Thursday

This is a new effort on my part. I'm composing this while in flight from Dallas to Sacramento, in hopes that the BlogPress program will "save" my input for subsequent publishing once we hit the deck in California. I certainly haven't subscribed to the in-flight wi-fi...which also means that the Blue Tooth keyboard is non-functional for data entry. So we'll see how this turns out in a while.

My pal Roy's 70th birthday was yesterday. The party actually started last weekend when I was on Harvest Path. I was a convenient absentee at the wine bar in LeClaire on Saturday night when they had somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 people toast the Birthday Boy. Last night, it was just a few of us at the club who shared a low-key dinner...and some VERY fine wine. Good times.

I mentioned in my last entry the new lighting that I acquired for the early bike rides. The flashing tail light has been a particularly good addition. However, this rechargeable unit needs better packaging disclosure. Mostly that the thing needs to be charged before you put it on your bike!! It only took me two days to figure out that it had a very nominal charge out of the box. Since it was dead as a door nail just a few minutes into a ride. That 9-hour charge only applies if the thing is, in fact, charged.

A more creative sales pitch on the head-lamp (which was a separate purchase) spoke of the rechargeable-ness of that item as well. But the thing is rechargeable only IF you buy, separately of course, the nickel cadmium rechargeable batteries...AND...if you also buy, separately again, the recharging unit needed to recharge the rechargeable batteries. Marketing 101 geniuses. I'll be using my stash of AA batteries for the time being.

The Augie men's basketball team is in Brazil this week. Their blog entry from O'Hare mentioned that for at least one of the players, this was his first airplane ride. That got me thinking about my first airplane experience. I'm pretty sure that it would have been a weekend, two-leg flight to my sister Rosie's wedding in Omaha in 1968...South Bend to Chicago to Omaha...and return. After that, I still didn't fly that often. A sampling:

1. Another 1968 trip...I think...ROTC flight to Philadelphia to see ND play Navy. I remember walking in some very tough parts of Philly, because my buddy and I had basically no money. Just a ticket to the game.
2. 1969...I think... Baseball Spring trip to Florida.
3. 1970...pretty sure on this...Baseball Spring trip to Texas.
4. Summer 1970...commercial to Charleston,SC for USAF boot camp.
5. Summer 1970 USAF...old, at that time even, two-seat jet fighter with instructor at boot camp. Scared to death.
6. 1970 or 1971...several flight lessons in South Bend for ROTC. Two-seat Cessna. I was never comfortable in those lessons.
7. A short flight of an hour or two around southern Iowa in a small Cessna flown by the dad of one of my high school friends. Probably 1970 or 1971.
8. Military cargo jet Dover AFB to Rammstein, Germany and return for a two-week NATO training exercise. 1972.
9. 1973. Combination of commercial, contract and military aircraft for trip to USAF assignment in Korea. Then return in 1974.
10. Not much, if anything, then until the ski trips with @srh4 from Chicago to Colorado in the 1977-78 range.

So this later-in-life travel record is quite the departure from my early experiences. My association in the mid-1980's with Wally and Jake's Pants, really influenced my need and interests in air travel. Wally was a Vegas kind of guy, he had homes and businesses in various locations, and he liked to "live a little". So we did some travel just because it seemed like the thing to do. Of course, Jake's Pants was always going somewhere to sell something, and he would drag me along.

Another influencer on my travel was the need to complete an average of 40 hours a year of continuing education for my professional licenses. The seminar and conference providers always had it figured out that a meeting in Florida or Arizona in January would bring in the people from the North. I never went on the true "boondoggles" that some fring-ish organizations sponsored on cruises or at more exotic locations, but I did figure out that if I wanted to do a trip, I could probably find a conference to justify the travel. I still keep an eye on that angle, but pretty much limit the possibilities to Scottsdale, San Antonio, and NYC.



Moving on...

The plan today is to head up to Tahoe with a hoped-for arrival there of 2PM local. If the moon and stars line up just right, I'll do a bike ride before dinner at The Commish's place. (After some counsel last night from friend's at Geneva..."Don't be rational, live your life!"...I packed my biking gear.) That decision required a checked bag and the playing of the associated game of luggage roulette, taking the chance that the bag finds its way to Sacramento on this flight. I could get in three separate rides before heading to Sonoma mid-day on Saturday. We'll see how that works out. A ride up Mt.Rose is NOT EVEN in the realm of possibilities.

Landing soon. I'm anxious to see if this effort worked.

BCOT

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