Sunday, September 28:

* Dim Sum at Yank Sing on Stevenson Streen at 10AM. If
you're interested just show up, we're not taking counts
on this event.

Though I'd been eager to go, I missed this one, because my
old buddy JT the UA FA wanted me to visit, so I headed down
Peninsulaward; she and her husband Brian picked up me at the
BART, and off it was to a UA FA Do at a park in Redwood
Shores. I got to meet quite a number of SFO-based and other
employees, including some of the union brass. I didn't let
on that I was a 1KMM but did note that one FA, an Asian
woman whose aircraft I've been on a couple times, kept
scowling at me, just as she has done during the flights.
Learned some interesting stuff just being a fly on the wall
- nothing earthshaking, though. Suffice it to say that the
employees are as fed up with the cutbacks as we are, and it
is a strain on them to keep up the good face, so many of
them do not. I commiserated with one quite senior FA who
works HNL flights, who told me how embarrassing it is to
provide a level of service and catering that isn't half of
what it used to be. I mean, 2 FAs for the back of a 757? She
described being ashamed to have to admit to a four-star F
flyer that there was no longer any Champagne ... then that
there were no longer Mai Tais ... and so on down the line.

After hot dogs and beer at the expense of the AFA, we went
back down to San Jose (not a moment too soon, I'm afraid,
as I have a limited amount of appetite for employee gossip)
to see my friends' son JF in a group called the Mumlers,
which has achieved a bit of local celebrity. It's not my
kind of music (well, they did St. James Infirmary, which
borders on what I like), but whatever they did they did
pretty well.

One set was enough for us oldsters, and on to Kazoo Sushi,
which may have been the first time I've ever had boat sushi.
Problem with this stuff is that it's premade and not always
at the optimal level of texture, though the ingredients,
aside from one piece of two of slightly yesterday's maguro,
were fine. JT and Brian ordered us some stuff made fresh,
and that was better.

Back to Oakland by degrees.