TAPed Out



They even locked the bloody mini-bar!



My story starts something like Lord of the Flies, but my plane did not dive into the sea and instead we diverted 30 minutes south to a resort town to refuel (so close, yet so Faro). So maybe it is more like that terrible movie with Matthew McConaughey and Camera Diaz (have fun on that goose hunt). Anyhow, by the time we retook-off and landed where we were supposed to be, I missed my connection and with it went a great business opportunity. These things happen, said my boss's boss. I know, but I am sorry, I replied.

I am really sorry since I am now stuck in travelers purgatory (the airport hotel) and wait at the mercy of an inept airline. Maybe they are smarter than I am giving them credit for, though, and they are slowly and systematically giving me a drawn out case of whip lash from all the head shaking I've done the past 36 hours?  Portuguese torture? Probably not. TAP Airlines is as a whole no worse than the rest, but bloody hell they are collectively no smarter the broken water heater back home. I'd gladly take a frigid shower just to lose the idiocracy I am now surrounded by. A badge doesn't make you smart and a broken water heater doesn't make your shower not your own. But I am here, not where I am supposed to be or at home.

Talking Heads

Talk to the Hand

Well I am finally home after three-plus-weeks of working from the road.  I’d like to say I have a profound post for my dedicated eD followers, but I am afraid I am too damn tired to even try to go there.  I did learn a few things, along the way, though.  I’m always looking for perspective, but what I am talking about here has more to do with inertia.  The movement of our surroundings has an impact on us, and we can all garner a powerful hold on our lives if we can somehow influence the world around us.

This last trip I went south, west, east and back west again.  And in my jet-lag induced hysteria, I realized that the influence on our surroundings, thankfully, does not have to be intellectual or philosophical.  Rather, we just have to encourage the behaviors we enjoy to be a part of, and discourage those that put us in a tizzy.  Again, I’m not going deep here.  I’m talking a ground out to first:

Always a Catch in a Ride

I just bought an iceberg.

My cabbie answers the phone, works the radio, and every now and again picks up his fares.  He epitomizes an “owner and operator” and we have built up a repertoire over the last several months. 

His little company is my preferred provider. 

After we dispatched with the latest football news (oh! poor Arsenal), we gossiped about the M’s under his control.  Mike was late on Tuesday because he locked his keys in the house as he walked out to the Van.  And there was Mick, who truthfully I could not quite place.  The owner/operator told me I’d recognize him as his face was really hard to forget.  Poor fella. 

And then there was Marc.  He is the one that looks like Bruce Willis (the 12 Monkeys version of Bruce Willis that would smack Astin Kutcher).

“He’s a millionaire you know.”

What?  All this time, Bruce Willis has been loaded? 

Take Off, Eh?

This post was written in 3B - three beers - and it looks good, eh?

A week on a plane – sounds kind of like a terribly awesome Samuel L. Jackson movie.  Fasten your seat belts because this month, it’s my life.  Okay, I exaggerated a little bit.  A clock-in and clock-out work-week on a plane, is more like it.  I will spend over 40 hours this month on a plane.  Ear-phones and noise-cancellation head-phones are my secret.  But an entire work-week without the water cooler to make the time go by?  Take off, eh! 

Moral of the story – be careful what you wish for.  I always wanted a job that would take me places.  I wanted a gig that would let me meet people from different cultures, nosh on culinary staples designed for worldly pallets, and circle cubicles in unexpected dimensions.

And that is what I am doing – to a certain extent.  But we all know that business travel is not as lavish or glorious as it sounds.  And it isn’t (though I have met a wonderful assortment of people this year).  In the end, nothing is better than eating over-salted popcorn with my main squeeze.  And that is where I would always rather be.  There is a preverbal silver lining, other than perspective: the opportunity four-times over to drain my laptop battery on a tray table while I inch closer towards the final period to that novel I always talk about. 

Happy writing, from Gate 76B.

No hyphenated words were fatigued during this post.

A Fare For Fools

It is the night rate.

There wasn’t much of a line at that hour. The Policia even opened the door for me.

“Let me give you a map, here, we are here at the airport and your hotel is there,” said the enthusiastic cabbie in Lisbon as he drew huge mutli-layered circles with his blue pen. At one point, the pen poked through the map where the hump between the seats failed to double as a table. I hate that, when the pen goes through the map. It is a phenomenon how often that happens. “Now sit back and enjoy the ride, no traffic now.” He had a bald spot on the back of his head, but dark curly curtains draped over his ears.

Now we were talking! Enthusiasm and visibility (okay, dare I say transparency?) on an unknown route was welcomed after the delayed late night trip from London. We chatted about football, my previous trip to his favorite place in the world, and exactly where my office was in the Industrial Zone. Clearly, I had no idea what I was talking about, but it passed the time. It was pleasant, until we pulled up to the three-star hotel.

Louvre it or Leave it

That's hot.

Often, pre-trip anticipation ranks right up there with the trip itself.  Okay, looking forward to a vacation isn’t as cool as being there, but sometimes it is awfully close.  One thing is for sure, the week before a holiday is always better than the week after.

We are a week and a half out from a weekend in Paris: the Eiffel Tower, Louvre, baguettes with stinky cheese, and, if I’m particularly convincing, Moulin Rouge await.  Who wouldn’t be excited?

Amidst the anticipation, the worst thing happened: I had to go to Paris for an overnight business trip.  I know what you are thinking, shut the front door that is not the worst thing that could happen.  I can understand that, it wasn’t that bad.  It was only the worst thing as it relates to our upcoming trip.

Between a Locke and a Hard Place

It’s the fourth of July and I am on the other side.  I am no carpetbagger or scallywag, I am just a Yankee downhill from the divide.  I am a long way from the fireworks and the distance makes the times I did see them even that much more special.  Why is it that you always feel the most pride when you reside in the belly of the beast?    

Scuse me mam, I can't see the works.

Thomas Jefferson’s piece of fiction earned a non- and our country went from thirteen siblings to thirteen United States.  We even dumped tea in the harbour, without adding milk.   We drove our horses on the right side of the angry mobs.  We combined hot and cold water in one spigot so we wouldn’t burn our hands when we washed ourselves clean of taxation without representation.  We fought the law and our law won.  We gave the United Kingdom of Britain the finger, yet here I am on a train steaming towards work, just a stones throw away in any direction from a county that ends in shire.  What gives?

Well we broke up, the US and the UK, and though there were hard feelings we remained friends.  It took a while, no doubt.  Apparently Thomas J.’s declaration wasn’t signed until August, and the UK didn’t formally admit that it was okay to see other people until the Treaty of Paris in 1783 (wikipedia is so good when you have nothing but it and the back of a headrest to stare at).  And all these years later, here we stand like Bruce Willis and Demi Moore.  We fight over little things, baseball and cricket, but we can all agree that Ashton Kutcher is a little creepy. 

Our small quibbles aside, it seems we both celebrate cheap beer, mullets, cheeky elementary school plays, fireworks, and small town parades on the 4^th of July.  Believe it or not, the belly of the beast was adorned with Red, White, and Blue this weekend.  There were celebrations all over London, and though I did not take part in any of them, it was pretty cool to see that we can just all get along.

On Saturday, July 2^nd the three of us (my niece is here studying) joined awkwardly dressed crowds and watched the headliner in Hyde Park declare that the night was going to be a good night, a good good night.  And it was, but mostly becuase the celebration of our country’s independence found us, through family, friends, music, and cheap beers.  We sang out loud and danced to rhythms of an American band while our country slept in the time zones behind us.  But rest assured, at no time were we anything but Americans having a damn good time, a damn good time, 235 years after the day our Congress told the Crown, it’s not you, it’s me.

Happy Independence Day!!!!

H2 Oh?



My Mama says that alligators are ornery because they got all them teeth and no toothbrush.

The familiar smell of water can take you back to just about anywhere –but only if that locale has water with an odor.  And this is not exactly a good thing, but at the same time it ain’t exactly all bad either.



This is not an excuse for my absence from eD.  Okay, it is.  I was on a business trip to South America and I failed my 31 followers.  No soy culpable.  I am back.

On this trip, I was reminded that water in developing countries generally smells different than what we likely grew up with.  I’m not sure if it is hydrogen sulphide, heavy levels of bacteria, or just maybe the lack of chlorine and other chemicals.  I have no idea – I drink the stuff, I don’t study it.