I had spent a day at a client’s site in midtown Manhattan and my initial plans had to been to take Metro North to Croton-on-Hudson, spend a couple of nights in my condo and then return to JFK on Wednesday. But my plans changed at the last minute and I was needed in New Jersey right away. With deep regret that I didn’t have sufficient notice to organize a little New Jersey FT get-together, I set about to find myself a place to stay. My client volunteered to reserve a place for me and then called back to say that they had reserved two nights at the Radisson in Englewood and would follow up with an email confirmation.

Two hours went by and, having not received any sort of confirmation, I decided to call the hotel directly and find out what the story was. Well, they had never heard of me (or had been forewarned) and besides, they were all booked up anyway. I spent about 20 minutes on the internet and soon located another hotel within the general vicinity of my destination in Hackensack. I booked two nights at the Hilton in Hasbrouk Heights and then set about locating a driver. My client in NY had suggested a couple of what he claimed to be “tolerable” car services. He concurred and commiserated with my determination to avoid the quite horrendous Carmel Car Service but when I tried calling a couple of different 800 numbers, none of them could be bothered to pick up the phone. Perhaps he had never had problems with his suggested car services because he has never been able to successfully book a car with them. I ultimately decided to call my default Westchester driver, the one who stood me up last week for 45 minutes. He happened to be in the city so we arranged to meet at 42nd and 3rd at 6:45 but it wasn’t until about 7:05 that we hooked up. Well, I guess it could have been worse.

It took about 45 minutes just to get out of the midtown insanity and it wasn’t until 8:15 until we pulled up in front of the Hilton. The driver didn’t have any credit card slips so I gave him a $10 tip and agreed to pay for the trip in a couple of days when I planned to journey back to JFK. Being very distrustful of travel arrangements of late, I asked the driver to hang out for a couple of minutes while I ran up to the front desk and confirmed that they really did have my reservation. Once thus confirmed, I told the driver it was safe to leave and proceeded to check in. My request for an upgrade was granted and I was provided with a very large suite and access to the executive floor. This afforded me with a continental breakfast, evening snacks (which were already been gobbled up whenever I ventured in), dessert, and an opportunity to chat with the very pretty and charming Croatian hostess who had been charged to look after the place. The executive room also had a real honor bar, i.e. you could serve yourself and then sign a slip to indicate what you had consumed. But I opted to lay low on the alcohol and stick with diet cokes.

When Wednesday eventually rolled around, I checked out at 10:15AM and awaited my pickup to JFK. As seems to be the custom of late, 15 minutes passed by and my car had still not shown up. As I grew ever more annoyed, I huge white stretch limo pulled up and the driver motioned me over. Well, this is more like it, I thought to myself. As we pulled away and crawled towards the GWB on our moderately long journey to JFK, I spent most of the time playing with the myriad buttons that adorned the interior. I have always liked pushing people’s buttons. I could not make up my mind whether I preferred an opaque or transparent partition or even none at all so I tried out lowering and raising the partition in rapid succession until the driver grew sufficiently annoyed.

The car was equipped with floor light ceiling lights, neon lights, exterior lights, dome lights, mood lights, a VCR, TV, liquor bottles (empty ), but the driver later presented me a couple of bottles of Bombay Sapphire for my troubles), sunroof, moonroof and for all I know, total eclipse roof. The GWB was OK but the cross Bronx was an absolute mess. Nevertheless, we still managed to pull into JFK at about 11:30. I paid the driver for my last two trips and meandered inside, strode through security and entered the RCC. Once again, my favorite GA/concierge was not there and I was disappointed to learn that she may not be back until the beginning of 2001. After a few minutes, I had checked in and was all settled into my usual spot, catching up with newsgroup messages, listening to MP3s, a tall G&T in hand. And there I sat for the next two hours. Once in a while, other passengers wandered through my domain but for some reason, they took one look at me and scurried off. This was fine with me.

One fellow was not so lucky and decided to strike up a conversation with me. He was actually a very charming guy and I enjoyed talking with him. Besides, he had not yet heard any of my tired well worn jokes so I figured I would punish him a bit by making him listen to my routine. He proved to be a man of exceptionally poor taste and actually seemed to find some of what I said to be funny rather than scary. He originated in Perth, Australia and mostly flies Singapore and other *A partners, rarely UA. Today, he was heading to Cincinnati via IAD and would be beginning the very long trip back to Australia in a few days. I have been contemplating some sort of vacation in a few months because I still have a few systemwides that are begging to be used so we discussed various localities in Australia as possibilities. He appeared to be recommending Tasmania most highly of all. About 20 minutes later, it was time for him to catch his little “rubber band” plane to IAD so he bid me adieu. I once again turned back to my relaxation endeavors until I was interrupted by another passenger. This fellow was also a fairly pleasant chap, this time from Britain and we chatted for about 10 minutes before I scared him off.

At 2:00PM, I packed up, schlepped me and my stuff to gate 11, chatted briefly with the gate agents and scuttled down the stairs to catch the van over to terminal 6. As usual, flight 7 to SFO began boarding soon after my arrival and I soon found myself comfortably settled into seat 8F. After a few minutes, I was happily engaged in conversation with my seat mate, a very pretty woman heading to SFO to visit her boyfriend . I think she told me she was in modeling (or was it remodeling?). (By the way, speaking of Freudian slips, I had originally typed in seat meat ) But we had a grand time anyway and I figured I had a new victim upon which to try out some new material. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but after about 10 minutes the FA wandered by and said to my seat mate, smiling, “you better watch out for this guy”. This is a personal record for me. We had not even pulled back yet and it usually takes about an hour for the FAs to say that.

Before pull back, the FA came around with a tray offering a choice of either OJ or water. I was surprised not to see the very fine Champagne (sarcasm) offered as well so asked the FA if I could have some. She very pleasantly hinted that she really didn’t feel like opening a bottle so I suggested that I would be happy to save her the trouble if she would bring me a G&T instead. To my astonishment, she happily agreed; typically, FAs are reluctant to do this in business on the transcons. A few minutes later, she brought me my drink and one for my jealous seat mate as well. I really liked my seatmate’s taste in drinks but her boyfriend taste could use some work (as could her taste in seat mates ).

The flight was very pleasant and uneventful. Its always enjoyable to interact with an FA who doesn’t seem to hate her job. As soon as the all clear bell rang, I exited my seat to use the facilities but a bunch of FAs grabbed me as I was passing by and we chatted in the galley for a while. They then asked me for my meal order while there so I guess this means that 1Ks were being asked first on that flight. For my main dish, I chose some species of filet mignon but I asked for it to be served very rare, carved at table side please and covered with a layer of crushed peppercorns. We all laughed and laughed.

As is typical on the 767-300, passengers could choose between four different films on their personal video units. I opted for the Perfect Storm but didn’t really watch all that much of it because I spent most of the time kibitzing with my seat mate. Later in the flight, I watched the last 10 minutes of Chicken Run. UA DID remember to load noise cancellation headsets on this flight. They were one of the original models (the head piece of the new ones seem more rounded) which was fine with me. Meal service started with one of UA’s best appetizers, a plate containing hefty chunks of lox. I scarfed it down and when the hapless FA wandered towards the back with another plate that appeared to be lonely and orphaned, I scarfed that one down too. She didn’t know what hit her.

The main meal itself was OK but the meat was overcooked, as is typical. I obediently followed the FAs suggestions for the wines and eventually wound up drinking both of the reds because they ran out of one of the selections. About an hour before landing, as the cabin grew dark, I began working on this trip report but was interrupted by another interesting conversation with my seat mate and we began chatting about FlyerTalk. She asked me if I was on the internet right now so as punishment, I made her read all of my last trip report, which I conveniently had available in Word format.

A little while later, the FA wandered by and soon she and my seat mate began showing each other copious pictures of their friends and family. This eventually evolved into a massive display of jewelry, as both of the young women were very well adorned (no I don’t mean THAT way). I was feeling kind of “left out” of things at this point, so I insisted that they let me show off my Casio watch.

As we began our approach into SFO, the FA ran over and presented both of us with a bottle of wine, which I added to the two others already in my carryon. All in all, it was a very nice flight and I thanked the FA profusely for her attentive service and for putting up with me. I have recently learned to try to do this well before we land because often my FA is not standing in the vicinity of the door as I exit.

One problem, however, is that she forgot to serve the Godiva chocolates! She explained that they forgot to load them so I mustered the best fake sorrowful face that I could and began to blot tears from my eyes. It didn’t work, however, because both she and my seatmate burst out laughing. A few minutes later, I spotted a different FA stealthily sneaking through the cabin, hiding a box of Godiva’s in the crook of his arm. I have heard stories of FA’s sneaking out with some of the goodies originally intended for passengers and was quite convinced this is what was occurring. Not being bashful, I was about to say something but my seatmate urged restraint so I let it pass. Thereby proving that a pretty women can get a guy to do just about anything.

We pulled into the far end of terminal 8 about a half hour late and I waived goodbye to my seat mate as she hugged her boyfriend by the gate. I soon settled into the corner of the 1K room, where I plugged in my computer and then shuttled between there and the RCC so that I could stoke up on diet coke. One casual observation is that lately I think that UA is providing more munchies than they used to. In addition to the usual Tillamook cheese and crackers, there was quite a bit of fruit (apples, oranges and bananas) and in reasonable quantities – not just ornamental. As is often the case, my 7:42 sh*ttle flight was delayed but only by a half hour. Having quite a bit to drink at this point, I was feeling quite fine so I leaned back with my feet up, drinking diet coke from a Styrofoam cup, listening to MP3s. I was really getting into the “swing” of things until the other guests in the 1K room complained that my rhythm was shaking their little cubicles too much

On the sh*ttle to PDX, I was once again blessed with an interesting seat mate and a very friendly FA. It turns out that my seat mate currently lives in New Rochelle, NY, which is the town next to where I spent most of my formative years, Mt Vernon. And for every one of my bad jokes and peculiar stories he matched me with harrowing tales of travel, mostly in various parts the former Soviet Union and its descendants (and antecedents).

For example, one day he found himself in Almaty (capital of Kazakstan), booked on a flight on a small Uzbek airline heading to Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, situated on the old silk road. He entered a YAK40 in a state of great disrepair (the plane, not him) and sat next to a very proper and well dressed older British gentleman. They could not help but notice that carpet was so loose that it formed waves in the center, almost enough for surfing. Noticing that all of the seats in the first few rows were tipped over, the British fellow asked the FA if they were being saved but she said they were all just broken.

As the plane began to slowly gain momentum during take off, light fixtures began to rapidly descend from the ceiling and came crashing to the floor. Shards of ceiling were scattered everywhere. Although take off was still under way, the FA came scurrying over to pick up the largest pieces and reinsert them into the ceiling. The older fellow had an absolutely horrified look on his face. Once the plane leveled off a bit, he called over the FA and asked, his face still ashen and his voice still shaken, “ I could not help but notice that this plane is not in the best of shape. Do these crash often?”

The FA thought about the question for a moment, and calmly and accurately replied, “No sir, only once!”

FYI, I think “Uzbekistan Airways” also flies out of JFK.

And so ended the trip to PDX. We pulled in a half hour late but the Thrifty shuttle was waiting for me so I managed to get home a bit after 10:0PM. I have four days of recuperation on the ground and then hit the road on Monday, November 20, to visit my parents in Boca Raton and do a little bass fishing on the golf course.

Thanks for the excellent report! Just goes to show that there is NO such thing as too much detail in these trip reports! This should keep me smiling throughout the day!

Great reports, Larry...