Honolulu

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM THE FRIENDLY SKIES OF CAP’N MERYL! http://www.usatoday.com/travel/columnist/getline/2004-11-22-ask-the-captain_x.htm Above is the link to this week’s edition of “Ask The Captain” published by USAToday.com. Response is still very heavy and as always I have to apologize if you’ve written and not gotten a response due to overwhelming volume. I do appreciate all your nice comments. My flight this week took me from Chicago to San Francisco, Honolulu, Tokyo, back to Honolulu and home to Denver. I hadn’t been to Waikiki Beach since my DC-10 days in the late 80’s and was long overdue for my Hawaiian beach fix. Getting there twice on this trip was an unexpected bonus. We had three pilots this trip; I was the captain, I had one “flying pilot” and one “relief pilot”, required when a flight is over eight hours. (Two relief pilots are due if the flight is scheduled over twelve hours.) The flight from Honolulu to Tokyo was the longest segment at eight hours, fifty minutes. It’s always fun to take a break, go watch a movie and snack on some first-class goodies: ice cream sundaes, cheese platters, shrimp cocktail, etc. Not overeating on the plane is a serious challenge for some of us (that would mean me). Being on reserve for a global airline is such an interesting experience. In the course of about six hours, I was told I might be assigned to a charter consisting of a presidential press aircraft flying to Sao Paulo, Chile and Bogata, Columbia, following President Bush around. Then I was told I might wind up flying a trip out of JFK that wound up in Tokyo and Singapore. Ultimately, I was assigned the trip I described above to Honolulu and Tokyo. When you’re flying an aircraft like the B-777 which goes all over the world, it’s exciting to know you might wind up just about anyplace on the globe. Not knowing where in advance is, to me, part of the fun of the job. On the way back from Tokyo we took off at night, flew right by Midway Island and into a very red dawn. The air was crystal clear and we could see all the main islands of Hawaii as we approached. It was just spectacular. When a Honolulu controller quizzed me on how the flight from Japan was, my response was, “Almost too cool for words” and I meant it. Passing through LAX, I stopped by the newsstand in Terminal 7 and signed some books at their request. Several of you have asked about getting signed copies of “The World At My Feet” either for yourselves or as Christmas gifts, so here’s what I can do if you’re interested: 1. If you have a book already and would like it signed, send it along with a check or money order for $2.00 for regular mail or $4.00 for Priority Mail. 2. If you do not yet have the book, send a check for $20 for a book sent regular mail and $22.00 Priority Mail. That includes the $17.95 price of the book. 3. In either case, please enclose a note stating for whom book should be personalized—the exact first name (and last if desired). 4. Check or money order should be made out to: WFS, Inc. I can’t take credit cards. 5. Mail to: WFS, Inc. c/o Meryl Getline 1253 Santa Fe Trail Elizabeth, CO 80107 If you would like to simply order an un-personalized copy of “The World At My Feet” the quickest way is still to go directly to my distributor, either through my website www.fromthecockpit.com, at bottom of home page, or by simply calling 1-800-345-6665. Be sure to ask for the “subscribers’ special” and mention this means free shipping either in the comments section of order form or when speaking to the person taking your order. Shipping is normally $4.95. Going through me you’ll pay shipping as stated above, but you’ll also get your copy personalized. Please keep your questions coming, either through my own website www.fromthecockpit.com or through my column at USAToday.com/travel where a link is provided for you. Due to the response I’ve gotten for the last couple of weeks, I’m leaving the next section intact for now. Even more of you than I imagined have books or projects of your own you’re trying to go public with. Just skip this last part if you’ve no interest in the business aspect of how I’ve gotten my book into the marketplace. My web guy, also known as my Other Half—-Al—-is working on a new site for my publishing company “Lorrie Press,” named for our chattering lorrie, Houdini. (A lorrie is a red, medium-sized tropical bird of the parrot family and they talk a LOT as the name implies.) There will be information there for those of you interested in getting something published and how to promote products or causes without spending even a dime on advertising, etc. My new site will have some resources I can share with those of you who are interested in writing your own books, or who want to promote other products, but one link I can give you right now is this one: http://www.nationalpublicitysummit.com/info.html?10147 If you click on this link and scroll down, you will see a picture of me and a quote. The picture is a still shot taken from a local TV interview done at DIA (Denver International Airport) promoting a local book-signing. Those spikes in back of me are the “tents” at DIA. I cannot speak highly enough of Steve and Bill Harrison, who own RTIR (Radio-TV Interview Report), a publication read industry-wide by media people looking for interesting people and subjects. Bill and Steve are the most honest, straightforward, communicative people I have ever dealt with. They ALWAYS over-deliver and this event was far more than I could have hoped for. This is how I came to be contacted for an appearance on The View. I spoke directly with a producer at this event last July in New York. The USAToday.com column is something I was able to negotiate on my own, but the “Publicity Summit,” put on twice per year, is just phenomenal. This is the event which puts you face to face with producers at The Oprah Winfrey Show, The View, other national TV shows, many prominent magazines and dozens of radio talk show hosts. I have done at least 40 interviews of one kind or another since attending this “Publicity Summit.” I’ve had to turn down some of them for lack of time. This event is pricey (although not with relation to what it’s worth) but well worth the price of admission as it lets you cut through all the red tape and talk directly to media decision-makers. Whether you have a product now or are just working on one, it’s worth taking a look at attending this Summit. There is an opportunity for a refund if you get there and decide it’s not for you after all, but I haven’t heard of anyone asking for a refund. If you have questions about publishing independently, or about how to become really good at getting free publicity, go ahead and shoot me those questions. They may not be answered immediately but will give me a good basis for the content at my new website. Until next time, Maintain Airspeed Cap’n Meryl