I’ll admit, I was a bit excited that the Republican National Convention was held in Saint Paul. Not for any political reasons, but because the Twin Cities (where I’ve lived on and off throughout my life) might get a bit of positive press while in the national spotlight.
But it was not to be. Downtown Saint Paul became a “Green Zone” with most residents and visitors forced to remain outside. Things were noticeably tense elsewhere around town as well. The news coverage of events outside the Excel Energy Center was focused on the widespread protests and the heavy handed response of the police. That’s not good press for the cities’ tourism industry.
Trust me, most autumn days in the Twin Cities are quite pleasant. There are no men in helmets spraying mace and tear gas indiscriminately. Usually, Saint Paul’s finest are busy enjoying the stereotypical pastry, accompanied by the appropriate hot beverage. As it should be. Here is what the coverage of the RNC didn’t show you about St. Paul and Minneapolis.
1. They didn’t show you a theater scene that goes well beyond Garrison Keillor’s snooze-inducing A Prairie Home Companion. In fact, Minneapolis has more theaters per capita than any other place in the US, except New York. On a given weekend, there is everything from a big budget Broadway-style show to several experimental works to performances of classic American plays. 2. Prince isn’t the only musician in town. The Purple One just started getting AARP Magazine, but the next generation of talent will continue to heat things up. Underground hip-hoppers Atmosphere have started a scene that has turned into something heavy on music and lyrics and light on thuggery (call it rap for people who don’t like rap). 3. Sure, there is the Mall of America. It’s what Minnesota is most famous for, besides the accents in the movie Fargo. But it’s the coffee shops, neighborhood restaurants and lakes of South Minneapolis that really feel like an urban vacation spot.
So there. The Twin Cities are a nice place to visit. Just give them a miss next time a political convention comes to town.
“Hello. How are you? Welcome aboard,” I say, and I say this as I’m standing between first class and coach while passengers board the airplane and slowly make their way down the aisle. That’s when I spot you standing at your row with your bag sitting on an aisle seat as you stare up at the overhead bin, a full overhead bin, and shake your head.
“Hello. How are you? Welcome aboard,” I say, as you continue staring into the full overhead bin above your seat, and as you stare, still shaking your head, I already know what you’re going to say before you even say it, and while I wait for you to say it, I continue to greet the passengers during the boarding process. “Hello. How are you? Welcome aboard.”
Though I can’t make out the words, I see you’re talking to those seated around you, pointing aggressively at your seat, at the overhead bin, back at your seat again, and as you begin to make a scene, a very loud one, you turn and look at me.
“Hello. How are you? Welcome aboard,” I say, and as I say this, I’m thinking to myself, here we go, and I’m wondering, as I’ve wondered thousands of times before, why you can’t just turn around and put the bag inside the empty overhead bin behind you, the one located three rows back. You see it. I see it. We all see it. So why don’t you use it? You can use it, ya know.
Waving your hands in the air at me, you say, “Excuse me, Miss! Can you help me!”
Of course. I slide in behind a passenger and slowly make my way down the aisle. You look very concerned, so I smile at you, but you don’t smile back. You never do. Now this is about to go one of three ways, depending on how often you fly…
YOU RARELY FLY: “There are bags in MY overhead bin!”
YOU FLY A COUPLE TIMES A YEAR: “Can you help me find a place for my bag?”
YOU’RE A FREQUENT FLIER: “Can I put my bag up there?” (pointing to first class)
ME: “I’m sorry,” I always say, no matter how often you fly, because I am, truly, sorry – sorry I have to say sorry all day long! “But you’re going to have to use the bin three rows back.” I point at the bin. “I’d grab it quick before someone else does.” Now the next thing I’m going to say depends on how often you fly, and usually goes something like this..
YOU RARELY FLY: Look, I know it’s frustrating when the overhead bin above your seat is full, but the overhead bin space is shared space. That means anyone can use it. You. Him. Her. Everyone. Yes, you bought the seat below the bin, but you did not buy the bin.
YOU FLY A COUPLE TIMES A YEAR: If I could move some things around I would, but the bin is completely full already and there’s no way your bag is going to fit. I know it’s not fair! Particularly if you’ve only brought on-board one small bag, which I see is the case, but I can’t go POOF and make all the other bags disappear now can I?
YOU’RE A FREQUENT FLIER: There’s no need to show me your frequent flier card. Trust me, I already know you’re a VIP, which is why you’re sitting in the bulkhead row in the first place. You know as well as I do that first class is full (or else you’d be sitting there) and I can’t let you use that empty bin, not when we’re still waiting for a few first class passengers to board. Now I’m pretty sure you already know why, but since you’re still arguing with me I’ll spell it out. Because when you spend that kind of money to sit in first class, like you normally do, you expect to find an empty bin when you come on-board, too.
Ridiculous, my least favorite word a passenger can say, has just been used, and as that word is spat at me I see something happen that I knew was going to happen. Someone has just thrown their bags, two of them, into the empty overhead bin three rows back.
Now it is I who shakes my head, because you, dear passenger, will have to walk five rows back to get your bag into a bin, and as I tell you this, I continue shaking my head, and of course I add the word, “Sorry.” I’m always sorry.
“I’ll hold up the airplane when we land in order to get my bag out of the overhead bin five rows back!” exclaimed a passenger, a passenger who is also MY HUSBAND, a frequent flier I met on an airplane, after I had told him about what I was writing.
Completely appalled, I visualized the man I would NOT have married if I’d have seen him acting like that. “You’re kidding, right?”
Nope. He, the husband, a frequent flier I met in business class on a flight from Los Angeles to New York somewhere over Illinois, assured me he was not joking. And here I agreed to go out with the guy in the first place because I thought he was a nice passenger. Just when you think you know a person, they have to go and freak out over an overhead bin.
And so…after discussing the sensitive overhead bin topic quite thoroughly with the not so nice passenger / husband, I have concluded that if he had not been able to get his bag into a bin near his seat I probably would not agreed to meet him at the Starbucks located across the street from our layover hotel seven years ago. Which means we would not have had our beautiful baby boy a little over two years ago. Which means that my life, as I know it, would have turned out totally different.
“And I love my life,” I read out loud. It was the very last line of this post, and I wanted to know what the husband, who was now looking at me funny, thought.
“I never said I’d hold up the airplane!” he exclaimed, even though he most certainly did say that and I remember exactly when and where he said it – on the couch, during a commercial break at 9:15pm, two nights ago.
Okay so perhaps the man was hallucinating when I first read him this post. Or maybe he was just having a bad day. Taking it out on me and my overhead bin post. Who knows? All I know is I’m glad to he wouldn’t hold up the deplaning process in order to get his precious bag. He travels a lot. Over 100,000 miles a year. And flight attendants know he’s mine! Which means I can now go back to work and not worry about what the husband is doing on the airplane while I’m working another flight, standing between coach and first class saying, “Hello. How are you? Welcome aboard.”
Now that you’re curious about the other flight attendant pet peeves, click the following links:
As a pilot, every now and then you’ll have a chance to catch a sight that just burns into your memory. The spire of the Empire State Building piercing a setting sun while approaching New York’s JFK airport, or watching a satellite pass overhead while holding above a thick cloud layer of fog over Anchorage.
But nothing can top the scene witnessed by every airplane crossing the North Atlantic on July 22nd, at around 3 a.m. in whatever time zone we were crossing.
At first, we thought we noticed a faint glow of the northern lights. Pretty soon, the colors became so spectacular that we began calling the flight attendants up to the cockpit to check out the light show.
But these aurora borealis weren’t moving or changing colors. And the colors that were starting to appear, didn’t match the usual green glow I was used to.
It didn’t take long for pilots on 123.45, a VHF channel that’s normally used to report ride conditions and any weather deviations, to start a discussion about what we were seeing.
%Gallery-31054% A British Airways pilot mentioned that these were high altitude noctilucent clouds. After spelling it a number of times, he explained that they were possibly caused by methane gas in the upper atmosphere.
While Captain Mark called in a position report and I captured the glow over the horizon with my Canon Digital Rebel’s wide-angle lens-the only lens I managed to bring along.
These clouds live around 300,000 feet high. From what I’ve read online, scientists aren’t completely sure what causes them. One thing is known, the only time to see them is just before the sun starts to rise, since the clouds aren’t visible unless illuminated from below in the early morning.
I was so thankful I brought my camera. I no longer go to work without it. There were just far too many times where I saw a once–in–a–lifetime scene with no way to capture it.
There’s speculation that these clouds are stronger with every space shuttle flight, which may be causing some of the clouds. A satellite was launched last year by NASA to study the exact reasons behind the formation of these clouds. USA Today is reporting that these same clouds were visible from the international space station this summer.
The month of July was rather busy again, with another six Paris trips. In between all this flying, I had to pack up everything stored in our basement to get ready for our my family’s August 15th house move.
So that’s why you may have noticed a lack of posts to the Cockpit Chronicles lately.
I just can’t let an entire month’s worth of flying pass without mention, so I’d like to cover a few of the more exciting things that went on in Paris.
At the beginning of the month, I met up with Gadling’s senior editor, Grant Martin, who showed me one of his favorite Parisian restaurants along the Champs-Élysées. It’s at the Renault automobile showroom, in fact.
Above the Formula 1 car displays and overlooking Renault’s current line of cars, is a unique and surprisingly inexpensive restaurant. We talked about Gadling over a few beers and a pasta dish that was simply excellent.
After dinner, we decided to work our way to the Latin quarter using the Velib bikes. Grant had a card that would work-for Americans, only an American Express card will work in the Velib kiosks-so we picked up a couple of bikes, and managed to work our way east, stopping before 30 minutes had passed to check in and then check out the bikes, to prevent the excess charges from kicking in. If we were successful in finding kiosks within the 1/2 hour limit, the total Velib charge would only cost 1€.
We stopped at Trocedero to snap a bunch of pictures of the Eiffel Tower that was bathed in blue light. The scene from up there was spectacular and we both managed a few great pictures of this event that was to last only a few more weeks.
We had to work our way around thousands of roller bladers participating in the Pari Roller, a night ride through Paris of over 20km. Here’s a quick video taken that night:
The next trip was with my good friend Captain Dave, who brought his wife and daughter. I knew Nicole, their daughter, would love the evening Fat Tire Bike Tour, so we grabbed a quick sandwich before jumping on bikes again to cover the city.
Three days later, I was back in Paris with Captain Mark. We met up with many of the flight attendants for a picnic in the park, a common and rather inexpensive way to enjoy the great weather over bottle of wine, some cheese, bread and whatever else someone thinks to bring. We still managed to maintain enough of an appetite to eat at La Fresque restaurant in the Marais district.
Once again Mark and I returned to Paris, it was on this trip that we saw the noctilucent clouds on the way over. After the requisite nap, we met up with one of the frequent commenters on Gadling, Thaddeus, who was studying at the Cité University which isn’t far from where we stay.
Thaddeus has used the misguided adventures me
ntioned here as a basis for touring much of the city, and for that, I figured I should probably meet him for a drink while he was still in town. Mark and I joined up with him and learned that when he isn’t traveling, he is an intern at Bloomberg living in New York.
Mark wanted to show us some of the underground that’s been preserved in front of Notre Dame Cathedral. I hadn’t realized that these Roman ruins had been preserved and available for anyone to check out.
By the time we came above ground, we were a bit parched, so we stopped at a cafe for a drink before deciding to eat dinner at Le Hide, my new favorite restaurant in Paris.
Thaddeus hadn’t been to the Arc de Triumph yet, so it was a good opportunity to cover some ground he hadn’t seen. Even so, Thaddeus proved to be the best guide for us, as he had been covering quite a lot of Paris and he was very familiar with the Metro and many of the important destinations in the city.
As we worked our way to the restaurant, we ran into 4 or 5 of the flight attendants. Thaddeus actually recognized at least one of them from reading this blog.
Le Hide turned out to be excellent as usual. Thaddeus went for the Entrecôte, (rib steak), but everyone agreed the escargot appetizer and the sea bass entree were the tastiest. This restaurant is still an amazing value at 22 and 29€ for the two or three course meal.
We passed on the desert, instead hoping to catch something over at the Latin Quarter. As we walked to the metro, we traveled for a while down the Champs-Élysées and I insisted Mark and Thaddeus take a look at the Renault showroom.
We were distracted for a while with a reaction testing machine, which turned out to be a humbling experience for us. This machine was a spider of lights on a wall which would light up one at a time. The object was to press the light after it lit up and to try to get as many in a minute as possible.
We watched someone who no doubt worked at the showroom set a high score. After both Thaddeus and I gave it a try, we were beaten by a girl who happened to walk by. Wisely, Mark elected to skip this test.
Without a doubt, Thaddeus made this a great experience for Mark and me. After a trip to China, Thaddeus has become addicted to travel, but he’s still focused on finishing his senior year of college in New York and landing a good job. Ultimately he wants to be a teacher. Needless to say, Mark and I were really impressed.
Those are some of the highlights of my final full month of Paris trips for the year. For August, I started out with a line of Caracas and Laguardia trips, but I managed to take some time off to move. I finished August with what may be my last Paris trip, which turned out to be memorable. Stay tuned for some even more embarrassing video clips in the next post.
For more pictures from July, including Kelly the co-pilot inside a 767 engine, take a look at the gallery below.
%Gallery-31054%
Cockpit Chronicles takes you along on each of Kent’s trips as a co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 out of Boston.
Love is hard in any language, but you shouldn’t let your search for Mrs. Right get you down. After all, if you’re having problems finding someone of the same species who understands you completely and intimately, perhaps it’s time to start looking elsewhere…
A few months ago, Big in Japan reported about the latest and greatest robot in the Land of the Rising Sun, namely Eternal Maiden Actualization, or EMA, a 15 inch tall robotic girlfriend that kisses on command. Aimed at a target market of adult men, this robotic lover is very sweet, petite, stacked where it counts, and runs on 6 AA batteries.
But don’t take my word for it, just ask Minako Sakanoue, the Sega spokewoman behind Japan’s latest robot craze:
“Strong, tough and battle-ready are some of the words often associated with robots, but we wanted to break that stereotype and provide a robot that’s sweet and interactive. She’s very lovable and though she’s not a human, she can act like a real girlfriend.”
And, in case you’re in the market for a new emotional companion, you can now snag an EMA robot in North America for the low, low price of US$99.99.
Love was never so easy (^3^) ???????????
While the ‘Eternal Maiden Actualization’ or EMA robot can’t exactly engage you in deep and philosophical conversation, or even stand by your side for a night out on the town, she can love you nevertheless. Using state of the art infrared sensors, EMA can pucker up her lips and give kisses to her human masters. Just for the record, this is what EMA’s designers call her “love mode.”
But of course, the fun doesn’t stop there! On the contrary, EMA can also serve as your busty personal assistant. If you’re entertaining clients, she can hand out business cards, sing, dance and flirt with the best of them.
Seem ridiculous? Perhaps. However, Sega expects to sell more than ten thousand EMA robots in the first year alone, and that’s before Version 2.0 rolls off the assembly line in the not too distant future.
If you don’t have the time and money to get yourself to Japan, fret not as EMA is now available in North America, and is being marketed by the WowWee company under the very appropriate ‘Femisapien’ label. All you need to do is drop a quick and easy US$99.99 at Amazon.com , and in approximately 5-7 days, you’ll have yourself a brand new (or slightly used) robotic girlfriend.
On a more serious note, it’s worth pointing out that EMA is actually an incredible piece of technology. Displaying an incredible range of motion, as well as a revolutionary interactive interface, EMA is a great piece of electronic engineering, even if you already have a real girlfriend made of flesh and bone.
** Special thanks to Robert Oschler over at www.robotsrule.com for alerting robot lovers about the availability of Femisapien in North America **
I’m here with Matthew Harding, who will be forever known as “that guy who makes those silly dancing videos.” That’s not a bad rep to have, given that everyone from The New York Times to The Today Show wants a piece of him. And did I mention his around-the-world trip was paid for by a gum company? How’s that for entrepreneurship–and avoiding a 9-5 office job.
He’s here to give us the scoop on his travels and what went into making his viral videos. For more (fourth video perhaps?), check out his website here. Most of the soundtracks to your videos come from obscure artists. How do you pick out the background music?
For the first video, I just slapped on Sweet Lullaby by Deep Forest. I tried a bunch of songs, but it was the only one that fit.
For the second video, I still wanted to use the same vocal track, which was actually sung by a woman named Afunakwa in the Solomon Islands around 1971, but I wanted to create new music. I contacted my friend, Garry Schyman, who is a composer working mainly in videogames, and he wrote something entirely new to go with those same vocals.
For the third video, Garry and I both wanted to try something new. Garry found a poem by an Indian writer named Rabindranath Tagore and I tracked down a girl named Palbasha Siddique who was able to sing the poem in its original Bengali. Garry and Palbasha worked together to make the lyrics fit the composition he’d written for the video. With your third video, which was sponsored by Stride, the gum company, how much of your travels was about filming and how much was about seeing the world?
The third time out, I allowed myself to really focus on the project and try to make the best video I could. I’d already had my chance to see the world and I wanted to make something a little less selfish. The first two videos were really about me having the time of my life. The third video was about everyone.
How do you decide where to go?
For the most recent video, it was a mixture of indulging my own curiosities and visiting the places where I’d gotten the most email. We contacted all the people who’d written to me about the video and invited them to come out and dance in the new one.
How much planning do you do ahead of time? And what resources do you use? Friends, Lonely Planet, the Internet, etc?
I use all of those equally, but when it comes down to it, there isn’t a lot of planning in advance. In a lot of the world, if you try to schedule things to tightly, you just end up making it more difficult. It’s better to go with the flow.
You’ve said that your favorite moment from “season 2” was dancing in Rwanda. How about on this third video?
That would have to be the Bollywood dance troupe in India. There was just something magical and serendipitous about that experience.
Though you’re known for dancing with people from all over the world, does it ever get lonely on your trips? (You’re traveling by yourself?)
I think I may be missing the loneliness gene. It’s not that I don’t enjoy being around people, but I also tend to do well on my own for long stretches of time that other people would find unbearable.
How do you explain your project to the locals? Is it pretty easy to convince them to take part?
I explain as best I can, but when I’m dancing with a bunch of school kids in, say, Madagascar, the language barrier can be very limiting, and also, they don’t really care. In those moments, it’s just about being silly and having a good time, and the kids like to see themselves on the camera afterward. A lot of them have hardly ever used computers, so explaining what a YouTube video is would be difficult.
For a while I worried that I was exploiting the kids by using their images in the video, but at the same time, these are parts of the world that often go forgotten. And other places, like Rwanda, have become synonymous with suffering and horror. I decided it’s worthwhile to show those moments of joy and humanity, and it’s ultimately a good thing to remind people of the larger world we’re a part of.