Not only an honest description, they spelt 'dough' correctly!
...
Showing posts with label US. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US. Show all posts
Sunday, 24 April 2011
Monday, 18 April 2011
Day 1.
First leg, Melbourne to LA, was in an A380, a flying ocean liner. But everything was new and working. Staff very attentive. Had a pumpkin and gorgonzola pizza snack in the middle if the ‘night’ that was far too nice. Going to have to experiment when I get home.
I think I got about 5 hours sleep, broken into 20, 15min, blocks.
First flight in 35 years of airline safety presentations where something had changed – the seatbelts are like those in cars, with a button to push in rather than a flap to lift.
It took two and a half hours to negotiate Immigration & Customs at LA, not helped by having to claim and recheck-in my luggage. The Chicago flight was boarding when I got to it.
The American Airlines flight to Chicago was a cattle run. I think the plane was relatively new model (767) but, like the company pool car, it had seen better days and suffered from too many drivers.
Had to buy food on the AA flight - $10 for a lettuce and sliced beige stuff that may have been meat sandwich. Filled a gap, whatever it was.
Taxi driver was a lady, Gladys. Asked if she was a local – no, she replied, I come from Ghana. Ok, have you been here long? 20 years. Tough market to break into.
The town and suburbs have a distinct cream look to them – presumably the local sandstone but even the house seemed to be made of cream bricks. (Peter Bryenton: Beige!)
The hotel is nice. Swissotel, Chicago. Room on the 38th floor, so a good view. Must take a photo of the Navy Pier tomorrow – the lift lobby looks out over it. Looks a cross between Luna Park and Brighton Pier.
The lift lobbies have a keypad – you punch in the floor you want to go to and a lift arrives and takes you there. There are no buttons in the lift. Not sure what happens if you have a group with multiple floors. For future reference, if you select “G”, you will go to the garage, not ground.
A light dinner in the Palm Restaurant – don’t know why Palm. Saw lots of palms at LA but I suspect they are not native to the Great Lakes.
The meal, (Caesar salad, I wasn’t ready for anything else) came with a bread basket that had fruit bread in it. Went surprisingly well with a bottle of IPA (Goose Island) beer.
Coffee is awful. But it does occasionally get worse. The coffee on the plane (free, but with good reason) was a dark brown liquid with few redeeming or even identifying features. ‘Cream’ is invariably powdered stuff.
In the room is a contraption like the Nespresso that takes bigger (Gloria Jean) capsules and produces a weaker coffee. Some of the capsules are called “Breakfast Blend Decaf”; of all the times in my day when I don’t need decaf, breakfast is it. What are they thinking? Might give the “English Breakfast Tea” capsules a go in the morning.
Finally, in my coffee survey of middle America, I had a coffee after my meal. It came far too fast to have been made fresh. Sure enough when I was nearly finished the waiter turned up with a Thermos jug, asking if I wanted more. That’s where the breakfast coffee went.
All in all, I finished Day 1 in good but weary shape.
I think I got about 5 hours sleep, broken into 20, 15min, blocks.
First flight in 35 years of airline safety presentations where something had changed – the seatbelts are like those in cars, with a button to push in rather than a flap to lift.
It took two and a half hours to negotiate Immigration & Customs at LA, not helped by having to claim and recheck-in my luggage. The Chicago flight was boarding when I got to it.
The American Airlines flight to Chicago was a cattle run. I think the plane was relatively new model (767) but, like the company pool car, it had seen better days and suffered from too many drivers.
Had to buy food on the AA flight - $10 for a lettuce and sliced beige stuff that may have been meat sandwich. Filled a gap, whatever it was.
Taxi driver was a lady, Gladys. Asked if she was a local – no, she replied, I come from Ghana. Ok, have you been here long? 20 years. Tough market to break into.
The town and suburbs have a distinct cream look to them – presumably the local sandstone but even the house seemed to be made of cream bricks. (Peter Bryenton: Beige!)
The hotel is nice. Swissotel, Chicago. Room on the 38th floor, so a good view. Must take a photo of the Navy Pier tomorrow – the lift lobby looks out over it. Looks a cross between Luna Park and Brighton Pier.
The lift lobbies have a keypad – you punch in the floor you want to go to and a lift arrives and takes you there. There are no buttons in the lift. Not sure what happens if you have a group with multiple floors. For future reference, if you select “G”, you will go to the garage, not ground.
A light dinner in the Palm Restaurant – don’t know why Palm. Saw lots of palms at LA but I suspect they are not native to the Great Lakes.
The meal, (Caesar salad, I wasn’t ready for anything else) came with a bread basket that had fruit bread in it. Went surprisingly well with a bottle of IPA (Goose Island) beer.
Coffee is awful. But it does occasionally get worse. The coffee on the plane (free, but with good reason) was a dark brown liquid with few redeeming or even identifying features. ‘Cream’ is invariably powdered stuff.
In the room is a contraption like the Nespresso that takes bigger (Gloria Jean) capsules and produces a weaker coffee. Some of the capsules are called “Breakfast Blend Decaf”; of all the times in my day when I don’t need decaf, breakfast is it. What are they thinking? Might give the “English Breakfast Tea” capsules a go in the morning.
Finally, in my coffee survey of middle America, I had a coffee after my meal. It came far too fast to have been made fresh. Sure enough when I was nearly finished the waiter turned up with a Thermos jug, asking if I wanted more. That’s where the breakfast coffee went.
All in all, I finished Day 1 in good but weary shape.
Friday, 14 January 2011
That's not a Tweet. THIS is a Tweet
.
Tracy McCormick,
Unites States Department of Justice.
Dear Tracy,
I see that you have filed with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Alexandra Division) to learn, from Twitter, my name, my mail, residential and business addresses and my email addresses.
To save you time I have included my address at the bottom of this email. You will, with limited IT stress, be able to ascertain my email address from this email in the normal manner.
Your request for session times and durations is more puzzling as generally twitter posts seems to arrive with the minimum of time or duration. Is ‘negligible’ an acceptable response? Please advise.
The length of service and types of service request is also a puzzle. My first ever ‘tweet’ was April 14th 2010 where I shook my fist at the media for their misuse of the word ‘heroes’. My Wikileaks subscription will have been after that but it is hard to tell exactly when. Does it matter? Actually all my tweets have been poking fun (or disgust) at The Age newspaper and have been sent from my computer, not my phone. Does this make you feel any better?
My telephone numbers are at the bottom of this email. Should you assign an agent to record messages in and out I would appreciate any hint you may pick up that my wife is having an affair with the milkman. I have my suspicions, you understand, and as you will be monitoring the home phone it would be a service to me to find out if he is servicing her; if you get my drift.
Payment is a strange question as I believe Twitter is free. Well, free-ish, I do need internet connection to use it. Would the details of my Optusnet account help? Please advise.
Finally, should I be deemed a worthy case for extraordinary rendition, I travel to work down Middleborough Road (Blue Honda Civic Hybrid) and come home down Elgar Road. Should I leave the windows open? I do have some lovely stained glass in my front doors. Could I request that the agents knock rather than use the oh-so-cliched sledge-hammers. They are so 1960, so Soviet-bloc. Finally can I say that the orange of your jumpsuits is just not me. Can I request powder blue?
As custodian of the keys to the home of the brave and the land of the free, I hope and trust that you are appreciative of my efforts to make your position and actions be seen as exactly as what they are.
Yours in disbelief,
Lee Kennedy.
...
Tracy McCormick,
Unites States Department of Justice.
Dear Tracy,
I see that you have filed with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Alexandra Division) to learn, from Twitter, my name, my mail, residential and business addresses and my email addresses.
To save you time I have included my address at the bottom of this email. You will, with limited IT stress, be able to ascertain my email address from this email in the normal manner.
Your request for session times and durations is more puzzling as generally twitter posts seems to arrive with the minimum of time or duration. Is ‘negligible’ an acceptable response? Please advise.
The length of service and types of service request is also a puzzle. My first ever ‘tweet’ was April 14th 2010 where I shook my fist at the media for their misuse of the word ‘heroes’. My Wikileaks subscription will have been after that but it is hard to tell exactly when. Does it matter? Actually all my tweets have been poking fun (or disgust) at The Age newspaper and have been sent from my computer, not my phone. Does this make you feel any better?
My telephone numbers are at the bottom of this email. Should you assign an agent to record messages in and out I would appreciate any hint you may pick up that my wife is having an affair with the milkman. I have my suspicions, you understand, and as you will be monitoring the home phone it would be a service to me to find out if he is servicing her; if you get my drift.
Payment is a strange question as I believe Twitter is free. Well, free-ish, I do need internet connection to use it. Would the details of my Optusnet account help? Please advise.
Finally, should I be deemed a worthy case for extraordinary rendition, I travel to work down Middleborough Road (Blue Honda Civic Hybrid) and come home down Elgar Road. Should I leave the windows open? I do have some lovely stained glass in my front doors. Could I request that the agents knock rather than use the oh-so-cliched sledge-hammers. They are so 1960, so Soviet-bloc. Finally can I say that the orange of your jumpsuits is just not me. Can I request powder blue?
As custodian of the keys to the home of the brave and the land of the free, I hope and trust that you are appreciative of my efforts to make your position and actions be seen as exactly as what they are.
Yours in disbelief,
Lee Kennedy.
...
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
Not a case of Black or White.
.
Much is made of Obama's race and, while not wanting to in anyway dim the pride of African Americans, Kenyans, Indonesians or other, I really don't care.
Looking at him give his inaugural address, I just saw a human.
A young, articulate, intelligent human.
Something that has been missing from the helm for a long time.
A man of today's world.
...
Much is made of Obama's race and, while not wanting to in anyway dim the pride of African Americans, Kenyans, Indonesians or other, I really don't care.
Looking at him give his inaugural address, I just saw a human.
A young, articulate, intelligent human.
Something that has been missing from the helm for a long time.
A man of today's world.
...
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
Good Luck! Here's hoping.
.
No other President will have started off with so many high expectations
from a world, tired and jaded from
a prolonged overdosing of political manipulation and cynicism.
We wish him well.
...
from a world, tired and jaded from
a prolonged overdosing of political manipulation and cynicism.
We wish him well.
...
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
A sense of hope.
.
Congratulation to America on the election of Barack Obama to be its 44th President.
He will have many challenges to face and all fair-minded people, both inside and outside the US, will wish him well.
He campaigned heavily on the themes of hope and change and conveyed a sense of proportion, pragmatism and determination. He will need them all.
It appears his themes have struck a chord with many Americans. True, there was a strong black turnout, stronger than predicted early in the campaign, but he needed more than the black vote to win and obviously struck a chord with many levels of Americans.
But we non-Americans are not untouched.
America is unique in its impact on the lives and thoughts of people around the world.
We, too, have a sense of hope for the future.
...
Congratulation to America on the election of Barack Obama to be its 44th President.
He will have many challenges to face and all fair-minded people, both inside and outside the US, will wish him well.
He campaigned heavily on the themes of hope and change and conveyed a sense of proportion, pragmatism and determination. He will need them all.
It appears his themes have struck a chord with many Americans. True, there was a strong black turnout, stronger than predicted early in the campaign, but he needed more than the black vote to win and obviously struck a chord with many levels of Americans.
But we non-Americans are not untouched.
America is unique in its impact on the lives and thoughts of people around the world.
We, too, have a sense of hope for the future.
...
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