One Down, Nine Decades to Go

"And then," he continued enthusiastically, "for New Year's Eve we're renting out the entire convention center in Santa Ana just for our members. Won't that be great? You wouldn't want to miss out on a party like that!" The tone of his voice was Grade-A Choice sales pitch - not only would I be a fool to pass up a chance to get in on the ground floor of the pyramid scheme he was pitching but I would also be a complete social outcast if I didn't want to spend Y2K in Orange County with 10,000 other converts, believers and snake-oil suckers.

That conversation was somewhere around 1997 and suffice to say that I did not sign up for a motivational cable network that required members only access and bought its air time from other providers during the late evening and wee hours of the night. Whether or not their plans for the Orange County Convention Center ever panned out either, don't know, don't care. I knew one thing about Y2K and that was where I wanted to be to ring in the new Millenium.

Flights and hotel secure, I arrived in London, England on the morning of New Year's Eve, 1999. The plan was to arrive in time to turn around and high tail it back to America if New Zealand did in fact black out, signaling a worldwide technology meltdown. If that happened I hoped that the systems on my side of the planet would work long enough to get me home. With my plan in place I made it to my hotel near Earl's Court, caught a quick nap and woke up to television images of Auckland, New Zealand ablaze with lights and revelers in the streets celebrating the first developed nation to ring in the new year. Good!

Greenwich Mean Time was to me the official start of the new year and that's where I wanted to be, not ahead of it or behind it, first or last; "GMT," or as close to it as possible. Some in London chose to be right where the gold line is embedded in to the pavement, symbolizing positive and negative time. I was content with being right under Big Ben at Parliament House along the Thames River at Westminster Bridge. I wasn't alone...not by a long shot.

London was cold and overcast - big news flash there, it was the middle of Winter! There was some rain but not enough to keep anyone indoors or deter us from this cosmic moment in time. Touring the city wasn't part of the agenda for me, either, as I'd been to London many times before including one other New Year's occasion at Trafalgar Square. Since I planned to fly home the very next day my one full day in London was all about resting from the flight over and saving my energy for Midnight.

I figured if I got to Parliament by 10PM I'd have a good choice of viewing spots while not having to stand around on my own for too long. Uh...not. Police estimates were in the range of four million gathered along the Thames from the brand new Millennium Dome in the Docklands to Vauxhall Bridge home to MI6 and the farthest point west of Parliament where it can still be seen from the river. I only made it as far as the intersection of St. Margaret and Bridge Streets, well back from the river but still largely underneath the famous bell tower. Westminster Bridge had been closed to additional visitors for safety reasons so I took up a spot on the island supporting the traffic light and waited for unforgettable, once in a lifetime magic to happen.

It did. Happy New Year!

Gotta go.

Schmeckt Gut im Wisconsin

For the first time in my life I was ordered to the great state of Wisconsin in late August on business. I'd lived three years in Chicago and had only traveled to the Land of the Cheese twice, once for dinner and once for a weekend at Lake Geneva. That dinner trip was to a German restaurant in Kenosha that a co-worker's family ordered. The most memorable thing about that trip was that the restaurant was in the same neighborhood as the Jockey underwear factory.

This time around my business was in Milwaukee, home of countless brands and traditions of beer in addition to at least Laverne, Shirley and the Cunningham gang. I was expecting one smoke belching factory after another lining the shores of Lake Michigan wedged in between row upon row of two-story brownstones. What I found was a surprisingly charming city with an attractive downtown area, upscale clubs and restaurants along the canal and row upon row of pubs, clubs, bars and restaurants along Old World 3rd Street. One highly recommended eatery on that road was Mader's German Restaurant.

Traditional German food is not for the faint of heart or the heart healthy so I wasn't expecting so upscale an establishment. Still, the old world, hardwood decor lined with the to-be-expected selection of animal heads, exposed beams and beer steins welcomed me warmly to a country I have long considered a second home. Waitresses in traditional bosom boosting dirndls flitted about the place bearing plates of food and flagons of beer - the only thing missing was the German language itself. Equally and thankfully missing was the polka band, which to me is always out of place anywhere other than a beer hall.

I had had a hankering for Cordon Bleu for the longest time and my taste buds were unequivocally set on the dish of pan-seared veal or chicken breast stuffed with ham and Swiss cheese. Imagine my surprise, then, when this signature dish was nowhere to be found on the menu. The other staples were there, including a hearty goulash, several varieties of sausages and schnitzels, rouladen and roast chicken but no cordon bleu. Imagine my delight when, upon sensing my consternation, the waitress returned to my table after telling the chef of my dilemma and informed me of his decision to prepare my request off-menu and from scratch!

For all of the things Mader's didn't have they truly have it where it absolutely counts the most: ultimate dining flexibility. The food was hot and plentiful with strong presentation and every measure of taste and flavor that I expected. With German food I don't want mild, subtle or suggestive hints of old world goodness. It has to be full bodied, robust and hearty to the last morsel, taking me back thru decades of good memories from nearly every corner of the country.

I went back to Milwaukee three weeks ago on business again for only one night. There was only one choice for supper that evening and this time, half an hour before closing time, the Wiener Schnitzel was even better than the Cordon Bleu.

Gotta go.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

There is a saying that says planning for next year's vacation should begin as soon as you get home from this year's. There is another saying that says be thankful for the one just ended because there may not be another for quite some time. For the moment let us allow at the end of this year, in the holiday season that only good things will come in the New Year and that there will be time and resources for at least one good vacation.

I have my favorite corners of the world, including New Zealand, Hong Kong and much of western Europe but there are new frontiers to cross as well. I've lamented for years never having gone to Turkey, Italy, Russia, South Africa, even Portugal. The Iguassu Falls of Brazil and Argentina are very high on the list of things to see as well as the remote corner of the Philippines known as Taclaban City, the site of MacArthur's return to the nation during the Second World War. I don't need to climb the thing but I wouldn't mind waking up and seeing Mt. Everest outside my window, either.

More than merely the destination, however, I'm debating the style of vacation as well. One recent conversation told of a traveler just returned from six weeks in Africa which was preceded by several weeks of immunization against three types of Hepatitis, Malaria, Yellow and Sleeping Fever! After all of that, however, he's ready to go back next year to witness the wildebeest migration across the plains between Tanzania and Kenya, something I've dreamed of doing since "Born Free" was in wide release.

I'm not inclined at this stage in my life to consider an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean along the lines of Club Med. They seem a bit too one-dimensional, honestly, and not necessarily a true reflection of the host countries they are located in. At the same time, however, I've been seriously studying the multiple options available on cruise lines around the world.

No, I am not contradicting myself in saying I'm interested in a cruise. I still am looking for an open-sea voyage, preferably along the lines of a transatlantic sailing and I've found one that very nearly fits the bill: a 12-day sailing in early November, next year, from Barcelona to Galveston by way of the Azores and the Bahamas. It nearly retraces the steps of Columbus, sails thru Gibraltar and then practically drops me at my door step in Dallas when it's all over! There's still another that has truly caught my eye as well, a 12-day sailing from Hong Kong to Singapore through the South China Sea, the coast of Vietnam and Thailand. Oh man!

So many things to do in so many styles but only so much time (off) and money to go around. Next year I will have nearly six weeks of vacation next year after the carry-over of unused leave from this year so time is not an issue. As with all things, cost will be the deciding factor on what choice I make.

What to do? I'll let you know! Heck, I haven't bought a television in 20 years, either and those new LEDs are looking gooood!

Gotta go!

A Favorite Holiday

Merry Christmas one and all! While I am certainly hoping you are all enjoying the merriest of holidays and spending quality time with your friends and family I offer this short post in case any of you arrive here after all the presents and pudding. Rather than go in to some self-aggrandizing article on what the holiday season means to me or what I feel it should mean to others I'll simply share a particular favorite.

One year my mother decided it would be a great idea to take the kids to Garmisch-Partenkirchen near the Austrian border and just underneath the Zugspitze, Germany's highest mountain. The Alps were unimaginable to a girl like my mother who grew up on a farm in rural Southern Virginia. Never had she imagined anything as spectacular as the mountains of Southern Germany and to this day we continue the debate on whether any other view is as comparable.

Off we go on the train from Stuttgart where we were living at the time to Munich for a local connection that took just as long to reach Garmisch, seemingly stopping at every town with a platform along the way. With weather out of a postcard, the valley wore its best winter finery with snow capped peaks in every direction under a royal blue sky, pastel murals on white washed buildings and surprisingly few people around. It was busy but not "chocka" or gridlocked at all.

Why the Winter Olympics have not returned here is beyond me. The setting is idyllic and mom was certainly in heaven itself. She made one mistake, though. Staying on the military kaserne in the area to save money we had to drive by the base movie theater to get to the Patton Hotel. Lo and behold that very afternoon they were screening "The Wizard of Oz."

Even then in the early 70s we knew "Oz" only came around on television once a year in the Spring and very rarely at all did it make the theaters. We wanted to go, Mom wanted to see the mountains, the battle was joined.

"We wanna see The Wizard!"

"We came to see the mountains!"

"YOU came to see the mountains!" Duck. Whoosh!

"Don't get smart. We didn't come all this way to sit in a movie theater."

"But we're not gonna climb the mountains and they aren't going anywhere. We can see 'em next year but the Wizard may not come again at all!"

We won. And in the theater, of course, at any age "Oz" is simply breath taking. True to her word, though, Mom dragged us back to Garmisch the following Christmas. When we got back to Stuttgart from this first trip, however, we found that "Oz" was due to play there the following week!

Gotta go!

The Statement

"Crikey, mate, I've never been there!" I call it "The Statement" and it speaks volumes in both directions of the conversation. There's appreciation for traveling to a given destination mixed in with a measure of regret and envy in never having taken the trouble. On the other hand there is the sense of having unintentionally shown up the local in their own home town, state or country. To be sure, there is also a darker side to "The Statement" as well, of the "Why on earth would anyone want to go there" variety.

Recently I was in New Zealand on vacation and had planned to explore new parts of the country that I'd not seen on previous visits. Included on this trip was a visit to Cape Reinga at the far northern tip of the Northland peninsula. The Cape is where the Maoris believe their spirits leave the country in the afterlife for their original home islands of Hawaii. It is also the place where the Pacific collides with the Tasman Sea in sometimes violent and spectacular fashion. The friends I was staying with in New Plymouth tilted their head to one side...and gave me The Statement!

San Franciscans rarely set foot in the East Bay unless on their way to a sporting event in Berkeley or at the Coliseum. Typically, though, they're passing through at top speed to the playgrounds of Reno and Lake Tahoe. In their minds Oakland has nothing that San Francisco doesn't have in spades so if for some strange reason a tourist mentions visiting Oakland as part of their itinerary, they'd get "The Look" AND The Statement. The once eager and now bewildered tourist has lost respectability just because they were curious about Lake Merritt and Jack London Square.

Even in one's hometown it's possible to receive both envious and disapproving reactions to go along with The Statement. Certainly it is never expected that anyone would travel in to questionable neighborhoods if they don't actually live there yet I can't count how many times I've heard something like the following: "You know, in all the years I've lived here (Chicago/Boston/Washington D.C.) I have never been there (the Sears Tower/Martha's Vineyard/Arlington Cemetery)!"

I have always had a hard time imagining that any place of personal interest hasn't already been explored by everybody who lives there. Visiting the Eiffel Tower in Paris is a lifelong dream for millions of people yet to say one has been to France yet never visited the tower is the ultimate travel-related non-sequitur. How could you not? Then I discover that Parisians themselves avoid it like the plague all summer long because it is infested with foreign tourists and even worse, provincials from the rest of the country!

It is a tall order indeed to try and visit every landmark, attraction and place of interest in the world. I am blessed to live in a country rich in natural and architectural beauty but I admit to never having seen the Fall colors in Vermont, Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon. Yet. When it's my turn to utter The Statement rest assured I speak with admiration and excitement for the traveler making the journey. Then I add a little extra, to let them know they've met a kindred spirit by simply saying:

"It's on the list!"

Gotta go!

Flying on the New A380

I have flown the new Airbus A380 aircraft and I must say that it raises the bar in passenger comfort for economy class passengers. On this airplane the cheap seats feels like premium accommodations on other aircraft so I can only imagine what it's like in the upper berths.


Intended to both replace and surpass the venerable 747, the A380 is bigger in just about every measurement that counts. Longer, taller, wider, heavier and quieter than the Boeing, the only thing it is not necessarily is as beautiful to look at. One observer likened it to a fat sausage with wings, bulky and bloated with only the sweep of the wingtips suggesting any true grace at all. Like any sausage, though, it's what's on the inside that entices, scintillates and satisfies.


I flew the beast twice on two different airlines with completely different configurations and approaches to customer service. Upon boarding there is a sense of boarding a ship as I was faced with a solid vertical wall of white paint with a massive doorway swallowing other passengers whole in front of me. There is plenty of room just in the foyer area to be received by the cabin crew with no squeezing past jump seats, emergency equipment or the like.


The second thing I noticed was the extreme height of the ceiling, coming in at nearly 10 feet above the cabin floor. No worries about stooping in this airplane but while headroom is great for standing and such it means diddly when sitting down for up to 15 hours at a stretch. Legroom in steerage is up to the individual airline which I am happy to report was generous at 34" of pitch.


What I truly found to be wonderful was the spacing between my window seat and the side wall of the aircraft. With about four inches of additional room between the outer armrest on my seat and the wall there was plenty of room for me, once the seat was reclined, to truly stretch out and cozy up to the window instead of my neighbor. I stand 6'3" and where I'm used to sitting nearly straight up this added bonus definitely gave me and my fellow passengers room to enjoy our own seats in the back of the bus. I can't say enough about how I really appreciated and enjoyed that extra room.


On the first flight, courtesy of Emirates' configuration, I sat in front of the wing which I chose on purpose to see if those massive egg-beater engines were truly as quiet on take-off as advertised. They were; my car makes more noise on a cold start in the winter. The real difference for me was sitting behind the wing on the Qantas flight back to Los Angeles. The massive amounts of air being forced OUT of the engines made about as much noise as any other airplane. The strange thing is that while sitting in the back the plane just plain feels heavy. Groaning, swaying and roaring down the runway, fighting for take-off speed, everyone gasped noticeably when we finally lifted in to the air but once airborne it was smooth sailing and church-house quiet. Nothing but a big ol' drama queen!


When the A380 was first announced my national pride via Boeing was wounded. I even said I would not go out of my way to fly on the thing, actually having nervous jitters about so large a machine (1.25 Million pounds) actually making it off the ground. Then Qantas offered an irresistible sale to the South Pacific and I did both on the same trip - I set aside my worries and went out of my way to fly the monster...after it had been in service nearly a year.


I said once before that, given the money and a good reason, it's possible to make an old DC-10 look and feel just as good. The pictures here tell the story about how one airline versus the other dresses up the interior and approaches food service. Regardless of how it's tricked out on the inside, however, the Airbus A380 stands on its own.
And I can't wait to take another ride.

Gotta go.

The Optimist Bucket List - Item 6

I am at one of life's crossroads where limitations are becoming more and more defined. Some things you simply are no longer supposed to do but you can either use the rejection as motivation or can the whole idea because the rules won't change at the end of the day.

In every amusement park on the planet there are signs that tell the youngsters they have to be this tall in order to ride the big kid rides. In their case they simply have to be patient, wait a few years and add some poundage before they can tackle the "Devil's Pet" or some other such rollercoaster thrill.

I'm middle aged. Not young anymore but not yet ready for the knackers' yard either so age isn't the issue here. I'm also fat but here again this is not necessarily the primary concern for what I want to do. I can lose the weight I'd love to be rid of but would probably still come in as simply being too big for what I want to accomplish. I want to go sky diving.

In the film "The Bucket List" Morgan Freeman's character famously yelled at Jack Nicholson for being completely out of his mind for talking him in to going sky diving. Then he screamed like a school girl as he and his tandem partner jumped out of the airplane. Freeman's character is concerned with living out the remainder of his time on Earth with grace, humility and dignity for past accomplishments. He's content to rest on his laurels; he's old and he's proud of it. Old people don't do crazy things like jump out of airplanes. They don't get to be old by doing dumb sh-tuff.

Item 6 on my Bucket List is one of the few that I share with the film. For a one-time jump including instructions and a tandem diver I have yet to see the cost exceed $300. A favorite expression of mine is having "wasted more money on a whole lot less" so expense is not the issue either. No, it was reading further in to the fine print that I found my institutional rejection: most diving companies will not accept candidates greater than 250 pounds.

You've seen the cartoons - the chute opens at the critical moment only to find it is actually an ACME anvil or perhaps to shred beyond repair, snap its lines and go skittering in to the atmosphere, leaving Daffy Duck screaming for Jesus all the way down to the ground. Where's Bugs "Ain't I a Stinker" Bunny? Floating blithely to the ground chewing a carrot and holding a pair of scissors. Scissors or no, for me the effect would be the same.

Injuries are common occurrences when it comes to novice sky divers who didn't get the landing quite right. They broke a bone, so what? Those injuries and stories are common-place; they lived and they have one heck of a memory to share. Few companies, however, are interested in risking their equipment, employees and reputation to heft the likes of me in to the sky unsure of whether or not I will pancake myself and my diving partner several feet in to the dirt as soon as we touch down. Think Wile E. Coyote crawling from the crater he made at the bottom of the canyon.

Clearly I have some work and convincing to do. Maybe when I show up for my dive I'll bring Mrs. Butterworth with me.

Gotta go!

The Single Supplement

Last year one of my nephews informed me he was marrying his high school sweetheart. They had decided to celebrate their nuptials on a cruise out of Miami to the Bahamas and would I be interested in going with them and the rest of the family?

Let's skip the no-brainer decision and get right to the one big issue I had with the cruise line industry, the single supplement. Having chosen to travel by myself I was forced to pay double the rate to cover the cost of the entire cabin. While I understand the logic from the perspective of the cruise lines I don't like the fact that the supplement is essentially pure profit: I'm paying twice the cost to a company charged with nothing to do. The ship will sail anyway and the amount of food will not drop by so much as a chicken so why do cruise lines get away with what to me is high seas robbery?

They'll say the cabin, as opposed to an airline seat, is private, intimate space and there is a minimum operating cost for the cabin as a whole. They'll say that customers have the option of traveling in pairs, applying to share the cabin with a stranger or paying more for the extra privacy. They'll also say that, like airlines and hotels, they're not charging customers for completely empty cabin but only for the shared or whole space of their choice.

They're saying a lot of nothing! The demand models they use clearly justify the behavior and no company bean counter will turn down free money if their opportunity cost is negligible and they can create a sense of value around it; I understand all of this. The question is: Who do you know throws away that kind of money for absolutely nothing extra in the way of tangible, touchable service? To the cruise lines the "service" is the privacy. Please.

For my cruise to the Bahamas which by all measures is the "bucket market" of the industry, loaded with quick getaways and cheap rates, I paid $800 to be the sole occupant of my ocean view cabin. That doesn't sound like much but it was still twice the $400 they advertised for that sailing and that's still the low end of the boat. The suite for a cruise in October, same time of year as my cruise last year, is $689 for the 4-day sailing per person so double that number if you want the cabin to yourself.

Want an even bigger number, go for a longer cruise on a more complicated itinerary on an upscale ship. It is entirely possible to drop $180,000 for the Queen's Grille Suite on Cunard for a cruise lasting 108 straight days! Double occupancy or not, that is the published price of the cabin for three solid months at sea. Chump change for Tom Cruise.
What do I want? A price break, plain and simple. For the lower cabins and all inside berths I'd have no problem in continuing the single supplement at 100% of the cost of the cabin. Starting at maybe deluxe cabins with balconies and up, however, at least drop the supplement to 50%, then 25% for the mini-suites and no supplement at all for top of the house. A 21-day cruise on Norwegian around the Mediterranean still fetches nearly $5,000 per person for the largest suite onboard.

One person surely cannot consume $5000 worth of food in three weeks and the drinks are never free anyway. No cruise line will admit it but I doubt quite seriously cabins at that level actually get single supplements. They're probably just as vulnerable to half-off sales as the cabins just above the engine room.

Gotta go!

On Demand Is Grand!

Not too long ago I wrote a comment in a different blog that I felt onboard entertainment provided by the airlines was over rated. Even with wood trim, large screen monitors - up to 23" on some airlines in First Class - and all manner of movies and music there didn't appear to be a thing offered by the airlines that could match my own private library. One word: iPod. Another word: laptop.

Onboard entertainment started with those smart enough to bring their own newspaper. The first regular film entertainment began with TWA in only 1961. It was a huge deal to offer two different films on the same flight which involved a lot of cooperative seat swapping in coach if you wanted to see one movie or the other. Throughout the pneumatic headsets were the standard and no one ever programmed more than an hour of music on any given channel.

The first innovations in "On Demand Entertainment" came in First Class with private DVD players and mini-cassettes so passengers could watch what they wanted when they wanted. The only problem was how to prevent theft of the tape or the player! Either way, I still felt that, with enough battery life or a power supply on board, I could enjoy my own, unedited selections at the touch of a button and typically with much better sound quality through my own headsets.

Then I flew Emirates and Qantas and realized that international airlines offer a product the cash-strapped and perpetually stingy US carriers simply can't or refuse to match. Where the 747s on United still have "main screen" films for the entire coach cabin, Emirates and Qantas offer the absolute latest in entertainment options for all classes, steerage included.

On a 14-hour flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles I was able to select from literally hundreds of films, from recent release, old favorites and classics, including both of the first two "Godfather" titles. Television shows ranged from "The Office" to "Are You Being Served" and "Two and a Half Men" and complete CDs featured complete operas to Eric Clapton and Michael Jackson. Then there were the myriad number of video games available. I'm not a video head but I was nonetheless very impressed with the option to "seat share" with anyone else on the plane up to and including creating an onboard "community" of players to play against throughout the flight!

Wow! I don't care about who built the system any one airline is using, I'm just very glad some airlines have them and are including us folks in the back of the bus. The only difference from one class to the next is the size of the screen but even there I was able to enjoy a 10" screen that tilted out from the seatback in front of me. You'd think that on a 14-hour flight there would be plenty of time to sleep? I spent all but two hours of that service watching TV, films, the Air Map of course and generally just playing with the system and getting as much out of it as I could.

Finally, the system even came with the ability to shop for duty free from the comfort of your seat without waiting for the trolley to come up the aisle. All very impressive indeed but if they're smart no airline will allow texting on board.

Can you imagine? "The text is coming from inside the airplane!"

Gotta go!

Dallas' Decade of Decline

Despite being in First Place in their division as of this writing, for the first time in their history the Dallas Cowboys are irrelevant. Never have they gone an entire decade with absolutely zero tangible success to show for it and while I am a die-hard, blue blooded, grape Kool-aid drinking, long-live-the-Dallas-Cowboys fan I have simply gone beyond the gut-wrenching agony of dreams destroyed to being numb from disappointment.

In the 60s they went from 0-11-1 that first season to infamy at the Ice Bowl in less than a decade.
In the 70s they battled with the Pittsburgh Steelers for supremacy, showing up at five Superbowls.
In the 80s they were bridesmaids to the 49ers and Redskins but were never counted out.
In the 90s they were the best and worst of everything the NFL stood for: arrogant and hedonistic but champions just the same.

Since 2000 this team has chewed through three head coaches, at least a dozen starting quarterbacks and produced a grand total of four playoff games, three wildcards and one division round, all losses. The shortest comparisons since the NFL/AFL merger to that are these:

56 Playoff appearances up to now, six ahead of #2 Pittsburgh.
20 Division Titles, one more than Pittsburgh who has been around 27 years longer.
14 NFC Championship games, including four in a row in the 70s and 90s plus a three-peat in the 80s.
8 Superbowl appearances and five Lombardi Trophies, one less than Pittsburgh.

Simply amazing, and more than that, amazing how much money has been spent along with high hopes and great expectations set in the past ten years…for one division title. The team anthem "The Boys are Back in Town" started playing in 2003 when Bill Parcells took Quincy Carter and company to a 10-6 record after three straight years of 5-11 under Dave Campo. Overall, though, a better soundtrack might say "Couldn't Get it Right."

The practice facility roof collapsed this past summer and permanently disabled one of the staff which I instantly took as an omen for the current season given how poorly the last campaign played out. That anemic effort included an embarrassing final game at Texas Stadium against Baltimore and The Humiliation at Lincoln Field against the Eagles. Here we are in December of 2009 and sitting on top of the division at 8-4 with four games left against two fierce division leaders, a vicious wild card hopeful and a bedraggled but proud division rival always itching for a chance to knock Dallas off its playoff pedestal and high horse in general. I predicted 7-9 for the Cowboys at the start of the season; 8-8 and out of "The Dance" again is entirely possible.

Through it all Dallas has had one Owner/G.M. who's famous meddling fired a legend and built a dynasty before turning the factory from one that cranked out championships to the league's version of a different G.M. Like that once all-powerful brand the Cowboys franchise is a shell of itself with an onfield product mocked by some, feared by none, unwanted by others and unconditionally believed in by fewer still.

The truest and best thing that can be said is that Jerry Jones has always and will continue to try and find the perfect storm, that magical winning combination everyone associated with the team wants, expects and now desperately needs. But history is stacked against us: there is a revolving door at the front office which feels like a prairie wind from all of the savant coaches and savior players who have come and gone either to greatness at cable networks and other franchises or have flamed out in the lap of excess and presumed privilege or inglorious retirement.

The ones I truly feel sorry for are the Jason Whittens, Demarcus Wares and Marion Barbers of the team, upstanding private citizens with the work ethic of a Paul Bunyan or John Henry. They, like other marquee players before them, have performed, entertained and inspired fans and peers at the highest level for nothing up to now. If their skills do not abandon them first then their salaries will eventually expose them as less and less valuable in the unforgiving long-term reality of every human enterprise that demands fresh legs for less money.

This season isn't over yet and I believe that the Dallas Cowboys will rise again. I know they will. I'm just putting all of my hopes in the next decade because here, at the close of this one, other than the emperor's new clothes all we have to look back on is the phenomenal house of cards that Jerry built to match.

Move over Washington, and stop hogging the sofa!

Gotta go

The Broken Barrel

I was in the middle of yet another week long trip around the country and had considered myself to be winding things up in Tampa when the call came from boss-lady. I was "invited" to stay on in Florida for another six days and pay visits to our operations centers in Melbourne and Jacksonville. The company was picking up the tab, I'd never been to either place and it would be a chance to see both sides of Florida in the same trip.

Well, I apparently didn't miss much in the translation between eastern and western Florida and the drive between the two was decidedly one of the most un-scenic I'd ever experienced in a state world famous for exactly that - its beaches and scenery! I call the area of central Florida (outside of Disneyworld, of course) marshlands trying to be forest but not quite making it because the trees weren't really tall enough. Sort of like a bald-headed man who wasn't really bald but whose hair wasn't long or thick enough to qualify for any other description.

But I digress. I'm from Texas and we love good barbecue. Driving south along Babcock Road I noticed "Memaw's" Barbecue. I didn't stop but when I got to the office I enquired about the place with building security and was advised that it was merely "ok." Better was available according to the guard in his neck of the woods but that was 20 miles farther north. One of the administrators overheard our conversation and all but ordered me to dine at The Broken Barrel Tavern instead only a few miles to the south in Palm Bay.

Was it ever worth it! Melbourne isn't the biggest truck stop on the highway and if you stayed on either US-1 or I-95 on your way somewhere else you'd miss it entirely. It looks and feels as if it were built to serve a wide variety of purposes, from banquet hall to big-screen sports bar with tables and chairs thrown in beside a room for darts and several pool tables in the back. Center stage to all of this is a massive serving bar that boasts over 340 types of beer in bottles and on tap from 15 countries throughout Australia, Europe (seemingly more from Belgium than anywhere else), North America and Asia. Prices by the glass ranged from suburban swill to hops haute cuisine for anything from Singha to Schlitz and Samuel Adams to Sapporo, Becks and back. One that caught my eye was a concoction called "Youngs Double Chocolate Stout?!" I'm just glad I don't drink!

No one working seemed over the age of 25 or particularly concerned about their appearance but the service was quick and the recommendations right on target. Who'da thunk to actually smoke chicken wings but theirs is done in a dry rub typically reserved for Memphis-style ribs with equally scintillating effect. My waiter admitted to never eating a fried wing again once he'd tried the house specialty and I couldn't disagree. Choose from one of four unique barbecue or hot sauces served on the side to dip ("Cuz ya won't really need it!") and this non-descript hole in the wall beside the Goodwill Store truly serves up Solomon's gold.

Melbourne in November is a ghost town compared to the volumes it must receive in the high season. I even asked what anyone would visit Melbourne for that couldn't be found in Daytona, Palm Beach or Miami. It is the closest major town to Cape Canaveral but that didn't convince me since it is possible to day-trip there from Orlando. What none of the other towns have, though, is the Broken Barrel: smoked wings (plus 340 types of beer) that should NOT be the best kept secret in town!

Gotta go!

Pearl Harbor and the Bottom Line

The same can be said in reverse; what is travel without history. Growing up in Europe both were very much a part of my early life and continue to be defining personal characteristics today. My family traveled constantly around the United States and across the Atlantic thanks to my father's career in the military. We lived in Germany, a nation saturated in castles, cathedrals and human catastrophe. On the first plane ride I can remember my mother and sisters traveled to Hawaii to visit my father on shore leave from Vietnam. I was five years old the first time I ever saw the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.

I've been back at least three times since then. Bottom line for me is, I can't pass up a chance to travel and I certainly can't pass up a chance to visit compelling history.

Today is December 7th, an ordinary Monday for much of the world yet only one calendar day removed from that infamous Sunday 68 years ago. Almost by tradition the event gets maybe 90 seconds of coverage on news networks at the end of a scheduled broadcast, maybe including an interview with a surviving veteran, a cook, a gunnie, signalman or some other average Joe just waking up to find the world as he knew it had changed forever.

In its day, December 7th was to the United States what September 11th is to contemporary culture, a brazen attack on American soil, early in the morning and when the country least expected it. No one believed it could happen, the country was safe across two oceans and secure behind a massive military arsenal that few antagonists in their right mind would provoke. War in 1941 may in fact have been imminent but it was never supposed to happen here.

Pearl Harbor is a working United States naval base but that is not what it's known for. It is the command center of the largest single military operation area of any navy in the entire world but that is not what it is known for. The name derives from its history as a center of pearl harvesting but that also is not what it is known for. The name is synonymous, nearly interchangeable with that of the U.S.S. Arizona still lying on the bottom of the harbor and straddled by the Arizona Memorial.

It is a stunningly beautiful place. Clear water laps gently at the shores and the sides of the ship while overhead maybe a few clouds provide contrast to the blue sky that never fails to draw the eye as visitors look to the heavens trying to imagine the air filled with shrieking bullets, whistling bombs and diving aircraft while concussion impacts and full on explosions wreak devastating havoc in every direction around the base. The complex today includes a documentary theater, a submarine museum and landscaped grounds with information pavilions as well as the ship itself. The lucky few will see an active ship returning to port, the entire ship's company standing in attention and saluting their 1100 fallen brethren still buried in the hulk of the Arizona 30 feet under water.

The truest, most haunting sight of all are without question the tear drops of oil still bubbling from the bunkers of the Arizona. The ship continues to "bleed" or "cry" today with several thousand tons of oil slowly seeping to the surface, stirring gut-wrenching emotions from visitors and hot debate from environmentalists worried about the damage to the harbor eco-system. Even on the sunniest, brightest day in memory, no one comes away untouched by their time at the Memorial.

Many do not see the point in taking vacation time in paradise to visit a national tragedy; why get all depressed when we're just here to have a good time, they ask? Some avoid Oahu all together, preferring the Eden-like environs of Kauai or Maui to the hustle of Honolulu. Certainly for those who have never been to Hawaii it is not the main selling point of the tourist boards. All of that is regrettably understandable.

I live in Dallas, a city still trying to come out from under the shadow of its most popular attraction, The School Book Depository from where Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F. Kennedy. All the same, I would no more visit Southfork Ranch and skip Dealey Plaza where the assassination took place than I would travel all the way to Hawaii just for the surf and sand. The last time I went a new addition was there to greet me: the U.S.S. Missouri moored just to the south of her older sister, protecting her. Where one ship started the war for the United States, the other ended the war for the world in Tokyo Bay.

Waikiki, nothing! It's a beach! The Arizona Memorial is history, and it's only at Pearl Harbor.

Gotta go!

Air Alone

“Geez, man, we’re sorry,” they started. Sorry for what I ask? “That you’re not going to be able to go to Heidelberg because of us.”

I looked at them like they were completely out of their minds. Humans are pack animals, instinctively favoring “herding” or gathering in groups versus being out on their own in most things. The interesting thing for me has always been that for some it is a given that if the entire group cannot attend an event, go to the movies, dinner or travel, then naturally no one else can or should go.

Why not?

One of my closest friends often comments that he is "reserving" Fiji for his honeymoon. Another friend decries the desire to see Paris only in the company of her beloved. Ain't neither ONE of them dating anybody long-term so what the hay? I subscribe to the school that says go when and while you can.

a) You may meet somebody with no interest in ever leaving the country or possibly even home.
b) Go before meeting your soulmate and you'll know your way around and can act as guide.

"Oh, I think it will be so much more romantic if we discover it together for the first time" she said. Right. Like two people on their honeymoon spend much time outside of the room?

c) Start a family and the last thing you may see for at least 20 years is (fill in the blank)_____!

Death and taxes are guaranteed and time waits for no one. I've enjoyed many a trip escorting friends and family to places they've never been or discovering a country for the first time together. At the same time, when an opportunity presented itself to travel to Thailand and no one I knew was interested or able to go I admit to being intimidated the night I arrived; after that it was like riding a bike, Thai style!

In the case of Heidelberg my friends and I were actually planning on traveling to Scotland but circumstances led to the entire thing falling apart right at the curbside of the airport terminal. While others tucked tail for home I marched in to the lobby, swapped the Scotland ticket for one to Germany - yes, this was back when such things could be done on the fly and for free - and was airborne to Dusseldorf a couple of hours later.

I enjoyed a leisurely two-hour train ride down the Rhine before pulling in to Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof along the Neckar River with a gorgeous view of the castle. Down to the main square I went for a fantastic luncheon at one of my favorite restaurants from childhood, "Der Wienerwald." Over a bowl of goulash and a plate of schnitzel the waitress and I carried on a rusty (me) conversation in German about how her native daughter married an American who took her back to the US to live. When "Mutti" arrived for a visit she discovered not a single American woman she met knew or was interested in learning how to cook for their man!

The weather was agreeable, the castle was beautiful as ever, the food as hearty and memorable as always and the singular moment of friendly conversation with my "Bierfrau" of a waitress added up to a moment only I was able to enjoy.

I wish my friends had come along but I didn't mind telling them about the adventure when I got home, in between their stories of cleaning out the garage and hosting the in-laws.

Gotta go!

Volksmarsch im Welt Und Wald

I’ve always had strong legs. Many is the time I’ve said they’re my favorite part of my body as they have never failed me, always willingly done my bidding through tens of years and tens of thousands of pounds of work done and weight lost and gained.

In the picture I’m about four years old during my family’s first tour of Germany. Clearly my lederhosen was one of those "cute outfit" things parents do to unsuspecting children but I seemed to have enjoyed this one and so far only experience wearing them. Those legs got me to thinking of the Volksmarches I used to enjoy on some weekends to wile away the hours.

Germany offers one of the greatest and most varied histories in Europe but it has always been far more than the mere sum of its monuments, castles and biergartens. Germany is all about the people and there is no better way to meet and interact with Germans than a leisurely stroll thru hills truly alive with the sound of music. All that walking and they sometimes find time to sing!

Marches are largely held early in the morning on Saturdays and are little more than organized walks through the countryside. Nobody actually marches, everyone is simply out to take the air and a little bit of exercise. Walks are offered in 10, 20 and up to 40 kilometer circular trails and measured in stages across varied terrain from flatland to fairly challenging hills.

Checkpoints offer refreshments, medal validation stamps and first aid if the course is slightly more than expected. Anyone can walk the course for free but the fun is signing up for the prizes at the end of the course which were invariably cheap pewter medals. Still, they were always uniquely designed and collectible. Lederhosen are atypical but a good, stout walking stick would not be out of place.

Volksmarching is one of the best ways in the world to burn a few hours over the weekend, meet new people, spend time with family and friends and be outside at the same time. Of course, my perspective today realizes this but as a kid I just wanted the medal! It was all just a laugh and – naturally – one big race between buddies to see who could finish first. We all crossed at the same time, though, cuz usually only one parent drove and no child was ever left behind.

At the height of Spring and Summer only the tourists are ever indoors or trying to find mystery and history on the Romantic Road. Off the beaten path is where the pulse of Germany beats strong and true for they are either at the beaches of Sylt or up in the hills of Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg. Go on in to the mountains with the locals and earn that beer!

Those shorts? I wish I could say I outgrew them but I sprung a leak in them one day and they got tossed!

Gotta go!