Day 1 Philippines 2011/12

What a day so far and I think it is far from over. Got up at 3 am and Linda drove me to the airport. Very quiet there and the Alaska Airlines check-in lanes weren't even open. When they did open at 4:15 or so, I was directed to another area for international check-in. TSA was very fast and off to McDonlad's for breakfast. Next the attendants were late in arriving and after de-icing, we finally left the gate 25 minutes late. No problem getting to Seattle and from D3 to satellite S and getting ticketed. Soon we were on the plane and they finally announced a maintenance problem. Much later we found out the main computer wasn't talking to the back-up computer. So we sat on the tarmac for the regulation 3 hours and then deplaned. So here we sit in the terminal 4 hours after the scheduled departure with NO word on what the plan is. It appears we will wait until this plane is fixed. There is no backup. The crew needs to get back to Incheon in order to fly back here tomorrow and then back again. Oh well, it's my vacation and has started with an adventure.

Philippine Daily Journal

I'm trying to decide whether to use this blog or Facebook Notes for my daily journal while in the Philippines. I'm thinking I'll use this because I can intermix photos with the dialog. Can't wait to go!

WUMB

Listening to WUMB public radio from UMASS Boston. It plays the music I love and the world would be an ugly place without it and stations like it. I hope they can all survive the Republican budget cuts!

Yesterday

Yesterday was a good day. Nothing more special than celebrating 4 years free of prostate cancer with a doctor appointment and PSA of 0.06. Anything under 1 is good and I've been consistently either 0.04 or 0.06. Tuesday is one year since my last chemo treatment and beginning of remission. So I guess I like seeing June come and go. Better than Christmas in a sense!

Acoustic Switch

The WSJ reports today that the use of an acoustic switch while not required by the US may have prevented the blowout now slinging oil toward the fragile ecosystems in South Louisiana and Alabama. An acoustic switch is another layer of safety that has never been tested but is in common use in the North Sea. Obviously the primary switch isn't going to work and it is impossible to tell if an acoustic switch would have worked. For the savings of $500,000 by not having the acoustic switch, we now have a multi-billion dollar disaster occurring.

The oil industry is going to catch hell and off-shore drilling may be at risk because of $500,000. We recall thousands of cribs because 13 children have died in them but we don't have brains enough to mandate a third level of well safety. Oh, there will be a lot of Congressional hearings on this disaster for the usual theatrics but it's tough to fix a bad haircut or an entire Southern coast of the US covered with oil.

Friendship(s)

Friendships are strange and rarely last through life. I had childhood friends, college friends, army friends, banking friends. I haven't had much contact, if any, over the last many years with any of them.

I have friends in the various places we've lived. I have friends gained through geocaching. Once 3 of us were nearly inseparable and now we only talk occasionally.

I have Facebook friends I have never met. They've been important at one time or another but we've never had drinks and I only know what they want to share on FB. Some of my closest cyber friends came from Whole Wheat Radio chat. The chat is virtually gone now and so we occasionally talk through FB. One of those friends is actively alienating friends though I doubt he knows.

So friendships are strange and in the end only last while we have interests in common. BFF is a commonly used abbreviation but we should drop the last "F" or add a "?".

So why all the effort to have friends? Maybe I'll think about that and answer later.

Time to get back.

It's time to prioritize what is important to me. First, I need to spend some time here each day to comment about something or think out loud. Another is to get on that guitar each day. Less time spent reading what others have posted around the web and investing more time in writing and playing the guitar will be much more satisfactory.

I read last week that research shows that obese men are 58% more likely to die from a recurrence of Prostate Cancer. So my third goal is to loose weight by doing what I like to do: ride my bike and geocache.

Let's see how I do.