on Death Row-- the Gardens' large collection of venomous snakes. By the time we got done with that, it was getting late and everyone was hungry. We headed back to the cabins to pick up Mom, then went into Hill City for lunch at the Mount Rushmore Brewing Company, a nice little restaurant that serves a mean buffalo burger. After a swim, Tim and the boys built a campfire, and we roasted hot dogs and made s'mores. No one stayed up very late.

The world-famous (well, not really) Goat Bridge	Mmmm, food pellets...
The pool area with some cool mountain clouds	Who needs a microwave?
Call the fire department!	Not Mr Ed, but close enough...

We left about 4pm Friday afternoon and headed west on the Ohio Turnpike. There's not much to see between Toledo and Chicago; we hit Chicago about twilight and had a merry chase through the approximately 250 toll booths on I-80, I-94, and I-294. Eventually, we made it to Beloit, Wisconsin, our stop for the night. Dad and Tim took an alternate route thanks to Dad's bike-mounted GPS, so they arrived about an hour behind-- the boys and I were sound asleep by then.

Saturday morning, we had a quick hotel breakfast and hit the road again. Wisconsin turned out to be much prettier than I'd expected. The drive up towards LaCrosse has some pretty nice rock outcroppings and some lovely views over the hills; we stopped in LaCrosse for lunch and saw a really cool statue of two Indians playing LaCrosse. For lunch, we ate at Perkins', right next to the Black River. Not long after, we crossed the Mississippi, where the scenery really got pretty (and, incidentally, we entered Minnesota). Once we left the river country, things flattened out and got a lot less attractive, unless you like corn.

Along our route, we made two stops: the Spam Museum (which deserves its own blog entry, later today) and the statue of the Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth, MN. That was pretty cool-- a 60' tall statue of the big green guy. Plus, there was a Dairy Queen next door, which is always a bonus.

Another two hours on the road and we hit Worthington, Minnesota, our Saturday night stop. Pizza Hut provided dinner, and we swam and went to bed-- now it's breakfast time and we're getting ready to hit the road again today. So far, we've come about 800 miles!

Mom and Arlene are planning the menus and packing. The boys are asking "Can we buy a pop gun?" and saying things like "I'm so 'cited about seeing Mount Rushmore" at random intervals. I'm looking for wireless access and squaring away my radio gear, and Dad and Tim are getting their bikes ready. It's almost time!

June 14, 2005 Mr. Lee Cockerell Executive Vice President of Walt Disney World Operations 1375 Buena Vista Drive Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830-1000 Dear Mr. Cockerell: My family and I just returned from a visit to Walt Disney World, and I wanted to write you a letter to give you our impressions. Last year, my wife was diagnosed with a disease called celiac sprue; in brief, she is allergic to gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley, rye, and things made from them. This means that we have to be very careful about what she eats, so it was with some trepidation that I made dining plans for our vacation. I'd read that Disney World was usually able to accommodate requests for gluten-free meals, so we tried to plan ahead to ensure that my wife would be able to eat well. On the first day, we went to the Magic Kingdom. Lunch was turkey legs in Frontierland, which as always were excellent. Dinner was at the Crystal Palace, where our server, Pat, did a good job of keeping us in touch with the chef despite the fact that the restaurant was packed. The food and service were both quite good, and Arlene was easily able to find a variety of dishes. On the second day, we went to EPCOT. We made last-minute priority seating reservations for dinner at the Biergarten, but when I called to ask Chef Jonathan some questions about menu items, he never returned my call. Accordingly, we went to the Garden Grille, where the food and service were both excellent. Jose, our server, even managed to cheer up our sulky three-year-old-something we all appreciated. I particularly appreciated the staff's efforts to provide gluten-free bread for my wife while the rest of us were eating the excellent multi-grain breadsticks. For our third day, we had breakfast at Donald's Restaurantosaurus at Animal Kingdom. This is the real reason I'm writing this letter: Chef Thomas made my wife one of the best meals she's ever eaten, complete with rice-flour Mickey-ear pancakes and a huge (and very tasty) omelet. Her food was actually much better-tasting than what the rest of us had, which was a nice turnabout from the usual situation. Thomas really made her feel like a valued guest; he was extremely attentive and helpful. In short, he exemplified the spirit that Disney World is supposed to embody, and I hope that you will find a way to pass our thanks on to him. At lunch, we ate at MGM's 50s Prime Time Café, where the chef made a gluten-free chicken pot pie for my wife. The rest of us ate like kings too-another successful meal, with great service from Adriana, our "cousin". Dinner, alas, was slightly less successful; we ate at MGM's Sci-Fi Dine-In. The food quality, promptness of service, and service quality have all declined quite a bit since our last visit last year. I think we'll cut this from our must-visit list for our next visit; frankly, I expect better both for the expense and for Disney's reputation. One side note about MGM: we went there on a Friday knowing full well that "Star Wars Weekends" were in progress. My ten-year-old and I went to the Star Wars store next to the "Star Tours" ride. I have never had a worse shopping experience! With all of Disney's expertise in handling large crowds, we were a little surprised that simple measures, like adding cash registers, weren't taken to speed the movement of buyers through the store. Overall, we had a wonderful trip, in large part because my wife was able to enjoy dining with us. Please pass our thanks on to Chef Thomas, Jose, Adriana, and Pat, and the chefs not named. All of them were helpful and attentive, and I commend them for their efforts to help us have a great trip. Respectfully, Paul Robichaux

Now it's safe to spill the beans: while I'm at TechEd, Arlene and the boys are flying down for a surprise visit to Disney World. I wasn't planning on attending TechEd, so we left our trip planning until the last minute, and the boys have no clue! Right now, they're about to board a flight to Atlanta, then to Tampa, then via Avis to pick me up at the convention center. We shot a cool spy video, with our bishop acting in the role of briefing officer-- the kids watched it in the van on the way to the airport. I can't wait to see them!

This is pretty neat: biologists at the Argonne National Laboratory have developed a diet (or, more precisely, a mix of foods) that helps prevent jet lag when traveling over long distances, either west-east or east-west. Now they've licensed it to antijetlagdiet.com, which will prepare a customized meal plan based on your departure and arrival cities and times. The diet involves timed intake of carbs and protein, avoidance of caffeine and alcohol, and alternating fast and feast days. I think I'll give it a try next time I have to travel a long distance-- it just might work.

Wow, those folks at Delta have gone crazy. They're offering a promotion that grants Silver Medallion status in their frequent-flyer program for one round trip. The catch: you have to fly out of one of 14 specified cities. (Note to Julie and Paul: Burlington is one of them!) I signed Arlene and the boys up for it with no problem. There's a similar offer for Gold Medallion status, but it seems to be limited to people that Delta invited. Now, off to hunt for cheap flights...

I had to go back to Chicago (or, more precisely, to Downers' Grove) last week for the next stop on our collaboration and communications roadshow. This event was the first one we've held in a hotel instead of a Microsoft office, so I was a little leery-- the Microsoft office facilities tend to be quite nice, and they're usually already set up for our presentations. This event was booked at the Marriott Suites in Downers Grove, which turned out to be a wonderful hotel. I was predisposed to like it as soon as my cab turned the corner: just up the street, there's a Fuddrucker's and a Brazilian churrascaria, and directly across from the hotel there's a Fry's Electronics. Nancy and the rest of the hotel staff were extremely competent and helpful, and John and I got everything set up quickly. The rooms were spacious and comfortable, which is always a nice bonus. We had a team dinner at Sal e Carvão, the churrascaria, and it was excellent. Our event the next day went well, and I got to take an early flight home so I got home just before the kids went to bed (instead of at zero-midnight-thirty). All in all, a good trip.

OK, so I'm a tourist. Here's what I did yesterday:

• Arrived at Penn Station and walked to my hotel, which is on 6th Avenue. Streets and Trips says the most direct route is 1.6 mi, but I took the scenic route-- past B&H Photo (totally by accident), then back up 34th St to 6th and up 6th. Great walk.


• Checked in to the hotel and whipped through my inboxes. That took an hour or so.


• Caught a cab to the SoHo Apple Store, where I was sorely tempted by a wide variety of goodies. The place was packed! However, a dual-G4 (or even an iMac G5) is too big to carry back on the plane, so none for me.


• Had a slice of pepperoni pizza from a little hole-in-the-wall pizzeria on Prince St and ate it while walking through SoHo. Theboys are each getting a cheap NY tourist T-shirt (some of which were not exactly age appropriate).


• Took a cab to the World Trade Center site. Very moving, powerful yet sad. I spent a while there just looking, then moved around to take some pictures that I'll post after I get home.


• Took the subway back to the station at 57th and 7th, then walked to the hotel, where I found a mention of Harley-Davidson of New York. Off I went! They don't seem to actually sell or fix motorcycles; instead, they sell overpriced crap ($60 for a long-sleeved T-shirt) to tourists. I escaped with a $20 T-shirt; it was on sale.


• On the way to the Harley dealer, I found Kate's Paperie, where I got Arlene a little something. Then it was back to the hotel.

After all that touring, I was too tired to do anything else, so I had a room service burger, ate for a while, and hit the bed early. This morning, I got up at 6, went down to the hotel gym, and am now headed for a delicious hotel breakfast. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Today I'm in Boston; I'm about to leave my hotel and head down to Boston's South Station so I can take Amtrak's Acela service down to New York's Penn Station. I haven't ridden on a passenger train in a long while, so I'm looking forward to the experience.

Update: I'm now almost to New Haven, Connecticut. This beats flying by a wide margin-- a comfortable seat, with two 120V outlets, breakfast and lunch, and great scenery (intermingled, of course, with ugly train-track-side industrial buildings and graffiti). So far, the stretch between Boston and New London has been my favorite; New London-to-New Haven isn't quite as pretty.

Update: I love me some Acela. Overall the train trip was a delightful break from my regular air travel routine, and I recommend it heartily. For long trips, the speed of air travel can't be beat, but this trip has made me strongly consider using Amtrak for shorter trips like Toledo-Chicago.

Speaking of things you hope you'll never need to know! The Budget Traveler's Guide to Sleeping in Airports is a comprehensive guide to the best, and worst, places to sleep when your travel plans, or budget, requires you to catch 40 winks without resorting to a hotel. Particularly useful: the Huntsville, New Orleans, Alexandria, and Detroit airport sections. Bonus: this set of sleeping tips. (The most important tip: stay out of airports and you won't need any of this!)

Terrific posting from a guy on FlyerTalk who took a new job in June ("you won't have to travel very much") and ended up banking 93,000 miles by year's end. His 25 lessons learned is a classic, particularly #5 (be nice to people), #13 (use a checklist to avoid forgetting stuff), and #25 (you're special, just like everyone else).

You've heard of the Texas Rangers-- now there are the Houston Airport Rangers, volunteers who patrol the 11,000 acres of Bush International on horseback.

Airport Rangers are mounted security patrol made up of volunteers, including off-duty law enforcement officers that ride their horses along the perimeter of the 11,000 acre Bush Intercontinental Airport. In return for keeping an eye out for suspicious activity in the area, equestrians have a pristine location, including wooded trails to ride and the airport has extra eyes and ears in areas that most security patrols can not easily access.

I just got back from a long trip: TOL-ATL-MLU, followed by a short stay and family visit at Lake D'Arbonne State Park, followed by MLU-DFW-SEA, a few days of work, and a return to the park, thence home. A few notes in no particular order:

• Whoever set up the state park at Lake D'Arbonne should get a raise. It's beautiful: secluded, quiet, with clean, well-maintained, well-equipped cabins. Bonus points for not putting TVs in the cabins.
  
• It was wonderful to see my sister and my grandparents, neither of whom I get to see that often. The food and company were both great.
  
• Seattle consistently has the rudest TSA staff of any airport I've ever been in. Ruder than Detroit, ruder than Newark.
  
• In this month's issue of Delta Sky, there are profiles of several Delta employees, including Phil Bartholomew. He's the best DL flight attendant I've ever seen: super courteous and very much on the ball. In the same magazine, there's a big ad from Sykes congratulating Delta on their 75 years of success. I noticed that the one reservation/ticket agent included in the profiles works for a city ticket office in Rio; I wonder how the current (and former!) US-based reservations employees feel about Sykes' ad.
  
• I've taken probably 200 or 250 trips with a laptop since I graduated from college. I've left my laptop behind twice. This was one of those trips. Fortunately, I left it at the park cabin, where Mom was able to toss it in her car for her return trip to Ohio. Rookie mistake!
  
• Delta gets bonus points for putting a Crown Room Club in their satellite terminal at DFW, but they lose them again for having it close at 9:30pm when the last bank of flights leaves after that. C'mon, guys: if there are departing flights scheduled to leave, have the club open. It's not that hard to figure out.
  

It's true; EPCOT really does stand for "every person comes out tired". This has always been my favorite park, mostly because there are so many gadgets and so much techno-stuff-- but also because of the pervasive spirit of optimism that pervades both halves of the park. When we arrived, we headed straight for Test Track and got FASTPASS tickets for it. While Matthew and I strolled around people-watching (and eating popsicles, of course), everyone else went to Ellen's Energy Adventure, which broke down mid-ride on our last visit. It got good reviews this time; Mom and I traded groups, so they went to bird-watch while the rest of us rode Test Track. David loved it as much as he did last time, and Arlene and Thomas both were impressed (although it didn't make GM look so good when our car got stuck three times, once in the "cold climate" test room). We puttered around for a while afterwards until it was time for our Mission: SPACE fastpasses. How was it? It's so good that I am prepared to forgive HP for their long history of writing crappy Mac software for their products. Thomas and I rode (David chickened out at the last minute), and you should have seen the look on his face! He got to be the mission pilot and was enormously proud of his accomplishment. The ride itself was really slick: very immersive, with a terrific blast-off sequence that gives realistic G-loadings and buffetings. IMHO, Walt himself would have approved (although this story about Disney freaks points out how many of them talk about what Walt would, and would not, have liked-- eek! am I crossing the line and becoming a Disneytrekkie? Let's hope not.)

While Tom and I were riding, everyone else headed over to the World Showcase. I'd never been there before, and it was quite enjoyable, even though I didn't do anything more than stroll through the pavilions. We had lunch at a surprisingly good Japanese yakitori restaurant, then walked around a bit more until it was time to go. Arlene and I had set a hard departure time of 1530 because we had tickets to the 1800 performance of Cirque du Soleil's La Nouba. What a show! I'd never seen Cirque before, but I'd heard a lot about the athletic skill and design of their performances, and I wasn't disappointed. It's hard to summarize it, so I won't try-- but if you go to Orlando, see the show if you have time. It's well worth the (rather expensive) ticket price, and there's not a bad seat in the house. While we were doing that, Mom and the boys ate at Downtown Disney, and then to bed. Pictures:

Verizon has a cool service: sign up and when you're on an airplane, your Verizon cellphone calls automatically arrive at your seat for either $0.10 or $0.69/min, depending on which plan you sign up for.

Three years ago, when Matthew was still a passenger and Thomas had just turned three, we went to Orlando to visit Disney World (chronicled here). Now it's three years later, and we're +1 on the boy count-- Matt is a little younger than Thomas was for his first trip, but I suspect he'll enjoy it.

This time, we're taking Mom with us; this should be fun for her and will make it easier to counterbalance the different things that everyone is sure to want to do. Unlike the last trip, where I used Priceline for hotel and car and frequent-flyer miles for airplane tickets, I bought everything via Expedia. Why? Airfares are cheap, so the miles are worth more when converted (say) to a business-class ticket to London than for a $220 ticket to Orlando. Second, availability for hotels is really tight since we're going during the peak season (oops; we'll remember that for next time), so the best balance between time spent and money spent turned out to be buying the package. Thanks to tips at MouseSavers, I spotted Expedia's attempt to sell us full-price park tickets and bought them for a discount straight from Disney instead. Ha! Take that, robotic travel agent-oid!

Seems that American Airlines hasn't been showing the love to Brazilian customs. This story explains what happened: the 52-year-old (read "old enough to know better") pilot gave customs officials the finger when he was being photographed, whereupon he was arrested. The rest of his flight crew was denied entry to Brazil, so presumably they had to wAAit until the next flight home.

Here's the airline's explAAnation:

"The company apologizes to the Brazilian government, the airport authorities, the police, or anyone else who perceived anything they believed to have been disrespectful," the airline said in a statement. "The captain and other crew members certainly meant no disrespect."

Obviously American has found a new job for Don Carty's speechwriter, since only a person of vast imagination could construe the international peace sign as "[meaning] no disrespect".

This morning, the TSA people pulled me out of the X-ray line and asked if they could search my bag. "Sure," I said, knowing there was nothing in there. "It looks like there's a wrench in there," said one of them. To shorten the story as much as possible: yes, there was a wrench in the pocket of my trousers. I'd picked it up to safeguard it from Matt The Tool Bandit; when I took them off after my dinner date with Arlene, I folded them neatly to be packed and packed them. Lo and behold, they took my wrench, all 5" of it. I guess they thought a 7/16" box/open-end qualifies as a banned item. At least it wasn't one of my good ones.

Those wacky folks at SaveSkyMiles are at it again; they posted this ad in the Atlanta-region edition of USA Today. It basically says "hey, DL employees, we're sorry your management doesn't get it, but we're leaving. We still love you, though".

There's been a lot of complaining about Delta's decision to downgrade the benefits offered to their most frequent flyers. I voted with my feet at the beginning of this year and have accumulated almost enough miles on NW for their midtier elite program, which gives me unlimited free upgrades on any fare class.

Today I got some mail from Delta announcing changes to their Platinum Medallion benefits for next year. (See a summary of the changes here.) The resumption of unlimited upgrades is nice, but it's limited to the most expensive (Y, B, and M-class) fares. No thanks.

On the other hand, with Continental's recent decision to backstab their elites, can NW be far behind? One speculation is that CO and NW are aligning the details of their FF programs with Delta, which means that it may be in my best interest to spend a couple hundred bucks on a mileage run to Singapore or Tokyo to make sure I hit NW's top tier-- if CO and NW both slave their upgrades to DL's program, I'll be in trouble as a midtier member.

I'm in the south terminal WorldClub at the Detroit airport. Behind me are two overstressed business travelers. One is arguing with her daughter, who has apparently invited some hussy named Dorothy to sleep over while Mom's out of town. Mom's take seems to be that Dorothy should be at her ill father's hospital bedside, but in any event no one is welcome to sleep over while she's out of town (and she's home a lot). Competing with her is a middle-aged man who had a short, angry conversation with what I assume was his wife, muttered (rather loudly, actually) "I need a beer", and returned to pick up the conversation anew. Someone in his family is ill too, and claims to want to die, but won't, or isn't, or something. All I can tell is that he's very angry about the whole situation. I would move, but then I'd have to give up my chair and, much more importantly, my power outlet. Nothing doing. At least I can drown my angst with some excellent Vermont sharp cheddar, which NWA has thoughtfully provided for those of us who would rather graze than eat aboard their flying spam cans shiny 757s.

Yesterday was our slowest day; we didn't do all that much, even though we covered lots of ground. We started the day by driving south to Provo, about 40 mi south of Temple Square, to drop by BYU and hit the bookstore. Surprisingly, there were lots of young Mormons there. Even more surprisingly, lots of the people we saw were wearing long sleeves and long pants-- this in 105+ degree weather. If any of our kids go there I hope they have the sense to dress appropriately for the weather.

When we left BYU, we drove north again, taking I-80 east to Park City. We stopped at Utah Olympic Park, where I had high hopes of riding the bobsled. Unfortunately, I didn't read the part of the web page that says "Tuesday through Saturday", so I missed out. We drove back from Park City, rested at the hotel for a while, and went back to Rodizio with our friend Pete (a.k.a. Elder Brainard of the Alabama Birmingham Mission, 1998-2000) and his new wife. We had a delightful time.

Yesterday, Arlene and I embarked on our semi-regular annual anniversary trip. This year, we decided to go to Salt Lake City to see the sights, visit some temples we hadn't been to, and visit some friends who live in the Valley. Our trip here was uneventful; we flew Delta, changed planes in Cincinnati, and arrived on time. (Unfortunately, even after two requests, the DL folks couldn't get my NW account number on the tickets; maybe I'll have better luck on the return).

Our rental car turned out to be a Mustang. While that might seem just the ticket for cruising Temple Square, there were two minor problems: Arlene's megasuitcase wouldn't fit in the tiny trunk, and I couldn't fit in the driver's seat. We swapped it for a boring, but commodious, Taurus and went to our hotel. Unfortunately, our room wasn't ready, so we parked our car, left the bags with the bellman, and walked the two blocks to Temple Square.

It was a beautiful afternoon for sightseeing; we stopped at the south gate's visitor center and got a map. I got to see the original Tabernacle, which has that famous pipe organ-- it's just as impressive in real life as I thought it would be. We saw a few wedding couples outside, and learned from one of the volunteer hostesses that there were 55 weddings held yesterday-- with about the same number today! That's astonishing, but I guess you'd expect it given our beliefs on marriage. I got a few good pictures of the west side of the temple; I'll try to post them tomorrow.

Next, we went to see the film "Legacy," a retelling of some of the events surrounding the original pioneer migration to the Salt Lake Valley. It was really humbling to consider the obstacles that those pioneers faced; some of them rebuilt their houses, careers, and even families three or four times as the LDS settlers were driven from place to place. While I'm not one to endorse the occasional bragging that goes on among longtime LDS families (similar to the "well, my family came over on the Mayflower, and..." lines from New England), it's quite a testament to the settlers' faith and dedication that SLC was established at all.

For dinner, we ate at Shula's, conveniently attached to our hotel. Arlene was learning toward the lobster until our server brought the presentation cart and held up the lobster to exhibit it. The lobster gave Arlene a companionable sort of wave, at which point she recoiled (but only slightly) and decided on the steak instead. Brief summary: best steak I've ever eaten. Yes, better than Johnny Walker's Black Angus in Sydney; better than Morton's; better than Mancy's. It was phenomenal. Arlene actually had the steak; I had a cut of salmon that was easily in the top three I've ever had.

After that, we were so full that we had to walk around a bit more. We browsed around some of the shops surrounding Temple Square. At Mormon Handiscraft, I was surprised to find an entire quilting store tucked away in the back. As you might expect, Arlene ended up with a new addition of soul fabric for her stash. After that, we'd both had enough for one day, so we want back to the hotel and hit the rack.

Arlene and I are heading to Salt Lake City for a mini-vacation. Mom and Betty are keeping the boys. Last night, I got Betty checked out on the new TV, so she has now fully mastered the use of all the remotes and can watch HD, plain TV, DVDs, or (gasp) the Xbox. As a backup, David knows how to do most of those, so he can help if need be. I'm taking the Tablet PC with me and intend to do some picture-taking; if I get a chance (and if there are any good pictures) I'll start a new gallery.

No, not that kind of hot spot. Ernie the Attorney maintains a partial list of WiFi hot spots on his blog, and there's an article about local connectivity from the Times-Picayune. MGB attendees, now you know where to get wireless. Just don't spill your Dixie into your laptop or bad things will happen.

Spam from Delta today:

Delta recognizes that as airline travel has changed, so have our customers' lifestyles and preferences when on the go. What hasn't changed is your need to save time at the airport. That's why we are pleased to announce that we will begin testing a new in-flight food program, offering restaurant-quality food to customers onboard select U.S. flights.

Riiight. If Delta really cared about helping me save time at the airport, there are lots of things they could do-- starting with bringing back their redcoats-- but this ain't one of them.

What follows in their note is a description of their new pay-for-food program, brought to us by the Atlanta Bread Company (good) and Gate Gourmet, their current catering provider (not so good). They'll also be pimping Fritos, Harry & David stuff, and various Nabisco products. Note that this doesn't save me any time, since every airport in America has vending machines and newsstands that dispense the same fat-filled greasy partially dehydrogenated goodness. he best part is that PMs eat free, just like in the old days:

When I lived in Huntsville, I used to work with two guys who traveled insane amounts of time (48+ weeks a year!) One of them (Hi, Johnny!) turned me on to The Ticket, a newsletter for Atlanta-based travelers. Even though I wasn't based in Atlanta, it was useful since just about every trip I took resulted in a flight change in ATL.

Now that I've moved, and especially now that I'm not flying DL much, it's not as useful-- but I still read it for the occasional gems. If Tim had been able to read it, he'd have known about the secret security areas, f'rinstance, and he might have made his Monday-morning flight. So, here's the July issue, from which you can get archives and subscription information. Enjoy!

According to this story, American Airlines will change their policies on 8 July to allow broader use of cellphones while an aircraft is on the ground. According to the story, passengers can use their phones until the boarding door is closed (nothing new) and during taxi to the arrival gate. I'm not sure what to think about this. On one hand, it legitimizes what many people already do-- fire up the ol' cellphone as soon as they're back on terra firma. On the other, it might be useful to be able to check emai lor voicemail first thing after a transcon flight.

I haven't flown much on Continental, with the occasional exception of trips to Newark (which I try to avoid as much as possible). In both Atlanta and Huntsville, CO had service but it was far inferior to Delta's; now I live in Toledo, which CO doesn't serve at all. However, they had, by far, the best deal on flights between Shreveport and Seattle, so I booked my trip on them: SHV-IAH and IAH-SHV on Embraer regional jets, IAH-SEA on a 737-800, and SEA-IAH on a 757-200. Since CO and NW have an alliance, I can earn NW miles (and get upgraded) on CO metal.

We're right in the middle of Camp Bloch, our annual women-and-children-only family gathering. I got a special dispensation to visit for a day or so, so I flew down to Shreveport with Arlene and Matthew, then headed back to SHV to catch a flight from there to Houston to Seattle. Originally, I was on a 5pm flight that would get me to Seattle about midnight PDT; I booked it so I could spend today with my grandfather, who was going to come to camp today. he came yesterday, though, so I decided to hop an earlier flight. Long story short, thanks to weather in Texas, my airplane couldn't leave Beaumont; therefore, it didn't make it to Houston, therefore it didn't get to Shreveport. Accordingly, I've gotten to spend some extra time at SHV waiting for my original 5pm flight. Apart from the obligatory TV (which, in this case, is broadcasting reruns of Roseanne, perhaps my most-hated TV show of all time) and the hard seats, the waiting has been productive. Thanks to my new phone I've been able to get some work done. I'll post a fuller review in a week or so once the MGB excitement is done.

I tried really hard to find a spiritual angle on this, but apart from being thankful that I don't have to drive to Seattle, I'm drawing a blank. Actually, when I think about it, I am thankful that I got to spend some unexpected family time with my grandparents, who are getting up there in the age department. I spent a good time with my wife and sons, my mom, two aunts, and some cousins, and I ate some good food. In years past, I'd have been stuck at home eating canned beans, so this is a pretty good deal.

I promised to post a trip report for my return flight on ATA. To copy Julie's five-word format: Noisy, crowded, cramped, and sleepless. I won't say that I'd never fly ATA again, but I certainly will avoid their redeye ex SEA like the plague. It leaves an hour later than everyone else's, yet it arrives earlier than DL's flight to ATL or NW's to DTW, and the chatter of all the folks who are too excited to sleep is maddening. By contrast, my TechEd flight from TOL-CVG-DFW on Delta was a delight: on time, uncrowded (thanks to a last-minute upgrade at the CVG departure gate), and full of the friendly, professional attention that I've always enjoyed about Delta.

I normally fly Delta or Northwest, the former out of habit and the latter because they (generally) offer the least obtrusive way to get from home to SEA, my most frequent destination. However, I recently had to take a short overnight to SEA. NW wanted $1927 for their nonstop ex DTW, and DL couldn't meet my departure or arrival time requirements. I went out on a limb and tried American Trans Air to see how it works.

Leg 1: TOL-MDW on a Saab 340. I don't mind turboprops for short hops; the 340 is noisier than a CRJ, but no less comfortable. I used ATA's web check-in; apart from a minor security surprise, I was able to print boarding passes and use them to get through TOL security, just like on Big Air (although ATA's app is less sophisticated and can't do wireless checkins yet). The TOL gate staff was friendly; the FA on my flight to MDW was OK, although her English was heavily accented and she could have benefited from either a good bath or a better grade of deodorant... but I digress. We arrived on time, but there were ominous thunderheads off to the west, and I counted 8 ATA and Southwest 737s lined up awaiting departure as the shuttle took us from one side of the field to the main terminal.

Leg 2: MDW-SEA on a 737-800. I hadn't flown through Midway in at least 10 years, so I wasn't sure what to expect. The A, B, and C concourses are arranged like spokes radiating from a central food court, where I had a not-awful turkey sandwich. No wireless or wired Internet connectivity, and few power plugs, meant that I had to forego getting any work done; I was saving my battery for the plane ride. ATA doesn't seem to handle irregular ops very well; there was a constant flow of conflicting PA announcements about arrival and departure times for various flights, and our flight was gate-changed four times. Boarding was by row and proceeded pretty smoothly. I'd estimate that the flight was 80% full, maybe more. Unsurprisingly, I didn't see a lot of road-warrior types-- there were lots of retirees, plus many toddlers with one or both parents.There were a few of the uptight-looking middle-aged white guys that I'm used to seeing in the F cabin on DL and NW, but none sat near me :)

We eventually departed about 70 minutes after our scheduled time. The flight itself was uneventful. I sat in 2D, the right-hand bulkhead aisle seat. Legroom on the bulkhead row is less than on the corresponding row (10) on DL or NW iron. Cabin service was briskly professional; of course, there was no food, but I'd laid in a supply of Fig Newtons ahead of time. Unlike NW's DTW-SEA flights, this aircraft had an in-flight entertainment (IFE) system, but it only showed music videos, and that for only about 90 minutes. Given how awful DL's movies normally are, this is probably not a bad thing. Given our late start, and the fact that we were traveling westbound, I expected a late arrival, but we actually got in 10 minutes late-- not too shabby. I'll write about the return flight tomorrow, after I get back.

I've had a big soft spot for Australia since my visit there in 2000. Accordingly, let me wish all of my friends Down Under a happy Australia Day! (To celebrate, I was going to post my 2000 travel blog here, but it's all HTML and will take a while to MT-ify.)

I’m not happy with Delta’s recent punitive changes to the SkyMiles program. I was a Platinum Medallion in 2002, which means I’m guaranteed to be Gold Medallion in 2003 and Silver in 2004, even if I never fly another mile on their airline. Since the changes greatly reduce the benefit of Platinum or Gold status, I decided to give another airline a try. Northwest responded to my comp request and gave me Gold status, so I’m going to use them as my primary carrier this year.This was a tough decision for me; some years ago, I’d sworn never to fly NW after they went on strike and stranded an out-of-town visitor at our house for an extended, and unwelcome, addition to their stay. However, DL’s decision to slash benefits for their most frequent flyers has made me reconsider that old grudge. (Note to Virginia Avenue: restore the benefits and I might consider coming back.)

	Yesterday started with a beautiful sunrise. Fortunately, my hotel room overlooks the river, so I got a great view of it as the sky slowly lightened and then began to turn pink. That object in the lower right of the picture is a river dredge; not shown in this shot are the numerous ferries, tugboats, and cargo carriers that ply the river.
I met Peter and John for an undistinguished breakfast at the conference center, then we started work. Attendance at the labs was fitful; we'd get a spurt of 10-15 people, then they'd all finish and leave and things would be quiet for a while. Eventually, our Microsoft sponsor decided to set out a huge pile of T-shirts, and that was a sight to see! You'd have thought we were giving out free money the way people descended on the T-shirt stacks. I saw one lady take six of them. Considering the prevalence of Microsoft logo-wear among the attendees, I wouldn't have thought anyone would want any more of it. The puzzle block sets were very popular. In fact, John threatened to juggle in the aisle, but he never quite made it past our row of tables.
I ended up taking four certification tests for my MCSE certification, which requires a total of seven exams. I hadn't studied, but since the testing company had a special $40 rate (as opposed to the usual $125), I figured it was worth a try, and it was-- I passed all four! Some other highlights of day 1: Watching the little electric carts that the convention center staff uses drive along the catwalks just below the ceiling Seeing a cart driver inattentively smash into a large "SAFETY FIRST" sign; the crowd reaction was priceless Taking Betty and Thomas to dinner at the New Orleans Hamburger & Seafood Company, where I had a darn good shrimp po-boy Going up to the rooftop pool with Thomas for a pre-bedtime swim. The night was too cloudy to see the moon or any stars, but it was warm and breezy. Two men were practicing kick-boxing at poolside, which was really cool-- they were both fantastically quick, and they'd start off slowly and speed up their strikes and blocks. Today is more of the same, although we expect a bigger crowd at the labs once the lectures/sessions begin to repeat.