Expressing Opinions

So gas prices have dropped a couple of cents and you are thinking about taking a road trip before summer ends. Want to get an estimate of how much gas you will spend and how far you be traveling?

There is a calculator which is easy to use and all you need to know is where trip begins and ends along with the make, model, and year of the car you will be driving. Try the AAA Fuel Cost Calculator.

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Frank Giotto, President of Fiber Instrument Sales Inc., demonstrated the Mini Motel at the Syracuse airport. The Mini Motel is a one-person tent designed for travelers who are stranded at an airport and includes, an air mattress, pillow, bed sheet, alarm clock, reading light, toothbrush and toothpaste, ear plugs and eye shades.

Lets face it. No matter how well you plan your trip, eventually you are going to get screwed over by an airline. In a New York Times article: Snoozing at the Terminal it says sleeping in airports is becoming more common. Apparently the guy pictured above decided to do something about it.

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Here are a couple of photos of guy from Bend, Oregon taking a ride in his lawn chair powered by party balloons. More on this story is available from the Associated Press story: Man flying lawn chair lifted by helium balloons

Kent Couch lifts off from his gas station in Bend, Ore., in his lawn chair rigged with more than 150 giant party balloons, Saturday, July 5, 2008. Couch, 48, is making his third cluster balloon flight and hopes to go more than 200 miles to Idaho before running out of daylight or helium. (AP Photo/Jeff Barnard)

Kent Couch leaves his gas station in Bend, Ore., on Saturday, July 5, 2008, riding a lawn chair rigged with more than 150 giant party balloons in an attempt to fly to Idaho. He is equipped with a BB gun and a blowgun for popping balloons if he gets too high and three 15-gallon barrels of cherry Kool-Aid for ballast to release if he gets too low. (AP Photo/Jeff Barnard)

The chair and balloons look like they are one heck of a contraption and a lot of fun.

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Last night I returned home from Hawaii. Unlike my flight there, where we had to change planes, fly to a different island and then on to Oahu, I had an uneventful flight. One thing I enjoyed was the sunset over the Pacific shortly before landing. I wanted to retrieve my camera from the camera bag in the overhead compartment, but  I would have missed the shot by the time I had my camera out. Still it left me with a pleasant memory.

It is nice to be back home but now it is back to work and dealing with the bullsh*t that goes with it. Fortunately caring is above my pay grade, so it should be an uneventful day.

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Needing to travel by air sucks, today I flew to Hawaii on Hawaiian Airlines. I thought I was going to arrive in time for lunch only to get there in time for dinner. We had mechanical problems in Portland, so they had us taxi back to the gate and board another Hawaiian flight heading to Maui. I always wanted to go to Maui but not like this.

After arriving in Maui there was little assistance in locating where we needed to go to continue our journey to Honolulu, so everyone seemed to have the herd mentality and followed someone they recognized from the flight. After asking a couple of customer service reps for the airline and couple wrong instructions we finally located where we need to go and made it to Oahu. During the whole process all the airline people could say is Mahalo and smile like they were stoned.

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Here is a short video clip of us in a shark cage off the North Shore of Oahu. It was amazing to see 20 to 30 sharks swimming all around you and passing within inches. We had a lot of fun and I am looking forward to doing it again when I visit Hawaii in June.

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There is no entry fee to visit the U.S.S. Arizona. The memorial is the final resting place to 1177 sailors.

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I flew a red-eye flight from Honolulu to San Fransisco. The last thing I remembered before the landing announcement in SF was the lights of Honolulu and Waikiki, then dosing off. I slept the entire 5 hour flight.

I had a short layover before leaving for Portland, so I looked for breakfast and discovered SF airport is the most overpriced and shitty airport I’ve been in in a long time. I would definitely classify San Fransisco International airport as a shit hole and was glad to be out of there and on my way home when I finally departed.

Although returning home means I will be returning to work next Monday, it is nice to be home. Thank you for visiting Expressing Opinions.

Yesterday I was out of bed at 4am and headed to the airport. I stood in line for the so called security check and they let me go through. I had my normal carry on camera bag, DVD player, book, notepad, and 4 sharpened #2 pencils.

It bothers me they let the pencils pass by. I keep them specifically should the occasion arise I need to defend myself. I don’t know about you, but if someone decides they are going take control of the plane I am prepared to do what it takes to defend myself and stop their plan. I do not know of any recent plane hijackings where the people survived, so the least I can do is ruin the hijackers plan.

For the most part I am prepared for an uneventful, uncomfortable, and boring flight. Flying reminds me of riding a city bus. Cramped for space and being stuck within inches next to someone you prefer to be several feet from if not more. I don’t know why they have flight attendants. What do they do? Sell overpriced stale sandwiches and serve coffee? I can get that at the local convenience store.

And what about the air quality inside the plane? The cabin is pressurized, the air is recirculated, but is the air filtered? Have you ever farted on a flight and wondered what happens to the gas? Is it simply moved from your part of the plane to another part?

Another thing that gets me wondering is the “water landing” the flight attendant talks about. I was flying over the Pacific and prior to takeoff the flight attendant said I could use my seat cushion for a flotation device. I did not see any pontoons on the plane, so does she know something I don’t know, is she really optimistic, or has she been smoking something I think she should share with me? It sure would make my trip a whole lot more fun.

And one more thing about the seat cushion as a flotation device. Do I want to survive a “water landing” and end up clutching a seat cushion bobbing in the water? It sort of reminds me being a piece of bait dangling on a bobber waiting for a large predatory fish to come along.

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