I guess this was a few different firsts for me: the longest direct flight I’ve ever taken at more than seventeen hours (New York to Bangkok), and the first time I’ve ever flown first (and not business) class on a trans-oceanic flight.  I have to say that flying in row two in a 747 makes the duration of the flight a little more endurable.  There is something to be said for a full seven foot lie-flat bed with service that is never equaled on American airlines.  That said, no flight is ever in the realm of "fun".

Emerging from the plane in 92 degree humidity is little different than Singapore, and a blast of reality after leaving snowfall in Boston.  You couldn’t pay, bribe or force me into living here for any length of time.  (Maybe I should re-think the dream of living in Israel after being there in the summer for a week.)  The heat in this part of world is only relieved for the briefest of moments during those 5-10 minutes of rain torrents.  Unless you’ve actually been at the equator for a rain storm, it’s hard to understand what this is like.  Raindrops the size of small Volkswagen Bugs coming down in force for a seemingly endless few moments … followed by sticky hot sunshine.

Anyway, I did have the pleasure of flying over Afghanistan on the way here (is anyone else surprised by that?) but I didn’t see any SAMs coming our way despite the excellent view.  I was a bit surprised that we flew east (well, really we flew over the North Pole and came down over Moscow) when most of the trips to Singapore go west.  Perhaps that’s because I typically go on United through China to Singapore and this flight was Thai Airways.  I don’t know.  I do know that it’s a loong loooong flight and right now, I’m going to bed.  🙂

OK, so it hasn’t been all that mad, but there have been a few notable items of record.  FIrstly, Kristi complained that my last post was stale news by the time it was posted and that I worried everyone needlessly.  Her derogatory email sent me into a month long depression.  Hopefully I won’t hear any comments from the peanut gallery this time (Kristi :-)).

The most significant item of note was Jake’s surgery last week.  The little boy looked so brave and small being wheeled into the OR, and woke up asking where all the toys were.  (I guess it couldn’t have been that bad.)  After eating his popsicle in recovery, he promptly laid back down again and said he needed to sleep.  However, given a few hours, and our non-stop-talker was back up and bouncing like Tigger.  The doctor said it would take two days or so to be back to "normal"?  He was off by about 46 hours.

Isaac not only can say "Mommy" and "Daddy" now, but feels it necessary to periodically call us at the top of his lungs.  It was cute for a while … He continues to be Jake’s little copycat and follows his older brother everywhere.  While today has brought four inches of snow so far, he has been enjoying the great outdoors in recent days and running around the circle after being cooped up most of the winter.  Hurray for warmer weather?  Ummm … yeah.

I haven’t been anywhere this month (there was a trip to AU at the end of last), but it begins again with a vengeance for the next little while.  <sigh>  On the plus side, my boss told me I should take a month off this summer.  Anyone want to put up with a non-stop-three-year-old-talker and a very active one-man-destruction-crew and their parents for a month?  🙂

So last week had me racing over to Australia and back for a very short and whirlwind tour.  It was a travel classic …

Arriving at the airport in Boston, I found out only 30 minutes before my connecting flight to LAX that the airport was being shut down because of the blizzard-like conditions.  The airport was only shut down for three hours, but it was enough that I missed the connecting flight in LA.  Upon landing, I was met at the gate by an agent who gave me a coupon for the night stay and a replacement ticket.  (The flights only leave once per day to Australia.)  I showed up at the airport the next afternoon (well in advance of the evening departure) only to find that they had booked me for two days later – not one day later.  When I asked why, they indicated that there was nothing available that evening – and I mean nothing.  I checked every possible airline and got the same story.  The problem of course, is that even if I had made that flight one day late, I would have needed to land and go directly to the keynote I was supposed to give for noontime.  The long story here ends that I did end up getting on the flight with standby (back of the plane – middle seat).

Landing in Melbourne at 11:15am on Monday, I immediately raced across the city to make it with 15 minutes to spare in order to give the talk.  At this point I was going on 1 hour sleep from the night before on the plane and 4 hours sleep the night before that in LAX.  After the talk, I went directly to two clients and then back to the airport for a flight back to Sydney that evening.  I’m not sure exactly what my wake to sleep ratio was by the time I rested the head on Monday night, but I know that between leaving on Friday afternoon and crashing on Monday, I had a total of five hours.  Three cheers for travel.  🙂

Well, one day in Sydney, one day in Canberra, one day in Brisbane and two days on the Gold Coast later, it was the whole thing in reverse.  Now before you ask why I don’t have any pictures … The one thing I will say about Blue is that they know how to efficiently plan, shuttle and execute on a full-time itinerary.  On the plus side, I’ve collected an air mile or two this year.  Smile.  🙂