Hey Stimpy, we have to be careful, Jailer lives in Long Beach also. I think he even lives in our neighborhood. But, a couple trips to Joe Jost's might loosen him up!

Hey Newself, I know the way to Joe Jost's quite well, thank you. Just because I talk the talk, it doesn't mean I walk the walk. Merry Christmas to all.

Jailer,

The traditional Christmas Eve cocktail (ice cold schooner of beer) at Joe Jost's starts at 10:00am. Be there by 11:00am or stand in a long line to get in. I will be by the Marmion peanut roaster in the snooker table room wearing my traditional Christmas Eve outfit of Sushi Hawaiian Shirt and black shorts. CYA there!

here goes......35 M....frequent reader, occasional poster.....live in ny, originally from texas........work in television (as i always say: "beats working for a living"). early on travelled primarily for work, now equally for pleasure. platinum for life in continental, gold in aa. enjoy sports, travel (duh), outdoors. collect old wooden hand crank movie cameras and very old maps. best travel experience was laying on the back seat of a open air jeep in the middle of the botswana bush on a nightime "photo" safari.......more stars than you could imagine and not a sound from the modern world.....no planes over head, no tv or radio babble. helped put my life into perspective, would recommend to anyone beaten down by deadlines, dilberts and road rage.

Heres a little something about me...
I'm 26 years old, from Des Moines, Iowa but currently I am living in Malmo, Sweden. I have been living in Sweden since 1997 and I just graduated with a masters degree in European Politics... (go ahead, admit it, it probably sounds boring) :-)
I have also lived in Austin, TX and W. Palm Beach Florida, but I grew up in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia! My parents (whom are both originally from Cleveland, Ohio *gasp*) went to work in Saudi and ended up working there 25 years... hence I grew up there and spent half my life there. I think thats kinda interesting :-)
And yes, I love to travel.. I've spent my whole life traveling the globe and traveling is my favorite hobby. While I belong to many FF programs, I am most loyal to NW/KLM (KLM is one of the few Int'l airlines that flies into Malmo) and I have been an elite member of NW's progam a while. My second choice is,not surprisingly, SAS. :-)
Cheers

I too have been lurking around here for a few weeks, and have started to make a few posts.

I am an American, but I live and work in London, where my company's headquarters are. My girlfriend and social life are in Washington DC, where I used to live. I've been living in London for a year and a half, and will probably be here for a little more than another year until I go back to DC.

Since my girlfriend is in DC, I usually fly over there two weekends a month. I'll take off Friday and fly to DC, then take the red eye back to London on Sunday night.

I travel extensively, and almost all of my travel is on BA. I fly about ten times a year to CVG, and since BA doesn't cover that route, I fly Delta, giving me PM status on them.

When I'm not on the road or at my REAL home in DC with my girlfriend, I'll be at my little, lonely townhouse off of Berkley Square (conveniently close to the US Embassy, should I need it).



------------------
An American Lost in London...

I'm 34, married and live in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona... 50 miles from the New Mexico border. It's a great place to live, 7000' with mild temperatures, and just enough snow to enjoy. The population here is about 3000, so Christmas shopping is a breeze, even today. (Although, I did drive by Wal-Mart, and the lot was packed!)


Started travelling with my job three years ago. Don't get out as much as most of you... generally only about 50K/year. Unfortunately, it all comes within a short period of time, so my wife gets to spend large periods of time alone.

My office is actually in the Bay Area of California, but I don't seem to go there very often. As a project manager, I telecommute from a home office 365 days a year. It's not as great as you think... you tend to get lonely. And it's only going to get worse... I've told I can only travel four times in 2000!

Personally, we have one dog, and three birds. We enjoy to go hiking (the natural forest is 100 yards from the front door,) and spend time outside.

Someday soon, we hope to open our home as a Homestay (small Bed and Breakfast.) They're popular in our town as people from Tucson, Phoenix, and New Mexico like to come here to relax and ski or just escape the heat. I'll try to post when we open.

Now for the fun part. Since I live in this little community, we have a small airline that flies from here to Pheonix. The plane is a King Air, fitted to seat 8 passengers. Costs as much to fly to Phoenix as it does to fly from Phoenix to the Bay Area. No actual FF program, and they don't codeshare, so all of those miles are lost.

Out of Phoenix, I fly America West and Alaska when going west; Continental when flying east. Unfortunately, due to new policies, I have to fly with the lowest airfare carrier, or pay the difference out of pocket... and my company can get some good deals from UA, DL, etc. So, looks like I may have to switch.



------------------
----------------
The only difference between ordinary service and extraordinary service is a little EXTRA.

-- Bob

So many new folks - jailer, Phil, Billedr, Oxford, Lance, and AZ_MISMAN - welcome, all.

Newself, please rain check me, I'll be doing my Xmas drinking in the Bay area this year.

Jailer,

You are rainchecked! We do need to get the Long Beach Bums together for a get together at Joes maybe in January.

Rudi,

I only know English, my girlfriend knows English, French, Italian, and Dutch. I figure as long as we are together, she can always translate for me, so I can be lazy http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif. She wants me to learn French, but I dislike French because of the protectionistic attitude. I want to learn German! for some reason my girlfriend doesn't like it that I want to learn German? If not German, I think I would like to learn Spanish.

But I do know the langauges of BASIC, Pascal, JCL, COBOL, Fortran, RPGII, Assembly, FDL, Dyl280, CLIST, and HTML http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif how's that for a lot of langauges?

deleted

I was asked to post a bio of some sort, so here it is, ready or not!

38 years old, bald, fat, bearded, bespeckled, and benighted. Computer software consultant, 100% travel. Based in Denver, hit both coasts with regularity, not as much in flyover country. Fly UA, just made 100K Premier on Dec 30th (just made it, too). I usually fly every Sunday and every Friday.

I'm divorced (over ten years ago) no children, one hairy old fat cat.

I like Spaghetti-O's and Little Juan's frozen burritos. And Mountain Dew. My teeth are rotting, thanks to the Dew.

I usually am only home on weekends, this has been a rare 'down' week for me at home. Back on the road tomorrow (DEN-SNA-SFO-DEN).

My hobbies are horology (collecting vintage men's wrist watches), guns (mostly the scary assault rifle type), writing, reading EVERYTHING, and computer geek type stuff of all sorts. I've been on the Internet since 1985 (yes, 85) and I used to run a pirate BBS in the bad old days. Statute of limitations is up, I believe, so there.

I subscribe to Smithsonian, National Geographic, Conde Nast's Traveler (don't care for that one, though), Shotgun News, Guns-n-Ammo, and PC Magazine. I buy right-wing magazines over the counter (and pay cash), because I'm paranoid.

I am a member of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors (http://www.nawcc.org) and the NRA (http://www.nra.org). I'm obviously a creature of extreme contradictions. Or perhaps just extreme.

I read philosophy, historical biographies, and Ayn Rand for fun. Anias Nin and Henry Miller for even more fun. Then I go to the gun range and blow accurate holes in little pieces of paper.

Recent events: just traded in 350,000 Marriott reward points for a 53 inch projection TV, will be delivered soon I hope. Recently converted ALL of my bill payments to the online type, via WingSpanBank.com. Neat deal, got tired of carrying around bills and checkbooks all the time.

I make a lot of money, but I am always broke and have nothing in the bank, really. My retirement plans involve not having one, due to my smoking. I believe I'm on schedule.

What else to tell? I'm a former US Marine, have been told I'm scary-looking. Judge for yourself:
http://home.earthlink.net/~bmattock http://www.dimensional.com/~bmattock

Don't say you weren't warned!

I haven't taken a vacation in over two years, and it shows. Argh. I'm pretty much worn out, all the time. What a drag it is getting old.

I smoke a lot, drink Guinness, and carouse, although most of my carousing is in my imagination. I like to explore new cities, especially the seedier sides of them.

I'm mean as a snake, ugly, and hard to get along with. I don't know why.

I have gathered many tricks and tips to FF traveling over these last couple of years, and hope to learn more. I swear I'm going to write a book about it. Road Warrior's Revenge, or some such. Think PJ O'Roarke on crack, or Hunter S. Thompson sober. Not pretty.

I am seriously thinking of moving away from Denver (it has gotten too big and ugly) and moving to northern Kentucky, near Cincinnati. Don't laugh, houses there are still $50K or less.

I adore the absurdities in life. I need to laugh, lest I begin to weep. Do anything you like to me, but be entertaining, that's my motto. I have a lot of mottoes. Want some?

That's it, I think!

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

thank you Bill (and I am so proud that I was right with the term 'horologe/y' in the other thread).

Doc, you are an active member of Flyertalk. How about tell us a little about yourself?