Nice Try United!

United tried their best to screw up my flights home, but failed today. I booked my flight on Air Canada's website, but ended up on United flights (a fact I didn't realize until I got to the airport, my bad). I had intended to check some luggage since I thought I was on Air Canada, but once I realized I was on United I figured it didn't make sense to pay $25 to check a bag with $10 worth of booze in it. So the liquor stayed in Phoenix and the bag stayed with me...for about 30 minutes. The flight out of Phoenix was very full so they suggested I sky-check one of my bags. Surprisingly my bag did actually make it all the way home, and so did I. Suck it United :)

-RF

When the Vultures are Circling...Play Golf!

TPC Scottsdale's Stadium course is an amazing golf course, too bad I don't possess the skill to match it! I think I might have had my highest 18 hole total in about the last 5 years, but more importantly I also had one of the most enjoyable rounds of my life.

I started out very poorly, maybe a little bit of nerves playing that course, and then after averaging about a quad bogey for each of the few starting holes I literally saw vultures circling me, or more likely circling my game. Oddly enough they turned out to be a good sign and not the bad omen they were for whatever dead critters they were eyeballing. Between the vultures, switching to a ball with a logo that said "General Casualty" and calming down a bit I got my game a bit better under control (but I'm also not ruling out the possibility that our caddie was kicking my drives back into play when I wasn't looking).

Leaving Phoenix I was really hoping to come home to a lot less snow and much warmer conditions so I can get out on the courses here sooner, but it looks like I might have to play a bit more indoors until Old Man Winter finally rolls over and dies.

-RF

Live Blogging the United Gate...but Posting Later

9:17 pm I've been sitting in the gate lounge for my flight to LA listening to constant announcements about how the flight is over sold and they need volunteers to fly tomorrow. They have no excuses of bad weather here like they do in Chicago so I have to assume they just can't count. I also have no seat yet, which is starting to concern me. I checked in with the automatic system hours ago since I had no checked luggage, and now I'm standing here watching people being herded past me onto a very full plane. I hope I'm not randomly being volunteered to stay back, I've got some bad early season golf to play!

10:01 pm Most of the plane has boarded now, the gate attendant is now pleading for 5 people to stay back...and I still have no seat.

10:04 pm I have a seat! Many passengers weren't so lucky. I even have a good seat. Economy plus. Fancy. I'm actually not in MY seat, the woman I was supposed to be beside asked if I could trade with her husband a few rows back, no problem I said. Then when I got there the new neighbor made the same request for her husband across the aisle. Again, no problem. And now, as I'm typing this, the gate attendant is walking through the plane asking for 3 more volunteers. WTF? We're on the plane already and all you're offering is the same $400 travel credit as before. Up the ante dumb-ass.

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Hard Up for a Drink

There is a couple little convenience stores in our hotel. Conveniently, they sell beer. But apparently for one hotel guest being an elevator ride away from his room was too far. This old Asian guy rolled up to the counter with 5/6 of a pack of Bud, the 6th one was open in his hand. This didn't sit well with the cashier, who made the guy brown bag his open beer to get it up to his room (it was also convient that she had little brown bags for open liquor).

After seeing that little episode I made sure to polish my beer off BEFORE checking out.

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The Hot Setup

If given the choice, always take a wheelchair accessible hotel room. They give you more options for places to set your beer in the shower.

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Am I Sunscreen Retarded?

It was overcast yesterday morning, but I still put some block on, and even reapplied some spf 50 later in the day, all to no avail. I managed to burn the insides of my elbows and the backs of my hands. I can protect one hand today if I wear my golf glove to the beach and I guess I'll just put my right hand in my pants...er, pocket.

Yesterday wasn't all sunburn stuff though. I rented a little scooter and toured the island. Also went for a stand up paddle board lesson. Turns out I'm not totally useless with water sports stuff, just needed some instruction. Even managed to ride a small wave for about 2 seconds.

Mel has her presentation today followed by the conference banquet. I think some boisterous cheers of "You can do it!" during her talk should probably help advance her career nicely.

-RF

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Five Fingers, 800 Stares, and 2 Worn Out Calves.

So I decided to be ambitious and go for a run in my new Five Finger shoes along Waikiki. The run itself was great, but the shoes sure made people stare at my feet a lot. MY EYES ARE UP HERE LADIES! I had people even stop and ask me if they were comfortable, but mostly they just stared.

After dealing with all the ogling the real crappy part started, the burning calf muscles. I've been hobbling around like a broken old man since yesterday morning. I guess that'll teach me for exercising on holidays!

-RF

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Mustang Ranch

Not THE Mustang Ranch, but some sort of mustang ranch, the car kind that is. In the parade to conclude the Honolulu festival today I'm pretty sure every Mustang on the island was in use. That might have had a lot to do with Hawaii seemingly having about a dozen beauty pageants each year and needing a car for each queen and her princesses...not that I'm complaining about that. Mel did make some comment about goosing the throttle and sending the girls off the back of the car, but I'm sure she meant that in the nicest way possible.

For all I know the parade is still going right now, we watched for almost 3 hours and didn't see an end in sight. I think the highlight may have been a guy riding his bike down the street during a 20 minute break in the action. He got more applause than most of the participants did.

Mel's conference starts in the morning, hopefully most of the Japanese delegates were able to make it.

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Look ma, no computer!

Just trying out the blogger app from my phone while waiting in the Saskatoon airport. Maybe people watching me will think I'm some sort of big deal working on important business...or maybe they'll think I'm an enormous nerd playing Tetris on my phone. And now that I think of it, I'm going to the app market to see if they have a good copy of Tetris for Android :)

-RF

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Forget the lei, give me some water wings!

Last time I traveled the misadventures at least didn't start until the first day of my vacation. This time it seems they're getting a jump on me.

I began my day with my sister telling me the warning sirens were going off all over Hawaii to evacuate people from the beaches in order to steer clear of the pending tsunami. Of course I immediately assumed she was just messing with me and I'm pretty sure my response was something along the lines of, "Eff off!". It was only after a shower, while eating my breakfast that I realized she was serious when I heard the news on the radio. At that point I entertained the idea that her hoax was a lot more elaborate and she somehow had NewsTalk650 in on the joke, but I'm sure that thought had more to do with lack of caffeine than any realistic option.

I spent my morning replacing ideas of sun-soaked beaches and palm trees with pictures of flattened island coastline and a week spent in the Vancouver airport. Fortunately it seems Hawaii was not seriously affected by the waves. At least not to the extent that north-eastern Japan was.

That being said, Mel's conference is jointly put on by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers so there may be a lot of late or absent Japanese delegates. After seeing images of the destruction in Japan I think a week in the Vancouver airport wouldn't be too bad at all! Maybe I'll email the conference organizers and let them know if they need a speaker to fill some vacant spots that I can get up there and talk about some stuff. Seriously, how hard can it be to present a Japanese professor's paper on thermal engineering? I'll just read the paper, then pretend not to understand any of the audience's questions. I'll let you know how it goes :)

-RF