What goes up must come down. What goes down sometimes comes up.

Perhaps you may know that I have an interest in aviation and have had getting a pilot’s license on my “to do” list for a while.  However, I never seem to get this far enough up the list to really do anything about it other than talk to friends who are already pilots.

In a break playing racquetball last week with one of my regular partners, Justin, we got chatting.  I knew he designed flight simulators and we got talking about where he had gone to college.  When he told me that he had done his undergrad at the Air Force Academy, I asked him if he had been a pilot. Justin said yes - he used to fly F4 Phantom jets.  When I asked if he still flew, he said that flying powered aircraft like a Cessna really didn’t hold any interest (kind of like driving a Yugo after you’re used to driving a Lamborghini), but that he continued to fly gliders, also known as soaring.  Since there is no engine involved (once you’ve been towed up), it is man vs. nature and a kind of pure flying.

Justin told me the club is in Briggs, Texas, about an hour northwest of Austin and that the first weekend of each month they have a  demo day where you can take a relatively inexpensive flight with a flight instructor.  So this weekend I made the trek out 183 to find the Fault Line Fliers airfield, which was a little trickier than I expected as Google maps took me the wrong way, but eventually I spotted a windsock and some trailers for hauling gliders and figured I was in the right place.

The club owns two kinds of two seater gliders, the Schweizer 2-33, seen below, and a Grob Twin Astir seen above landing at the airfield.  The Grob is a higher performance aircraft and is more expensive to use.  For our test flight, the performance difference was immaterial, but the advantage of the Schweizer is that Justin (who is also an instructor) allows the passenger to sit in the front seat with all the instruments and the best view.

Once the glider has been pre-flgihted, it is hooked up to the tow plane, in our case a Cessna 152.  Since Justin has a masters degree in Aeronautics, flew for the Airforce, and designs flight simulators for a living in addition to being a flight instructor, I felt in safe hands.

As the tow plane trundled down the runway, the glider rose up first, then the tow plane took off and pulled us up to about 3,000 feet above the terrain, looking for thermals along the way.  When we got to our release height, I got to pull the big red knob which disconnected the tow cable and we were on our own.

It was a hot, clear day, with essentially no clouds in the sky.  While this makes for good visibility, it provides no direct clues as to where the thermals are like clouds would.  Instrumentation in the glider is pretty simple – an altimeter, a compass, an airspeed indicator, and a dial that shows the vertical rise/fall rate.  Since this lags by several seconds and the thermals can be kind of small, we literally flew by the “seat of our pants” – when we hit a thermal, it felt like a kick in the seat and the glider would rise rapidly.  Considering the weight of the two of us and the aircraft, and that at times  we were rising at as much as 80 feet per second and you have an idea of how powerful the forces at play are.

Justin had me shadow his movements by lightly holding the stick (the glider is dual control) to get a feel for the control, then after a while he turned it over to me. 

It is certainly fun to fly.  Even with a relatively simply craft, there is quite a bit to keep in mind simultaneously.  On one hand, you need to control the airspeed within a fixed range (45 to about 65 knots in our case).  Since there is no engine, you do this by pointing the nose of the craft down or up.  At the same time, you are searching for thermals and once you find one, trying to turn tightly within it in order to keep rising.  Also at the same time, you need to be aware of any other aircraft that might be out there, and where you are in relationship to the airport. Probably other things too that were beyond my immediate comprehension!

Justin spotted a hawk or buzzard circling below and told me that this is one of the things that soarers look for – the birds were making use of the same thermals we were seeking.  Also, apparently it is a lot of fun to sneak up on them from below and scare the living daylights out of them, but the only ones we saw were below us.

All was going pretty well until the tight turns and rapidly changing horizon set off my motion sickness.  They keep a few barf bags in the glider, but they obviously hadn’t been checked for a while.  One was completely gummed shut and the other had holes in it.  So, in addition to filling the holy bag (!) I managed to redecorate my pants and much of my shirt.  Thankfully Justin was a good sport and didn’t mind.  He even offered me his hat if I needed another “bag”.  Thankfully that wasn’t necessary.

One significant difference from powered flight is in landing.  There are no “go arounds” in a glider, so you better get it right the first time.  Otherwise, landing is similar to a powered aircraft - we paralleled the runway, turned left, then left again and landed at around 60 knots and rapidly rolled to a stop.

Given the fact that it is extremely warm in central Texas right now, it doesn’t take long for any kind of liquid to dry. Which made for an interesting fashion statement once I was out of the glider. My pants went from a solid blue to an abstract design reminiscent of a Rorschach test.

Unfortunately, despite taking water up with me and drinking copious amounts once down on the ground, I really didn’t feel well after the flight and assume I must have been suffering from some heat exhaustion.  The temperature in the shade was 104 Fahrenheit, and even about twelve hours after the flight, when I had been in the air conditioning for a long time, I was still feeling a bit off. Hopefully, I’ll give this another go when it cools off a little. 

If you like flying, then this is definitely worth giving a try.  Soaring also has to be one of the least expensive ways to learn to fly (and continue flying).  If you’d like to check with out, go to their website at  http://faultlineflyers.org

Another way to cut down on pesky calls

Hopefully you have already registered on the National Do Not Call List: https://www.donotcall.gov/confirm/conf.aspx

Your state may also have their own Do Not Call List, which may prevent some calls that are allowed by the National laws. In Texas you can find this at: http://www.texasnocall.com/

but these don’t prevent all unsolicited calls. 

One of the ways telemarketers and others try to reach you is by using a predictive dialer which is technology that uses a computer to dial different phone numbers and when one answers, connect the call with an operator (i.e. telemarketer).  This frees the humans to spend more of their time talking to pestering people.  It also explains why when you sometimes answer the phone and go “hello?” and find there is a delay before you are speaking to a real person, if you can call cold-calling telemarketers real people, that is.

By law the predictive dialer is supposed to connect you to a human being within 2 seconds of hearing your voice or else they must play a recorded message.

Here’s what I’ve noticed – when I get a call from a suspicious number, I could of course just let it ring to my answering machine.  Problem is that sometimes this might be someone whose number I don’t know (perhaps they’ve even blocked it on their end), or it could be the likes of a telemarketer or other unsolicited call. 

Even if I let a telemarketer’s call ring to voicemail, a lot of the time I will see on my answering machine that their system hung up without leaving a message and I will likely get a call back at another time.

However, if I answer the phone, but don’t say anything, an interesting thing happens.  Most of the time, the call is just silent.  If a real person is calling me, they will say something.  If this is a friend, I’ll typically recognize their voice, or else they will tend to use my name.  Telemarketers will often just hang up, or if they do speak, it is usually “Hello? Mr. or Mrs. Finkel?” My turn to go click.

So what’s new here?  Telemarketers use calling lists and realistically they have no real way of knowing if the phone numbers they have are good or not.  They are working in bulk – this is why they buy large lists of phone numbers and why they use predictive dialers. It’s a numbers game – they just need some of them to answer in order to do their business.  By not speaking when I answer the phone, I believe I am confusing their system and acting more like a non voice number, such as a fax machine. 

What I’ve noticed is that I don’t get a call back from these systems when I use this technique.  I suspect that when they don’t hear a real person or a voice on an answering machine the number gets flagged as no good in their database and they ignore it.

Works for me!

Tinto de Verano

Literally “summer wine”, this is a popular cocktail in Spain and Portugal, similar to sangria, but easier to make.

The ingredients are just red wine, gaseoza (fizzy water, sometimes flavored), sugar or honey, and maybe a slice of lemon or orange.  Serve over ice.

You can make an even simpler version at home using just red wine and Sprite or 7up. 

When served in Spanish households people pour their own wine and gaseoza mixture together making the drink to taste, as opposed to sangria, where all the ingredients are pre mixed.  Sangria usually has additional hard alcohol such as a liqueur as an ingredient.

Quick and simple to make, very delicious, refreshing, and easy to get a bit schnockered on as it doesn’t taste at all alcoholic!

In praise of socks

As a working photographer I spend a lot of time on my feet.  And when we travel during the summer, we tend to do a LOT of walking.  Its a great way to see where you are and a decent substitute for the regular exercise we’re not doing that we normally do at home. But boy did my feet get tired.

Learning to wear comfortable shoes is something I figured out a long time ago.  But more recently I started paying attention to the socks I wear.  Kelly discovered Thorlo socks a while back and really likes them for hiking.  I’ve had thick woolen hiking socks (and artificial fabric versions) for years that did me great service when hiking in cool locations like Ireland, but these are very uncomfortable in the hot weather of Texas (and Spain and Portugal) and tend to get itcy.

A while back, I came across cotton socks with very thick, toweling-like soles, and the difference they make is amazing.  For one thing, I find that after a long gig wearing these, my feet don’t ache as they used to, even better than wearing gel insoles. Also, in hot weather, I find them very agreeable – more so than wearing sandals without socks.  When in a hot climate, they absorb any sweat and keep my feet dry and comfortable.

You may find that you need a slightly larger shoe, but if you achy feet at the end of the day, try some extra thick cotton socks!

How to Get a Better Seat on a Plane.

Or at least avoid the bad ones.

Long gone are the days when sweet talking the gate agents at the airport would get you an upgrade, so this isn’t about moving from coach to business class without paying for an upgrade (if you know how to do that let me know!)

Even within the same class of service, there are better and worse seats.  The worst may be smelly (next to a kitchen or toilet), busy (used as a passageway), unusually cold, without a view, uncomfortable (narrower or with less legroom than others), non reclining, or in some other way sub-standard.

I recall years ago travelling from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Vancouver, Canada on Malaysian Airlines, a journey of something like 20 hours with a short stop in Taiwan.  Being on business for Dell in Asia, I got to fly business class (we had to fly coach to Europe!) and I had a business class seat upstairs on a Boeing 747.  After boarding, I got to my seat and for some reason that I still can’t figure out why, I reclined my seat while we were still parked a the gate.  It moved about 1” then stopped.  I figured something must have temporarily blocked the recline, so I fished around and figured out that the seat was hitting the flight attendant’s jump seat right behind mine.  In other words, the seat wasn’t meant to recline. Not looking forward to 20 hours of sitting bolt upright, I had to create a bit of a stink to get them to move me to another seat.  it is actually not unusual to have coach class seats that don’t recline, often these are just in front of emergency exits, or at the end of the cabin, but there are also better and worse business and first class seats.

Contrast my Malaysian experience with our Madrid to Chicago flight today.  Although we are flying coach, we have about four times the leg room of regular seats and no one wandering through our area.   How?  We’ve got the exit row over the wing.  And this isn’t an accident.  Last night when I checked in, I specifically chose these seats.

There are a few websites that give you good info about seating on planes.  The one I like best is www.seatguru.com.  Once you enter your airline and plane type, it will show you a seat map color coded in white (normal), green (preferable seats), yellow (warning, such as a very cold seat) or red (avoid).  For many flights it will also show you the location of seat based power points if the plane is equipped with them.  If you want to use a laptop on a long flight, this can be very important.

How can you find out the airplane type?  Seatguru now has a feature where you just enter your carrier and flight number and it will find the aircraft that should be used.  Alternatively, go to the website of the airline and look up your reservation or the flight schedule and you should find the information.  Worst case, you can call the airline and ask.  Sometimes they call this “equipment” and use a code, e.g. 346 means an Airbus A340-600.

If you use the seat map in conjunction with your airline’s online reservation management system, you can pick your own seat and avoid the bad ones. These days when I make a reservation with an airline, the first thing that I do after the reservation is booked is go online and reserve my own seat, using seatguru’s recommendations.  You might be surprised how many times you get given a poor (yellow) or bad seat (red) by default. 

The best seats are usually exit row or bulkhead seats and these are often not available to reserve far in advance.  Some airlines restrict reserving these seats to their premium passengers.  When I fly American Airlines, as long as my travelling companions are on the same record as me, I can book all of us in the exit seats or seats close to the front of the cabin.  If someone is on a separate reservation, I can’t.

Most airlines will make the exit seats available about 24 hours before your flight, so it is a good idea to check in online for your flight as early as you can (usually 24 hours before) and check the seating maps again so you can snag the good seats.

So, with a little forethought and a few minutes of online work you can have many hours of greater comfort in the air.

Ham-a-mania

Spaniards love their pigs, or more precisely dead pigs in form of ham, or jamon.

You see it everywhere, but Madrid seems to have more shops selling this local delicacy than anywhere else we visited.  Apparently every home has a special device designed to hold ham legs for slicing. You find places like “The Museum of Ham” on almost every street.  

According to those who eat such treyf, jamon iberico is the pinnacle of a pork ingesting experience.  Black pigs are allowed to forage for acorns before ending up on the end of a fork after a number of intermediate steps.  However, in all our country driving we didn’t see any pigs.  Seemingly they are very good at hiding from tourists, but evidently not so good at avoiding the butcher.

The number of pig legs in shops, supermarkets, and restaurants is truly stupefying.  Interestingly, we didn’t see a lot of the other parts of the animal in markets or on menus, so I kind of wonder where they go.

The local predilection for all things porky mean that one has to look out for lard where you might not expect it.  Particularly in the south, we found a number of bakeries use lard rather than butter or vegetable oil when making sweet pastries.  Luckily, there are lots of panaderias and pasterlerias so usually walking to another was all it took to find something we could eat.

With the Jews and Muslims getting expelled in the 15th century, it is probably no wonder that the Spaniards have developed an orgy of ham eating.  What did surprise me was when we were in Corodba we ate at a tapas bar that specialized in Sephardic and Andalusian specialties.  For the most part the Sephardic food, indicated by a star of David, wasn’t all that interesting, but I was hoping to try some of the Andalusian specialties until they told me the ones I liked the look of contained pork.   Having a crescent and star icon for these seems a bit deceptive to me and you have to wonder if some poor Mohammedan has found a nasty surprise after they’ve taken a few bites of their dinner. 

If you eat kosher style (i.e. no pork or shellfish), here are some phrases that might be helpful:

• No como carne de cerdo. I don’t eat pork.
• El tocino.                        Bacon.
• El jamon.                        Ham.
• Manteca de cerdo.           Lard.
• Los mariscos.                  Shellfish.
• Pulpo.                             Octopus (a common food here).

Vegetarian food isn’t all that common in Spain, although we did find some good organic vegetarian places in Tarifa and Madrid.  In particular the place we ate at in Madrid, Yerbabuena, did some very creative and tasty food.  Big portions too.

Thankfully fish is very common, so with a bit of effort, there is always something to eat.  We certainly didn’t go hungry!

Breakfast

Desayuno in Spanish, petit-dejuener in French, pequeno almoco in Portuguese and a whole host of other names in other languages.  Breakfast is one of the stranger meals when you travel.

For one thing, it is sometimes included in your hotel rate, but often not.  On a recent trip to France, most hotels’ rates for breakfast were upwards of Eu15 per person – more than $20.  For coffee, juice, croissants and jam.  Sheesh.  On another trip to France when you booked your hotel online, they gave you free breakfast.  What a deal!

I remember my first trip to France, with my parents around 1976 and how my father was outraged at what the Novotel wanted to charge for breakfast then.  It hasn’t changed!

Rates in Spain and Portugal are a bit less, but still no great value.  We generally find a coffee or pastry shop, get a few good coffees and some fresh pastries for less than half what they would want to charge for one similar breakfast in the hotel.  If you find a good patisserie you have a wider choice of options than your hotel and the pastries are fresher. 

Breakfast habits and tastes vary wildly around the world.  I’m not a huge fan of salami, cheese, and plain yogurt in the morning, which I’ve been served in the Netherlands.  Salad isn’t high on my preferred early morning list of comestibles either, but the Israelis seem to like it.  In Laos, I started my day with a Dragon fruit shake. 

Dragon fruit is an exotic fruit found quite commonly in SE Asia and Central America.  The first time I ever had it was at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, no less. It has a strange purplish scaly exterior (hence the name) and the interior is usually either purple or white with tiny black seeds as if the watermelon textured flesh was evenly studded with poppy seeds.   The few times I’ve had Dragon fruit at home it has been very disappointing – like watermelon with no flavor.  But in Guatemala and Laos, the fresh fruit has a subtle but distinct flavor that gets lost in shipping.

Perhaps my favorite place for breakfast is Malaysia.  Most hotels include breakfast, and it is usually much more substantial than most European offerings.  What makes it fun is that they try to cater to all their guests.  So they have cereal, toast, tea, sausages, eggs, etc. for the Americans and British, various Malay dishes including spicy noodles for the locals, and things like congee (rice porridge) and miso soup  for the Japanese.  And since most of the hotels cater to Muslim guests, there is no pork (the sausages are chicken). 

Of course, since all kinds of tropical fruits are grown locally, the fresh fruit and fruit juices are amazing.

Where else can you get baked beans and curry washed down with Starfruit juice to get your day started?