Buying a TV

OMG, buying a TV, right? We had made the decision to switch from Time Warner to AT&T because of the sweet package they were offering in our area. Three TV hook-ups for the master bedroom, the living room and, finally, the kitchen. I mean, in one shot we were going to go from only the 32" in the living room to three independently tuned sets in the most important rooms of the house. Sweet!

We already had the 32" and there was a 19" high-def left over from a previous address so all we needed was to decide what size of television to get and then with what features. We set our budget at no more than $700 and then had to decide whether or not to get the biggest TV we could for the money or the best picture quality. Hoping for a decent compromise between the two we set out for Best Buy believing that something in the 40"-47" range would work. Anything bigger can come later but definitely a step up from the 32" in the living room, which will get moved to the bedroom in favor of the new TV we hoped to bring home.

As the cable guy was setting up the new network we verified a few simple things we needed to know before heading to the store. The refresh speed is measured in hertz and the higher the number the faster the speed. Ok. Nearly every TV on offer is "HD" (High-Definition) so did we want a plasma, an "LCD" or thin profile "LED." Plasma is supposedly better in darker rooms and for sports and action films but run hotter and at higher refresh speeds. Hello, electric bill. We agreed to stay away from the new 3D sets as being too faddy and annoying having to wear those glasses at home.

TVs in show rooms are set to the highest possible "brilliance" to grab your attention walking through the door. The brighter the better goes the trend but those brighter ones tend to be the cheaper models. At the same time all the different makes, models and sizes simply overwhelm the novice shopper with choices, images and other features. How to pick one TV from nearly 100 on the walls and shelves all around you? Does anyone remember going in, buying a Zenith, RCA or maybe a Curtis Mathes, taking it out of the box, plugging it in, pulling the on knob and then simply fiddling with the rabbit ears? Remote control? That's what the kids were for!

Heading in to the store we knew the size range we wanted and the features we were interested in. We started at a 42" Panasonic plasma, made it all the way up to a low-end 55" LCD made by Insignia, the house brand and then settled back down to three 46" (measured diagonally) options by Insignia at the low end, Samsung at the top and Westinghouse in the middle in terms of our perception of picture quality. The Westie and the Insignia were the same price but only offered a one-year manufacturer's warranty where the house brand offered two years. The Samsung was $300 higher than the other two and therefore out of budget and the running.

We settled on the Westinghouse and were ready to wrap up the deal in about 30 minutes of total time in the store until they threw the "calibration" curveball at us for an additional $200 to get the best picture. What? Why aren't the TV's set to optimum out of the box? Why so much over the cost of the TV? Why the scare tactic of voiding the warranty if the customer does something wrong? Why not just fiddle with the brightness and color balance options at home the way most of us have been doing these many years?

In truth we were "just looking" anyway and not expecting to make a purchase the same day we'd decided to go looking. Calibration, huh? Thanks for the "out." Time for some more homework.
Gotta go.

Air Rail

American airports have a long way to go to catch up to their European counterparts. Every major airport on both sides of the Atlantic has at least one decent business hotel either directly on the property or very close by so that is not the issue. All of them are accessible by major highway as well so again that is not the complaint. It is hard, extremely hard to compare the food court concept at most U.S. airports with the local food offerings at airports in Germany, France and Spain although European airports are just as guilty when it comes to fast food. No, my complaint is the lack of decent public transportation at most of the major airports in the United States and the constant bickering that goes with trying to improve access.
Looking at just public transportation, right now Dallas/Ft. Worth International has a public bus system that runs from the South Entrance in to downtown Dallas after about 90 minutes worth of riding and transfers. This compares to 25 minutes in to town with smooth traffic. Light rail service is being built, similar to the Washington Metro being extended out to Dulles but who knows when that will be completed. For the 3rd busiest airport in the country it is simply shameful that some kind of rail service was never included or at least built in to DFW's master plan.
Atlanta's Hartsfield/Jackson, O'Hare at Chicago, San Francisco and Reagan National at Washington all have subways that run directly in to the terminal building or at least within a short covered walk. Let's compare that to Heathrow where the Underground serves no less than three stops but the Paddington Express offers a hi-speed nonstop option in to the heart of the city as well.
What Heathrow doesn't have is a direct rail link within the national rail system, something Frankfurt and Paris both offer, including the high-speed "ICE" and "TGV," respectively. It is simply amazing to land in Paris and hop a "bullet train" to Brussels, arriving in less than 90 minutes instead of having to back track south in to the city, finding the correct station (out of six) and then making your way back to the Belgian capital. Certainly Amtrak is no match for the French SNCF rail network but it is simply the inter-modal transportation options available elsewhere that I have to wonder how it would enhance traveling here in the United States.
The Swiss set the gold standard for linking various public systems together along with the Dutch. Trains, buses and planes are linked to allow at least one connecting option on any given day from any point in the country to the rest of the world at large without having to use private cars short of driving to the nearest station. Distances are shorter from even the farthest corners of the country but the simple fact is the system is in place and works very well.
National rail service in the United States is all but dead but there are some things that can still be done for most cities. Light rail connections in to town even if it is the only rail service in the entire area would be a start. The regional hi-speed rail systems the current administration is planning would be great to link the major airports a la Charles De Gaulle, too. We need something, and it has to start somewhere.
Gotta go.

You Touring YouTube

YouTube can be an even better way to see the larger world around us and in so many ways. Even better than some travel programming it is possible to see snippets of ordinary life in far away corners, spectacular scenery in places unheard of or experiences never even considered outside of our everyday lives. Just type in the YouTube search window and that is the extent of your wait to visit some exotic corner of the planet or specific moment in time - there is no waiting for scheduled programming.

The list is endless of the places one can go thanks to the camcorder efforts of the average tourist. YouTube to them is much easier to utilize than maintaining their own website while still wanting to share images of their vacations, honeymoons or family get-togethers with the rest of the world at large. The wisdom in posting some of these private moments is equally endless in debate but there they are for the curious and voyeuristic alike.

The thing that intrigues me about these images is being reminded that the rest of the world is alive and going about its business the same as I might be doing at that same moment in time. The more mundane things like rush hour traffic in Paris don't hold my attention for too long beyond simply seeing it and comparing it to the commute experience in, say, Washington, D.C. Simple things like people in other countries playing with their dogs just as I would mine at the end of a long day. Of course people have pets in other parts of the world but it doesn't register that they would or that the interactions appear to be exactly the same but for the language involved. A particularly funny moment involved unaware American tourists getting an up close view of a male camel bellowing romantically to any nearby female.

All of us have a list of places we've always wanted to go but for one reason or another are not quite sure we will ever get there. One of those for me is Victoria Falls on the Zambezi River in southern Africa on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. I stumbled across a video of a prone tourist floating in a tidal pool at the very edge of the 300-foot falls, his body at the surface with his head over the edge as if he could wash over the cataract at any second, proof of the power of the falls thundering seemingly at the end of his outstretched arms. I mean, seriously? The political environment in Zimbabwe and general health concerns in the area notwithstanding, I gotta do that!

Being an airplane nut I experienced as much of the inflight experience with the A380 as possible before actually flying on the plane for the first time in 2009. Watching 747s land in St. Maarten is not on my list of accomplishments yet but heaven knows there is plenty of footage taken by others who have experienced the good and bad of being that close to the engines on the beach head just at the end of the runway.

If I never get to any of these places they are only a click away on the internet without the marketing shills pushing upscale hotels and high end restaurants at me in to the bargain. The only thing I haven't done is post any of my own. Remember that debate about the wisdom of such a move?

Gotta go.

Endeavour Launching

December 5, 2001. I had timed my visit to Florida specifically around the launch (watch the video!) of Mission "STS-108" using Shuttle "Endeavour" to take place Wednesday afternoon in the fall of 2001. I am old enough to remember the Apollo Program as well as witness the Challenger disaster some 15 years prior. Now I found myself searching up and down the coast near Cape Canaveral for a free but convenient spot to watch the launch. Invited guests only were allowed near the launch pad while those willing to pay a nominal fee could be just outside the gates of the complex on the mainland. I and other "freeloaders" were to choose from any vantage point at least five miles away that allowed roadside parking for the occasion.

The spot I ended up with was at least seven miles away near Titusville and despite assurances from veteran observers I wasn't all that sure that I'd be able to see much of anything at all. "Just look for the sudden sheer quiet in the air followed immediately by an orange glow in the low eastern horizon just above the tree line" they said. Fine. I didn't have much choice in the matter and settled in for the wait with the rest of them. The skies were cloudy and there was a slight chill in the air but all notices and indicators were that the launch, already delayed from the day before would go today.

Big problem with space launches, the weather. Safety first, above all other considerations as the Challenger reminds and resonates in clear, unforgiving fashion. At the same time it can play havoc with the vacation plans of the visitors, particularly those that drive or fly in from the far corners and are on a set schedule. I had no such time constraint but all the same we had been warned that after yesterday's delay if the shuttle did not launch this afternoon for any reason it would be at least a week before another attempt was made.

The wind had picked up to go with the overcast skies adding further worries that one and all at the Kennedy Space Center, Mission Control in Houston and here on the streets of Titusville would be disappointed yet again. It had been moved back from late November for some maintenance issues at the International Space Station then delayed again from the day before due to weather. This mission was only a supply and maintenance run to the "ISS" so other than the launch itself there was really very little fanfare around the event.

Five P.M. and all systems are go. Someone nearby with a short-wave radio is tuned in to the commentary and lets us all know on the street that we're about to get a show to end all shows. Like the ball over Times Square this countdown got everyone on their feet and calling out the numbers. "Ten, night, eight..." until exactly at 5:12PM Eastern Time there was a sudden and total quiet in the air. All noise had been sucked from the atmosphere when a bright yellow flash lit up the eastern horizon. Gray clouds over head crowned an orange glow as darker brown clouds bowled out around the orange center than elongated in to a massive tail of fire.

We still could hear nothing from the launch itself and it had little to do with our own shouts and screams of "Wahooooo" and "Go, baby, GO!" One and all were emotionally connected to this machine soaring beautifully skyward, goose bumps and chills to our very core. Some hopped up and down, some covered their ears but never broke their gaze and still others high-fived and clapped each other on the back as if they themselves had put something other than tax dollars in to this mission.

Some of us cried. Heck, a LOT of us cried. We remembered the Challenger Incident. We remained deeply wounded and shaken from the attacks on September 11th, hardly three months before. Today the excitement of the launch and the release of energy, both human and machine, proved overwhelming. Each of us in tears for various reasons looked to the skies as the orange tail flew higher in to the sky leaving a dark rooster tail of smoke from ground level up to the highest atmosphere. This time the tears for some may have been left over but for others they were tears of joy, of cleansing and acceptance. The US of A was going to be OK and damned if this launch wasn't just the thing, JUST the thing to prove it.

Finally the noise from the engines reached our chests more than our ears. As the shock waves of sound pounded in to our sternums and crackled like unimaginable thunder, "Endeavour," operating STS-108 proved to be more than just an ordinary launch after all. Far more.

Gotta go.

Short Flights Are the Longest

Everyone has tales of mayhem, madness and misery revolving around air travel including yours, truly. Some hate to fly, others are afraid to fly and then there are those who expect something for nothing. Layered in to that, of course, are the transcon flights stuck in a middle seat, the ten-hour flight to Europe next to a spoiled brat or screaming baby or the nightmare lines at check-in, security and baggage claim after a six hour delay for mechanicals and bad weather. Nothing starts a conversation among strangers like the shared, often embellished but just as frequently true and horrific stories of flying these days.

I'm kind of strange in that the longest flights in the world are the ones I enjoy the most, even in coach. I've flown London to San Francisco, Frankfurt to Chicago and both Melbourne and Sydney to Los Angeles in the back of the bus, none of which were my preference but all of which I survived just fine and would do again with no hesitation if meant staying home or going to Rome.

The longest flight in any class was Los Angeles to Hong Kong, a 15-hour haul that chased the sun from 1PM in California to about 8PM on arrival with scenic views of Yosemite National Park, Alaska and Siberia on the way over. Plenty of legroom, a flat-bed seat, no neighbor to step over or seatback leaning in to my lap. The upper classes are unquestionably better than being crammed in to a "slimline" Barcalounger that may or may not have a foot rest which is really little more than a road hazard on the way to the aisle.

Most seasoned travelers have their unique ways of coping with the drudgery of long-haul flying. One friend of mine from college took two Dramamine, drank a half bottle of wine and then pulled the blanket over his head with instructions not to be disturbed until landing. Others, like me, bring any amount of work, reading, music or videos to watch in case the inflight system is beyond dull, out of date or out of order. For me, the simplest method on top of all of these is to simply and quite seriously sit back, relax and enjoy the ten to twelve hours you're out of touch with the world.

Being anxious on a long-haul flight is counter-intuitive; fidgeting is most certainly not going to burn time any faster. Where I run in to trouble is being anxious on flights that aren't scheduled for longer than an hour and a half. As soon as I get on the plane I'm ready to get off and be where I'm supposed to be. The inevitable long taxi times to and from the runway, the endless circling to land and the wonder if the flight attendants will have time to pour me a drink all add up to the truest misery of air travel for me. Then comes today's realities of two hours before departure for the formalities, time at the destination for luggage and rental car?

I don't mind investing up to five hours of ground time on both ends for a flight that lasts three times as long. If flying were an ATM experience the "fee" for an international flight would still be a ridiculous 33% on top of the principle but two hours in advance of a 45-minute flight on the Shuttle?

I'd rather drive.

Gotta go!

The Optimist Bucket List - Item 9

I love the new Gateway desktop computer I bought last Fall. Thanks to the 23" hi-def monitor I bought with it I'm sitting here writing this and watching a movie on the same screen, combining two favorite hobbies in to one joint activity. I've always enjoyed the different worlds, real and imagined, that movies can and do take me to , from beneath the sea to the farthest planet in the farthest galaxy or perhaps to some long forgotten battle in some out of the way corner long past any further value to the rest of the world. I've been suspending my belief system with a bag of buttered popcorn as far back as I can remember, always slack-jawed and spellbound for a good story. One day after a particularly good movie the idea for a sequel came in to my head.

Never mind what the story is about, I was then and am now faced with the dilemma of having an idea with no credential, experience or training in putting it all on paper. I looked at websites, bought books and software, all the while fumbling about as best I could in piecing together my first script. How hard could it be, I asked myself in the beginning, to come up with 120 usable pages of material?

Scripts, I have discovered, are blue prints, maps as it were, in word form. Words paint the picture, create the mood and the setting and give voice to the characters resident in the mind of the writer. It has to be written down for the imagined to be realized, the vision to have substance, the musings to have meaning. Oh, and a good script requires a vessel, someone who can put their thoughts on paper first of all and in a strictly standardized format after that.

"If you're going to write, Forrester, just write," said Sean Connery in the film "Finding Forrester." Truer words were never spoke or imagined as it said to me to not worry about structure or format. Just write. Let the words, thoughts, feelings and ideas fly, it said, at any and all provocation and opportunity, the clean up process via editing can come later. Even more it said not to fret about the lack of background but rather more to fear not making the attempt - experience comes with trying.

Item 9 on the Optimist Bucket List is to realize the dream of a lifetime, for it certainly has been and feels like a lifelong pursuit. I would be thrilled beyond reason to sell my first project. To wake up and put together all of these individual pieces together at this point is truly to have come to a personal calling later than most. I know I wouldn't necessarily have scripted things this way.

Now comes the real work which, firstly, is to decide if it is harder to finish the project or get somebody to actually buy it.

Gotta go.

After an Hour, A Plane is a Plane

I couldn’t wait to fly on my first 777, even scheduling a connection just for the privilege of riding on this machine across the Atlantic to Paris instead of a nonstop from California on the smaller but capable 767. Been there, flown that.

The only new thing about the flight was the angriest buzz-saw of an engine ever heard outside my window, chewing air with a vengeance and abandon. An hour after take-off, though, the air goblin settled in to a tiger’s purr for the crossing, like any other plane I’d ever flown.

That's me, standing 6'3" in the mouth of the buzz-saw.

A lot of hype goes in to the age, model and condition of an airplane when it comes to fuel conservation, eco-friendliness, customer appeal and so on. Bunk.

Save the environment? Mainly in simply trying to save fuel, y'all. These issues focus on saving the airlines a dollar over any other real consideration. Whether or not they know from one plane to the next, the average jet-age customer does not care what it is so long as it does one simple thing: get there.

A former airline CEO once said “They’ll fly whatever plane I put on the damned route” if customers are only willing to pay the cheapest fares in the market. The fear behind that statement is not that without new technology prices will go up. They wish. The truth is that without new technology that provides lower operating costs the same fares they’ve been charging for 30 years will drive them out of business - $99 coast-to-coast or New York to Florida have been around since Eastern Airlines!

The 757 has replaced the 707, DC-8 and Vickers VC-10 as a transatlantic narrow-body while yesterday’s DC-10 and L-1011 are today’s A330, A340 and Boeing 777. Airplanes today fly farther which saves company and customer time and money alike. With all the CDs, movies, video games and wi-fi improvements, though, we remain strapped to a chair and bolted to a machine traveling no faster than its predecessor of 50 years ago. A 707 can get tricked out or tarted up to resemble any modern machine in the air and fares will remain absolutely unaffected.

“Today you’ll be flying on our brand new A380 to Australia, sir! Isn’t that exciting?”
“Is there enough fuel, food and drink on board to make the trip?” Yes.
“Is it gonna cost me more than the old 747 you used to have?” No.
"Will it get there any faster?" No, about the same.
“Great. I’m good to go.”

Advanced avionics are certainly appreciated yet they only build on the margin of safety and do not reinvent the wheel. The long-legged aircraft of today are good for just about anyone wanting nonstops to Singapore or South Africa but the basic truth remains: the passenger places his money and trust in the hands of the operator to provide a safe and adequate service to the destination in question, whatever type of airplane it is.

Gotta go!