The Wandering Salesman

I love America.

Yesterday, a career flight attendant obviously lost the will to live, burst into a tirade of abuse against a passenger and then promptly did a runner via the emergency slide, armed with his bags. And 2 beers.

Good for him.

Yesterday wasn’t a good day to travel. There were misconnections all over the place, weather related delays up the wazoo and I have no idea why, but more people than I have ever seen travelling on a Monday.

I’m not sure though if “just a busy day on the job” warrants a full blown melt-down.

The blogosphere salivated while it lit up with the news. The rogue flight attendant in question even has his own Facebook fan pages already running. Don’t you just love the internet.

Maybe JetBlue wanted the publicity. Maybe it was a slow news day and one of the big networks wanted a lead story. Who knows.

(more…)

I remember the knock on the door.

We had just moved into our brand new house in Omaha. I had been posted there for work.

I know, I know. You’re asking yourself what on earth did I do wrong in order to get sent to Nebraska to live. All the way from Singapore.

Truthfully – nothing. I loved every minute of it. And jumped at the chance when it came up. The fact that my wife was originally from the US and said that if I ever wanted to see her naked again, may have influenced my decision a little bit.

Anyway.

I don’t know what it’s like where you live, but if you’re from a city in Australia and you move into a new home, you might get a friendly neighbour to come and say hello, even drop in a few beers. Or if they want to sleep with your wife, they might even give you a decent bottle of red.

But in Nebraska, things are different. (more…)

So there I was – minding my own business, exercising away in the pool area of the Peninsula in Manila. I’m a bit of a fanatic when it comes to exercise and treat most people my age with a complete air of disdain when I see them in the hotel gym.

Most people have no clue. They’d be better off continuing to eat and drink heavily in the hotel bar.

Anyway, it was as hot as shit and I was swearing away, doing my P90X Plyometrics session…

I looked over and there was a rather large guy, mid fifties I’m guessing, sporting aged tattoos. Typical vet. I’m halfway way through my routine and he does what I count were all of 5 push-ups and then decides that was enough and promptly sits down on a deck chair about 20-feet in front of me.

He knows I’m there because he can hear me saying the word “fuck” a lot. He looks over his shoulder and asks me if I’m ok. I say “sort of”. (more…)