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Hugh Blemings's Blog, A Diary and Miscellaneous ramblings
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Mon, 01 Nov 2004
Uneventful flight over to LAX, watched the Marchurian Candidate which was both sobering and poignant given the subject material and that it's the day before the Presidential election here. On a lighter note watched Shrek 2 again, Puss In Boots (played/voiced by Antonio Banderras) is certainly the highlight in this one. 747 had the flash new business class seats which are a marvel in industrial design. Very comfortable, can basically lie flat and have grab handles on the back so you can easily climb over your fellow passenger if you've the window and they're stretched out.
I was somewhat bemused to be the first onto the plane and first off at the end, not through through barging or mega elite status, just way it panned out. Did the usual fast walk to get the circulation going and so got to immigration first too, processed without any real ado - photo and fingerprinted for the record. Got to baggage collection to find the staff there removing the bags as they came around and stacking them all together. This rather negating the point of the carousel allowing people to spread out and wait for the bag to come to them...
Flight to Portland was inexplicably an American Airlines code share flight serviced by Alaskan airlines (who have one of the cooler tail logos I've seen, but I digress) Thouroughly confused eventually discovered that the flight departed from terminal 3 which had no Qantas or AA lounge available. Paid USD$15 and sat in the Alaskan lounge instead. No shower but was able to at least change into clean clothes and freshen up a bit.
Lounge had free wired internet access - usual plug in, start browser, DNS hack redirects you to the sign in page stuff. Except no DHCP address given. Thankfully my technical skills hadn't entirely atrophied - arced up Karpski watched enough traffic to work out what the local subnet was set to, chose a static IP at random (lounge mostly empty) and went from there. Was able to get collect mail, chatted with Lu on IRC and couple of colleagues on Sametime to help pass the time away.
Fantastic views of the Sierra Nevada mountain ranges on the way up, highest peak is apparently 14,000ft which I guess puts it at roughly double Mt Kosiusko. All that remains now is a landing, baggage, collect car and drive to hotel. At that point I'll crash, hopefully not before :)
Waiting at Kingsford Smith for flight to Los Angeles to board. Shorter trip than last time will see me visiting Beaverton, OR, Austin, TX and Rochester, MN - all major sites from a Linux standpoint for work. Not relishing 14 hours+ on longhaul flight but maybe the 747 will have the new super duper seats.
Why didn't I do this years ago ?
Chris delivered the Clav on Saturday arvo - I've probably played more in the last 48 hours than I had the last 48 days. Sounds great, action is very comfortable to play though I'm going to need to pace myself until I gain some more finger strength, particuarly in the left hand. I discovered aa few years ago that typing seems to actually be fairly beneficial in maintaining basic finger dexterity but nothing will beat a weighted piano action for building strength.
It's nice to be able to just noodle when the mood takes and in so doing not be antisocial by dint of being downstairs. We think we'll talk to Lu's mum (a retired piano teacher!) about lessons for Rachael too.