Flight Of The Albatross

I flew to visit my brother and (mom-to-be) sister-in-law two weekends ago. My main priority was to pick up some roasted/fried peanuts from Malaysia that my sis-in-law had brought back from her recent trip home. There were 3 beautiful bags of these things that I've grown very much addicted to waiting for me at their house. Of course, I told them that my main priority to visit was to just chill with them, blah, blah.. you get the drift. But I think they suspected that I had prioritized peanuts over family.

Anyway, because of my evil ulterior motives, I think I got slapped down by an unfortunate series of events.

My brother had told me all about this new discount airline that flew out of Columbus. Called Skybus, they had 10 seats for $10 (one-way) on each and every flight. I was not lucky enough to get one of the $10 seats, but the runner up one-way price of $80 for a direct flight from New Orleans to Columbus was still pretty good, given my other alternatives of having to fly through Houston or Memphis or Atlanta or some other major carrier hub that would have added $100 + 3 hours to each leg of the flight.

The formula for these steep discounts mimicked what I had been used to with European budget airlines - every single perk except for the actual seat you sat on was extra $$$. So, if you were thirsty and swallowing your own saliva just wouldn't cut it for the 2 hour journey, fork over $2 for a can of Diet Coke. And if you checked a bag so that it could be tossed around and lose 2 of its 4 wheels, pay $10. And if you had a large carry on (i.e. larger than a wallet), you then had to check it, have it come back like it had been dragged on the runway, and pay $10. Oh, and they only flew out of small regional airports, of which New Orleans (which is already quite small and regional, even though it is called an "International" airport - how they do that I have never quite figured out) is clearly not in the eyes of this discount carrier. So, a direct flight from "New Orleans" to Columbus was actually a direct flight from our Greater New Orleans suburb of Gulfport-Biloxi to Columbus.

No matter, I rationalized to myself, it was only an hour's drive away from New Orleans (and across a state line so I guess New Orleans is both in Louisiana and Mississippi now). I was saving so much on the ticket already that even the worst case scenario of a full tank of gas (yes, I work for an oil company, and no, I don't control the price of gasoline) at $55 would still save me money overall. Or so I thought.

I remember getting on the plane in Gulfport and thinking that the eerie fog/mist pouring out of the air vents was a bad omen. But I shook it of when I realized it was just the insufferable humidity of the South combined with the deadly chill of the blasting air vents. I took my seat in a very nice plane, not too packed with people such that you had to share arm rests with either a very odorous person or a hairy armed person or a fat armed person. Don't tell me you guys normally take the moral high ground and don't have the same fears every time you get on a plane - I know you do.

We took off just fine and soon the marketing pitches started. "If you're hungry", "If you're thirsty", "If you'd like a nice airplane backpack for the kiddies", "If you'd like a heavyweight cotton T-shirt", "If you'd like a kidney transplant". The last one's fake, of course. I just threw it in there just to make sure you were still paying attention.

But I was in a jolly good mood because of all the money I was saving and because I had not needed to check my bag (for $10, you remember) and because I had both armrests to myself. This was totally a trifecta of good fortune, so I was feeling particularly generous. So when the flight attendant came around (wearing the aforementioned heavyweight cotton tee), I was determined to show myself as a high roller and above all the other cheapasses on the plane.

"What would you like, sir?"
"How's the lobster?"

Genius repartee, don't you think? She laughed. I laughed. It was all good. I told her I was feeling a touch bit peckish and would take anything she recommended. She said she normally had the fruit and cheese (F&C) plate (judging by her size, this was probably the only meal she had every day) and recommended it highly. I gave her a subtle nod as I would have given to any good sommelier in a restaurant. She had to be impressed with my pedigree.

"That'll be $6, please, sir"
"Oh, and I'll have a cran-apple juice, please"

Just so that I could pretend like I had a wine-like beverage to go with my fancy-schmansy F&C plate. $10 later (I gave her a tip of $2, as the pilot had recommended - they were all in on the marketing bit), she trotted up the aisle to the galley to get my F&C plate. Returning shortly thereafter, she produced, with a flourish, and a sad smile that said "you sucker", my utterly delectable $6 F&C plate. The plate had on it, EXACTLY, 1 lettuce leaf (covering the bottom of the plate), 11 grapes, 3 Monterrey Jack cubes, 3 Cheddar cubes, and, I kid you not, 2 crackers. I wondered if this was a plate that she had snacked on herself at lunch. As I wanted to preserve my high roller persona, I dutifully kept silent and savored every morsel on that F&C (emphasis on the first letter) plate.

I got in to Columbus very early on Friday morning, around 0045 (another downer of flying discount carriers is the non-customer friendly schedules). I was still actually quite happy with everything and not bitter at all (I swear). I was just happy that I had a seat INSIDE the plane, contrary to what my smartass co-workers had suggested.

Friday and most of Saturday passed in a whirlwind of eating and sleeping. Just my kind of an ideal weekend. As we were preparing for dinner on Saturday night, though, the bombshell dropped. Cue my good friend Brian's favorite song by The Gap Band, 'You Dropped a Bomb on Me'.

Skybus had gone Skybust.

Yup, my discount airline had gone bankrupt and ceased operations in the MIDDLE of my trip. As Borat would say, NIIIIIIIIIICE. I don't think the flight attendant that I interacted with (nor any of her fellow marketing cronies, pilots included) had any clue.

I was livid. Angry because I had to rebook on another major carrier for a $350 one-way ticket back to.... you remember right... Gulfport-Biloxi airport. Furious because I had to drive back from that poser "New Orleans" airport called Gulfport-Biloxi (as I'd left my car there) vs. the genuine article that was but 20 minutes from my house. Mad because I'd gotten ripped off over the F&C plate AND had tipped the flight attendant as I'd been slinging money around in my premise of huge airfare savings. But absolutely livid because there was one more aspect of the "discountness" of this discount carrier that I'd just realized.

Skybus did not have a call center so that I could call and complain sarcastically. All I could do was to stare at the unchanging web page with the very unchanging headline "Skybus has ceased operations". Every fiber of my being was screaming out the injustice, but I had no place to vent. My bitter juice volcano had erupted but the scalding hot (and supremely bitter) lava flows had no place to go.

I have since made peace with Skybus (even though they couldn't have known about my bitterness since I couldn't talk to anyone from their company). I understand that in these volatile times, (and yes, once more, I work for an oil company, but no, I do not control jet fuel prices) businesses are vulnerable and may have to shut down. There was one piece of good news that I found out on the way back to New Orleans from the Gulfport airport - a section of I-10 was going to be shut down for repairs, and had I been able to finish my original itinerary (landing later in the evening), I would have had to make a 90 minute detour around the shut down. So, paying for a more expensive ticket to sit in an airplane for a longer period of time but getting back into Gulfport earlier actually paid off in the end. Or so I rationalized, anyway.

And, by the way, those peanuts that started this whole thing? I've figured that they probably cost me a quarter each at the end of the day. And goodness gracious, they're worth every single penny.

Where is the blog info from Rome?

Que tal, Ecuador?

I sure am glad that I got back from Ecuador when I did - recent hostilities that have broken out between Ecuador and Colombia would have made things a little bit more dicey.

The following is a quick, non-exhaustive, pictorial summary of the trip - one of the best I've taken (but I always say that). This will be Part 1 of many future posts - I've got some good stories to share - hope these pics whet your appetite to learn more....

Me at Lake Cuicocha (cui = guinea pig, cocha = lake, notice the aforementioned guinea pig shaped island I'm standing in front of)

The ravine near Banos over which we took a $1 "cable car" ride. Not a nice gondola like what you'd have in the Alps, mind you. More like a steel cage dangling from a wire attached to a gear pulley thing. With wire mesh grating as the floor. Zipping over the ravine in a minute or so. Most exhilarating $1 I've ever spent.

The erupting Volcan Tungurahua (Toong-goo-ra-wa), near Banos - as seen from our hacienda near Patate. Nice ash, baby.

At the Whymper refuge (5000 m/16400 ft), Volcan Chimborazo, the tallest volcano in Ecuador. I have to say that I was wheezy and short of breath, both from the altitude and the amazing scenery. Highest point I've ever been in my life.

At the grill - in the Don Bosco neighborhood of Cuenca. I'm really close to a rack of roasted guinea pigs. Note the whole roast pig in the background, under the impossibly festive beach umbrella. Pig skin is missing because I just ate some. As far as guinea pig? Ah, there's a whole post's worth of experience to come...

In front of the basilica in Quito, Ecuador's capital city. See the clock tower (to the left of the picture) and the belfry (to the right)? They let us climb those, to the very, very top. Up ladders with a light "safety mesh" that would slow you down perhaps an infinitesimal second if you fell. I did the clock tower, but the belfry was just way too exposed for me. Oh, and one more thing - to cross from the clock tower to the belfry you walk across a creaky wooden "bridge" laid across the top of the basilica's ceiling, between the ceiling and the roof. Nice. Couldn't decide whether to pee my pants or throw up (a little) in the back of my mouth.

More details to come. I promise.

Grapes

I chose to write this treatise on grapes because I'm a wee bit unhappy.

You see, since Katrina, New Orleans hasn't been quite the same with the breadth of grocery stores that inhabit other cities. We have pretty much three big ones - WalMart (Superstore), Winn Dixie and Whole Foods - all in order of price from low to high (inversely correlated, some might say, with quality).

The other day I had a hankering for grapes. Not like a "I would like a grape" type hankering, but a "I need a grape now" type hankering. I'm just strange like that sometimes.

So, in my obsession for "good grape hunting", I popped into the closest grocery store I could find. Which was a Whole Foods. This was my first foray into a Whole Foods here in New Orleans. I had been warned that organic foods cost a lot more - but I pooh-poohed the idea. How bad could it be?

Like a lamb headed for slaughter, I moseyed over to the fruits section. There was no price tag for the grapes (bad omen in hindsight), but I had to have them, so I bought them on impulse.

I ate some grapes in the car on the way home. They were really, really good. Sweet and crunchy - fresh as if I'd just picked them from the vineyard.

When I got home and looked at the receipt (I had bought a bunch of other groceries as well to go with the grapes), I was astonished to find that my grapes cost more than the 2 lbs of boneless, skinless chicken breasts that I had popped into my basket. My juicy, sweet, crunchy grapes cost a delectable $8. $8.

What did the organic farmers do with these things - water them with artesian water and feed them with poo from endangered species?

I counted the number of grapes I had left in the bunch, added the dozen or so that I had snacked on on the way home, and the grand total came to 61. In case you don't have your calculators handy, that comes up to 13 cents per grape. 13 cents... per grape.

After this revelation, I chewed each grape carefully, taking tiny nips of the grape and savoring each little morsel. I let the grape essence linger on my tongue for a long time before taking the next grape ration out of the bag. This was the most organic grape experience I have ever had. And I still, to this day, think about those delicious little grapes from the fancy-schmansy grocery store.

Now I'm off to the WalMart to get me a $3 jumbo bag of "grapes".

I miss London already and other random thoughts

It's been almost a month and a bit since I left London.

And I miss it so.

I miss my friends, the Thames Clipper ferries, my favourite Japanese restaurant of all time (Shogun in Mayfair), the weather in the summer, Westminster Abbey, discount airlines that fly out of Stansted, the Malaysian restaurant in Chinatown. And did I mention my friends?

OK, I guess I do kinda' miss the Jubilee line as well. Just a teensy bit. But maybe without the smells and drunken yobs who sing.

It seems like I'm starting over now that I'm back in the States. Well, I kinda' am in a foreign land. The land of Louisiana (I heard a local say that we put the "Lose" in Louisiana - not encouraging at all, is it?). It's about as different from Houston as one can imagine. Oh, the summers are the same brand of hot in both New Orleans and Houston. But that's about the only thing these two places have in common.

Right now it's about 80 degrees (about 27 C) in my condo. I have to keep the thermostat up that high because electricity is freakin' expensive here. And I can't shop around because there's only one monopoly provider in town. They say that rates are (fingers making quotation mark signs) regulated, but unless that means they're regulated to remain high, I doubt that does anybody good except the fat cats at the electric company.

The cable company is also a monopoly. I'll leave my special cable installation story for another post because there's gobs of funny (not ha-ha funny, more like funny because otherwise I'd be crying) anecdotes with that story.

But the people here are really friendly. They like to talk to you, even as you're just dropping off the trash in the trash chute or picking up mail from the mailbox.

And I don't know what it is with some of the older ladies (you know who you are) - they're friendly, no doubt, but a wee bit scary. Scary how, you ask. Well, let me tell you. It seems as if they've spent too much time under one of those rotisserie grill chicken things that rotate - you know, the ones you see at WalMart or Sam's Club. Their skin looks like it's about ready to tear apart at the slightest perturbation. Yup. Extra crispy old lady skin. Nice. Just threw up a bit in the back of my mouth remembering the last one I spoke to.

The last random thing I'll put in this post is what my Mom told me when I was looking for a condo. Quote, "Don't get one of those places that's got a voodoo curse placed on it". Geez. What rampant superstition.

Ow. Stabbing pain in my side. Wonder what brought that on.

Back with a Heaty Vengeance

I'm back with a new post. After almost 5 months of silence. Miss me, anyone?

The heat in London is stifling. It's been cresting 90 degrees F the last couple of days with bright, sunny skies. People (of every shape and size) everywhere have taken it upon themselves to get a tan. Maybe this is not such a good idea after all, at least for this one guy that I saw outside my apartment. He kinda' looked like a plump, sweaty hedgehog. Not good. Not good at all.

The one thing you notice here is that Londoners are really pale. The melanin in their skin must go "eek" during winter and do as submarines do - dive, dive, dive, way beneath the skin's surface. To compensate, during the 5 days that we have sunny skies and hot weather, all articles of clothing are shed in an effort to coax those color bodies to come up for air.

It's quite remarkable actually. An 85 degree day in Houston during the summer would be considered a magnificently comfortable, perhaps even cool-ish day. An 85 degree day in London has headlines splayed in the newspapers warning of a "Heatwave". Newspapers also herald the tube trains as "deathtraps" during these "heatwaves". The transport authority asks passengers to bring along a bottle of water in case the train suddenly stops between stations and a heat crisis erupts. This worries me. Mind you, I don't think I would die from the high temperatures. I'll probably try to slice my own wrists beforehand because I have, what you may call, a sensitive nose. And I'm not too sure I can handle the amalgam of odors from the mass of bodies smushed together in a train carriage. And I sure hope "Hedgehog Guy" isn't close by when this scenario occurs.

It's supposed to thunder tomorrow and then cool down into the weekend. Back to our average summer temperatures of the low to mid 70s by Saturday, according to the weatherfolk. Ooh-la-la. This is the best kind of summer of all.

Of Film and Crisps

I love movies. And I love potato chips (crisps, here in the UK). Here's my two cents worth on both these topics.

I have a movie theatre just about a minute away from where I live, so I got a monthly movie pass that costs me 11 GBP for unlimited movies per month. I try to go at least three times a month to get best value for my cash. But I end up spending 6 GBP or something like that when I buy popcorn and a drink, so perhaps I don't really save anything at all.

Anyway, I went to watch "Lucky Number Slevin" this weekend. Have you guys seen this movie? The movie has some pretty big names in it - Ben Kingsley, Morgan Freeman, Bruce Willis, Lucy Liu, Josh Hartnett. OK, maybe Josh Hartnett is not that special, especially after "Pearl Harbor".

In my very humble opinion, this is an AWESOME movie. Really gets you thinking. And has some very cool twists and turns (although if you're a little zippy you'll probably figure out the ending before the ending). And it's a little on the bloodier side than what I'm used to. But (small) shortcomings aside, I really give this movie a big "Booyah - it kicks butt" ranking. Go see it, guys and gals - I think it's worth your cash. I really liked "Memento", and LNS has about the same kinda' changes in direction as Memento had. If you didn't like Memento, hmmmm... go see LNS anyway. And if you haven't seen Memento, then go see LNS AND rent Memento from your local video store.

OK, now onto the other random topic of crisps. I really like potato chips. I could eat a lot of them except the saturated fat and the sodium would cause severe arteriosclerosis.

In the US, there's three basic flavors of chips that most normal people like - plain, BBQ and SC&O (sour cream and onion, for all you acronym-challenged types). Sure, there are some "marginal" flavors like jalapeno or habanero or cheddar (I'm not counting Cheetos here - they are in a whole separate category) or salsa-lime or something like that - but in general, even these marginal flavors aren't that "out there". And you can always rely on the "Big Three".

Here in the UK.... not so much. I've just opened a bag of... wait for it... Oven Roasted Chicken and Thyme potato chips. Yup. It tastes just about as good as it sounds. I'm visualizing that they (a) took a big ole' heap of roasted chickens that had some thyme on them, and then (b) grinded them all up to form something like a thick "roast chicken gooey essence", which they then (c) put into the vat of potato chips to flavor them. Hmm. Maybe they shouldn't have experimented with this one.

Some other distinct UK flavors that we don't get in the US -

1. smoky bacon,
2. tomato ketchup,
3. beef and onion,
4. lamb and mint,
5. marmite (some vile, beefy tasting extract akin to Australia's vegemite),
6. pickled onion, and
7. prawn (shrimp) cocktail.

Dude, they are so messing with a good thing here. And I'm not too happy about it. I understand from one of the producer's web sites that the following flavors have been suggested by the UK public - pineapple & cheese, bacon & egg, and pigeon & garlic. I think I'll have to give the big IX-NAY to all of these.

And remember Cheetos? Nope. Don't have them here. Barbaric, these folk are, I tell you. Simply barbaric.