SUZY’S ZOO

FROM CAP’N MERYL

Link to this week’s column at USAToday.com/travel:

USA Today.com

SUZY’S ZOO

PERSONAL NOTE: It was with great sadness that I learned of
the death of James Doohan (Scotty from Sky Trek) last week
who, coincidentally, is mentioned in this very Update. As
it happens, I wrote the Update, then learned of his death
just two days later. I only met him once but as you can
imagine, he made quite an impression on me. I doubt he’d
remember meeting me, but I’ll never forget meeting him. He
had no Scottish accent at all, which surprised me because he
was so good at it in Star Trek. He was actually Canadian.

Note: If you missed last week’s Update, you can find it at
www.fromthecockpit.com/Blogg. This week’s Update is a
continuation of sorts.

After my five day trip to Tokyo and Taipei, and after
spending just one day at home in Denver, I hopped a flight
to San Diego to help celebrate my Dad’s 88th birthday. The
flight was completely full so I rode in the cockpit of a
B-737. I added a new Album to my Photo Gallery and you’ll
see a few pictures of the approach into San Diego along with
a picture of the really friendly and hospitable flight crew.
There’s also a picture of my Dad and me together. The link
appears later in this Update.

The night before his birthday, just a few hours after I
arrived, we went to Nati’s in Ocean Beach, always my
favorite Mexican restaurant. I recognized one of the
waitresses from a few decades ago when I was growing up as
my parents would take the family to eat there often. I’d be
interested to know if any of my San Diego readers are
familiar with this restaurant.

The next night, for my Dad’s birthday dinner, we went to a
restaurant on Shelter Island (Brigantine) for steak and
seafood, and then adjourned to our house in Pt. Loma for my
Mom’s from-scratch chocolate cake. This was a lousy trip to
try and “behave” with regard to diet and I’m sorry to say I
didn’t. It’s just not fair—so much good food—so little
time.

Next day it was time to meet the artist who will be
illustrating what I hope becomes the first of several
children’s books. Suzy Spafford’s work is available all
over the world. My parents spotted her art in Europe
many times on their travels and I see it all the time just
about everywhere. In fact, I took my Dad to the drugstore
to do some errands during my visit home and saw a huge rack
of greeting cards--all Suzy’s. To meet Suzy of Suzy’s Zoo
please go to:
www.suzyszoo.com.

She invited me over to her house which is also where her art
studio is. She prepared the most wonderful salad and even
baked cookies. Her husband Ray joined us for lunch and you
can meet them both in the Denver – San Diego Album at this
address if you haven’t already.

San Diego Album

So how did I meet Suzy? Well, as it happens, she went to
the same high school my three older brothers and I
attended—Point Loma High School in San Diego. Although my
oldest brother is nine years older than I am and she was in
his class, my family knew her for her art even then. In
fact, I am not a collector of art at all; what I have on my
walls at home are pictures of Al The Web Guy’s family and my
own along with a few signed celebrity photos I’ve gathered
(James Doohan—A.K.A.Scotty of Star Trek, Arte Johnson of the
old “Laugh-In” and Jim Varney of the “Hey Vern!” commercials
and some campy movies. I met them all when we appeared on
the same talk-show up in Alaska years ago.)

But I digress. (What a surprise.) There are two exceptions
to my statement that I have only family photos on my walls:
I have two small framed pictures by none other than— Suzy
Spafford! They’re dated 1967 and must have been given to me
as a gift.

But there’s more. When my book “The World at my Feet”
(click here for synopsis and audio clip:
Audio Clip ) came out last year, I
received lots of nice letters from readers. One of them
wrote me a few times, and then wrote that he thought I might
know his boss—Suzy Spafford! She had thumbed through my
book and seen a picture of my brother Ned, with whom she
attended high school and was involved with in some school
activities.

Next thing, I started communicating directly with her and
showing her some of my poetry, and from there we decided to
collaborate together on some children’s books. For my new
readers, to see the first poem we’re working on, called “Ode
to a Jellyfish” (written after I got stung on a Kona
layover) see this link:
Jellyfish Audio Clip (Audio available)

The second poem is pretty long but is likely to be our
second project. For “The Irritated Oyster” see this link:
Oyster Audio clip (Audio available)

Because of a slight spraining of my back (pilots are
especially prone to this with the heavy flight bags we
carry) along with some other issues, I have stayed on the
ground all this time. I gotta tell you—I don’t like it. It
gives Al The Web Guy and me time to spend together which we
often don’t have, so that part’s good, but I think I’m going
into withdrawal or something. If I don’t get to fly at
least once a week it just doesn’t feel right.

Hopefully I’ll be airborne again soon and will be able to
write something interesting about a new trip. If not, I’ll
dig up something from my past—probably something from my ten
years living in Alaska.

For now I just wanted to keep you up to date about all my
upcoming projects, of which there are many. Coming soon,
for instance, is a free teleseminar which will be offered to
my subscribers. Here’s how it’ll work: Along the lines of
my “Ask The Captain” column at usatoday.com/travel,
participants will be able to email me specific questions
about life as a pilot, specifics about the airplane I fly,
things that may worry you or that you’ve wondered about when
you’ve flown, etc. Al The Web Guy will join me so you can
meet him, too. Just an informal chat.

If you already know you’d be interested in such an event,
please feel free to shoot me a note--just hit “reply” and
put “count me in” in the subject line. Later, if we decide
to go ahead with this, there will be a formal sign-up
process so we can reserve the correct number of phone lines.

For now…

Until Next Time,
Maintain Airspeed!
Cap’n Meryl
http://www.fromthecockpit.com
http://www.flyingfearless.com

A YEN FOR MACDONALD’S

FROM CAP’N MERYL

Link to this week’s column at USAToday.com/travel:

Ask The Captain

In my last two Weekly Updates I told you about a recent trip
from Chicago to Tokyo and Taipei. That was a long trip with
over thirty hours of flight time and I didn’t fly for the
whole week after that.

So I’ll tell you a little bit about that last morning in
Tokyo. I woke up knowing I had to have something from
MacDonald’s for breakfast. I haven’t been to the one in
Narita for months but I had the urge, so I hopped the free
bus that runs from our layover hotel to Narita about 10-15
minutes away. I just don’t do well with Japanese food,
especially at breakfast.

I had forgotten that recently one stop was added to the bus
route since I last rode it and which has always been nonstop
into town, and it happens to be at the hotel of my friend
Captain Lim of Malaysia Airlines. (Meet Captain Lim, if you
haven’t already, at http://www.AskCaptainLim.com.) He and I have
compared notes and have agreed we’ll try to hook up
somewhere on the planet if and when our schedules ever put
us at the same approximate latitude/longitude at the same
time. If we ever actually succeed in doing this you can bet
I’ll be write about it so you can join us—well, you know
what I mean.

Of course Captain Lim wasn’t there, but at least we solved
the transportation problem since it’s too far to walk
between hotels. Malaysia Airlines crews stay just across
the street from us in Frankfurt and in fact sometimes our
crews stay in the same hotel they do when our own hotel
fills up. We also both fly to several other cities around
the globe, so I feel confident sooner or later we’ll be able
to meet in person. What remains to be seen is whether it
will be over Wiener schnitzel in Germany, Shrimp Tempura in
Japan or something else entirely in some other potentially
exotic locale.

For now, I knew he wasn’t in Narita and stayed on the bus
into town. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way I
realized I’d left my Japanese yen back in my room. I didn’t
think they took credit cards at MacDonald’s in Japan (I was
right) but I knew where there was an ATM inside a
convenience store near where the bus stops and right across
the narrow street from MacDonald’s.

What I found out was this ATM didn’t work an anything but
Japanese credit cards. Bummer! I managed to explain my
plight to the clerk, a young man, who took my arm and led me
outside to an enclosed booth I had assumed was a bus stop.
Inside, however, was an international ATM machine.

I thanked him profusely and put my card in, only to discover
that the smallest amount one could get was $100 worth of
yen. I had been thinking $20, but, what the heck, I come
here a lot and I was really getting irritated with myself; I
had no desire to waste a whole hour riding back to the hotel
and then have to come back again. So I stuck my bank card
into the ATM, assuming I would be issued ten 1,000 Yen notes,
but again I assumed wrong. Out came a single note for
10,000 yen.

I once saw a pilot pay for a piece of toast (at my airline’s
training center cafeteria) with a hundred dollar bill and
swore I’d never do that to a cashier. So I went back into
the convenience store and showed the same clerk the 10,000
Yen note, trying to looking as helpless as possible. This
wasn’t difficult since I felt like a complete fool.

He laughed and gave me ten 1,000 Yen notes, and with that,
FINALLY I went back across the street to MacDonald’s and got
my breakfast sandwich. And you want to know the really
scary part? It was WORTH it! It was hot, the coffee was
hot, and I can’t remember the last time someone at
MacDonald’s bowed to me in the U.S. The kids working there
all bowed respectfully and I bowed right back. What a
polite country!

I once wrote another piece about this very MacDonald’s
called “Mama-Sans and Big Macs.” If you care to read it,
you can find it on my Blog by clicking here:
www.fromthecockpit.com/Blogg Once you get there, click on
January 2005 and scroll down until you see this title, or
just click on the title which should appear on the right
side of the page.

When I returned home to Denver from this trip, it was time
almost immediately to head for San Diego to help celebrate
my Dad’s 88th birthday and to meet the artist with whom I’ll
be collaborating for some children’s books. In the interest
of not being overly long-winded (who me?) I’ll tell you
about all that next time. You can see some shots of my
flight to San Diego including the pilots, my Dad and me on
his birthday and Suzy and her husband in my Photo Gallery’s
latest Album addition called “San Diego to Denver.” Click
here:

San Diego Denver

And with that…

Until Next Time,
Maintain Airspeed!
Cap’n Meryl
http://www.fromthecockpit.com
http://www.flyingfearless.com

OVER THE EAST CHINA SEA – PART TWO

USA Today Column


Note: For ferret-lovers – there are three new pictures of
“the boys” in the At Home Album. Click here and don’t
forget to click on each photo to enlarge and see the
captions:

The Ferret Brothers

If you missed Part One of Over The East China Sea, you can
read it at:
www.fromthecockpit.com/Blogg

So where’d we leave off last time? Oh, yes. There were
hundreds of fishing boats lighting up the sea beneath us, a
spectacular sight as we flew from Japan south to Taipei. The
East China Sea was to our right and the dark waters of the
North Pacific to our left, alive with the reflection of the
stars above.

It was busy coming into Taipei. We flew south along the
coast for several miles just offshore before turning inland
to line up with our runway and land to the north. That
worked out just fine for us tourist-types (that would be
me).

Our layover in Taipei was short—just under fourteen hours.
We were picked up by a small bus with our Tokyo and Hong
Kong-based flight attendants and went to our layover hotel
about twenty minutes from the airport. We use a different
hotel for our longer layovers.

Our hotel was located in a busy, dirty, old-looking
neighborhood, even though the hotel itself was quite elegant
with some magnificent Chinese artifacts in the lobby.

About a block prior to arriving at our hotel I saw what
looked like an entire family enjoying the summer evening
from lawn chairs, just off the street, with a large table
full of pineapples. This was at about 10:30 PM or so.

Once in my room, I noticed a rather long list of rules and
was intrigued. Among the rules were:

1. No illegal toys allowed in room.
2. No narcotics sales from room.
3. No contraband of any kind in room.
4. No mixing of drugs in room.

But this was my favorite rule and it is verbatim:

“Guests with contagious diseases and insanity will be
declined.”

I immediately pictured the following scene at the front
desk:

A very dignified Englishman is registering as a guest. (By
the way, if we we’re “guests” then how come our rooms
aren’t free? Just a thought.)

“Good evening, Sir. Checking in?” says the clerk.

“Why yes, thank you,” says this gentleman.

“By the way,” the clerk asks casually, “do you have any
contagious diseases and are you insane?”

The Englishman is really not paying much attention as he’s
already busy filling out the requisite Guest Registration
Form.

“Yes, quite,” he answers absently.

The clerk pounces. “Then I’m sorry, Sir, but we’ll have to
decline your visit. We hear the Holiday Inn down the street
is very nice.” And our English gent is booted right out the
front door as the clerk enjoys a good laugh.

Maybe our Englishman can pick up a nice fresh pineapple on
his way to the Holiday Inn to contemplate what exactly went
wrong and, just possibly, he’ll pay more attention next
time.

By the time we got to our rooms, and allowing for a pickup
about two hours prior to departure, there wasn’t much time
left to do anything but sleep. We had a daytime flight back
to Tokyo and I wanted to get some pictures but it was very
hazy, so mostly what I got was pictures of the airport
itself and one of the countryside just north of the airport
on departure. You can see all the pictures from this trip
in my new album called “Chicago – Tokyo – Taipei. Click
here for this album:

Chicago-Tokyo-Taipei

Once in Tokyo I went for my usual swim in the hotel pool,
followed up by some relaxation in the Japanese baths. These
large pools of extremely hot water always knock me right
out.

The next day it was time to leave and head back to the U.S.
On the leg from Tokyo to Chicago, we took off just after
2:00 PM. Several hours into the flight it became dark as
the sun set behind us. The night sky was so luminous with
stars that at first glance it looked like a wide band of
stratus was above us but that was, in fact, the Milky Way as
it looks at 35,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean in the middle
of the night.

I said out loud, “I wish there were some satellites
tonight,” and no sooner had I said this than I spotted one
by looking as straight up as I could out my side window.
The light was so bright I thought it was another airplane at
first, but it was, indeed, a satellite. I’ve never seen one
anywhere near this bright and as we watched it travel down
the night sky, it lost the reflection from the sun and faded
to where we could only see it by looking slight away from
it. Then it faded altogether.

“Okay, now I need my requisite shooting star,” I joked, and,
no kidding, there was a shooting star just then—the one and
only for the evening that either of us saw.
The dark sky lasted about forty-five minutes and then the
dawn broke with a deep indigo color at first, followed by a
beautiful rosy flush.

As if that wasn’t quite gorgeous enough for this audience of
two pilots (our two relief pilots were in the cabin on their
break), a crescent moon arose. Moonrises and sunrises
happen unbelievably fast when you’re flying east. I
commented to my copilot that all that was missing was the
little boy sitting on the end of the moon fishing. He
laughed, recognizing that I was referring to the logo of
Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks.

We flew toward the dawn and into the light of day before our
relief pilots took over, and when I went on my break I
contemplated how I would write about this trip. On this
particular airplane, instead of crew bunks, which we have on
some planes, we did what I always refer to as “pitching a
tent in first class.” There are two first-class seats
reserved for the pilots on these long flights. In addition
to being the regular first-class seat which reclines into a
bed, there is a heavy curtain we draw completely around it
which curves out slightly so there is actually room to stand
inside this little area completely concealed from everyone.
Of course, anyone could poke their head in at any time but
generally this isn’t a problem.

When our break was over it was time to land in Chicago. The
flying crew (as opposed to the relief pilots) usually takes
the last break so when we’re off our break there’s nothing
left to do but land. I like this arrangement just fine but
it always seems like such an abrupt end to a long flight.

And that was my week. Home in time for the fourth of July.
As I write this, it’s July 6th. I’ll be whipping out to
San Diego this weekend to help celebrate my Dad’s 88th
birthday on Monday and meeting with the artist who will be
illustrating my first children’s book based upon my “Ode to
a Jellyfish.” (If you’re unfamiliar with it, click here:
www.fromthecockpit.com/jellyfish.htm and note there’s
audio. I wrote this after I got stung on a Kona layover
some months ago. To read the Update I wrote about it, click
here:

Jellyfish Poem

http://www.fromthecockpit.com

http://www.flyingfearless.com



And with that…

Until Next Time,
Maintain Airpseed!
Cap’n Meryl


***********************************************************

OVER THE EAST CHINA SEA

FROM CAP’N MERYL

Link to this week’s column at USAToday.com/travel:
Ask The Captain

OVER THE EAST CHINA SEA – PART ONE

First of all, I’d like to thank the many of you who
responded to my quest for information on dealing with
children who are afraid of flying and ways to prepare them
for that first flight. I will be better armed now when
asked at interviews or when people write to ask. Some of
the suggestions included taking children to the airport to
observe planes taking off and landing and letting them get
used to the noise, visiting an aviation museum, meeting the
pilots (my personal favorite for anxious adults as well),
considering very mild doses of Benedryl (only after checking
with your doctor) to help a really spooked child relax if
very stressed, distractions such as puzzles and audio
programs, and more.

Before we start this please note I went ahead and added a
new Album called “Chicago-Tokyo-Taipei. I only got a few
shots of Taipei as we landed at night and it was so hazy the
next morning the pictures were unidentifiable. I did get
some spectacular shots enroute, though, of Alaska including
some glacier shots and a distant view of Mt. McKinley.
Here’s one of the glacial shots now:
Glacier

For the entire Album, go to www.fromthecockpit.com/gallery
and find the new Album on page two. Or, you can always just
click on “Last Uploads” when you get to the Photo Gallery.

When I last wrote, I was headed to Chicago from my Denver
home to “stand reserve” which means I had to rent a hotel
room (the airline pays when we’re flying trips, but they
don’t pay for hotels if we choose to commute). There were
no “open trips” and I anticipated sitting around for a few
days.

The first day in Chicago, I attended a class to teach us
pilots how to bid for our trips each month. Everything is
awarded month by month according to how senior we are, but
there is a major change in our system and we had to attend a
four-hour computer class on how to go about it. Not much
fun but at least I got it over with. I even managed to
sneak a few emails to Al The Web Guy during the breaks as we
each had a computer to work with and were able to sign onto
the Internet.

Next day, with still no trips to fly, I headed out to O’Hare
to visit my airline’s medical facility. As an airline
captain I have to maintain an FAA first class physical which
is required every six months. Once a year an EKG is
required and the airline springs for that. So I went to our
medical facility, which is located among the hangars right
on the airfield, and got that out of the way. At one time,
a third physical was required each year, the third one being
a company physical, but thankfully that one went away as a
requirement so now it’s “only” two a year.

On the bus, which stops in our parking lots and airport
offices, I heard a flight attendant returning from a trip
ask another flight attendant where she had parked. “I
always park in London,” was her response.

The flight attendant who had asked laughed and said, “I’m in
Frankfurt.”

I really had no idea what any of that could possibly mean
but it became clear as the bus swung through the large
parking lot for our Chicago employees. The bus makes
several stops in the huge lots and each stop is labeled:
“Frankfurt,” “London,” “Tokyo,” etc. I wonder who it was
who added this whimsical touch to such a mundane event as
parking, but whoever it was I appreciate the humor of it.
At least it cleared up the flight attendants’ overheard
conversation.

The second night I started to be afraid I would sit around
Chicago for four days and go home without having flown at
all. That’s no good. I started checking our hotline every
few hours and in the middle of the night suddenly there was
a five day trip open to Tokyo and Taipei. I wasn’t
“eligible” for it exactly because I had only two more days
on reserve, but I called our crew desk and they obligingly
juggled some days off and the trip was mine! This meant
nobody else wanted the trip, nobody else had the right
combination of days to take it, or both.

The last time I flew to Taipei was in the late 1980’s on the
DC-10. At that time we relied heavily on HF radio
communications which are—generally speaking—just awful. You
can hear conversations going on with several different
communications facilities around the world at the same time
and, while intriguing to listen to a conversation half a
world away, there is always lots of static and sometimes
it’s hard to establish whether you’re talking to anybody at
all.

Things have changed, however, and the entire flight from
Tokyo to Taipei, which was just over two hours, was done on
very clear VHF frequencies with Japanese and Taiwanese
controllers and presented no problems at all. VHF is what
we use here in the United States and other heavily populated
areas of the world.

We were just cruising by the East China Sea and I was
telling my first officer about the first time I ever flew
the DC-10 from Bangkok to Taipei in the late eighties. We
were supposed to be over the South China Sea between Taiwan
and Mainland China, but when I looked out the window I saw
we were over what looked like a city and completely freaked
out.

At that time I was still a “plumber” which is what we called
flight engineers. This was very late at night and both the
captain and copilot were very quiet, staring straight ahead,
and I was hesitant to disturb their thoughts. After a few
moments, and considering the potentially hostile environment
I conjured up directly below us, I told the captain I
thought we had to be off course and told him why.

“How is it possible there are city lights down there when
we’re supposed to be over water?” I asked him. “We must be
off course.”

He looked out the window for a second and laughed, saying,
“That’s no city—that’s the Japanese fishing fleet!”

I looked again and couldn’t believe he was right, but he
was. There were thousands of boats. It looked like we were
over a city as big as the entire Los Angeles basin except
these lights were uniformly white. He told me I wasn’t the
first pilot who mistook the boats for a large city. What a
relief and what an incredible site!

In any case, as I said, I was just telling my first officer
about this when I spotted a cluster of boats about an hour
south of Japan—maybe about 100 boats or slightly fewer.

And then there were more—and more—and more—and next thing we
were looking at over a thousand boats all moored in close
proximity. This wasn’t nearly the size of the fleet I saw
that night as a DC-10 “plumber” but it was still impressive.

Under a moonless sky, the starlight was so fiercely bright
we could see the stars reflected on the dark waters of the
North Pacific to our east where there were no boats at all
as we continued toward Taipei.

To be continued in Part Two next week….
(In the interest of keeping these Updates down to a
reasonable size)

Until Next Time,
Maintain Airpseed!
Cap’n Meryl

http://www.fromthecockpit.com

http://www.flyingfearless.com