Beaches

USA Today.com Column


Several readers let me know they viewed the TV
interview with Gregory Mantell posted at
Media Links. Two
people wrote to tell me how unexpected and funny
they thought my response was to the "favorite
airport" question. If you didn’t see the
interview and would like to, here is the direct
link once again:
Gregory Mantell Show

Through my "Ask The Captain" column at
usatoday.com, I’ve received and answered the
question at least a few times regarding my
favorite and least-favorite airports to fly into.
Regarding my favorite airports, it's simply no
contest and easy to answer. If there is a great
beach nearby, and especially if the approach
brings us in over beautiful tropical waters, it
qualifies as a favorite airport. That includes
any of the Hawaiian Islands, Miami, Puerto Rico
and even Southern California with its relatively
cooler water temperatures.

The airport itself is really of virtually no
consequence to me. The exception is if the
terminal has exceptionally good food, like many
of the airports in Europe with their bakeries,
grocery stores and wonderful cafes and
restaurants. Everywhere I fly, especially since
transitioning to wide-bodies, has nice, long
runways and sophisticated navigational
capabilities, so the approaches are somewhat
standard and not an issue.

I really don't have a least favorite airport per
se, but laying over at places with really, really
long drives from the airport to the hotel can be
tiring if done too many times in a row. Osaka's
airport, for example, is about an hour away from
the downtown hotel. Both London and Munich are
long drives, but Frankfurt is really quick (about
15 minutes) and so is Narita (also about 15
minutes).

Obviously, to me it's all about the layover, and
that's true of many pilots. However, sometimes
pilots will talk about the fun approaches into La
Guardia and Reagan Airports. La Guardia has an
interesting visual approach that swings us in a
relatively tight loop around Shea Stadium, while
the Potomac Visual Approach from the north at
Reagan has us following the winding river, right
past all the monuments and the White House. The
runways at both airports are relatively short and
it's challenging as well as entertaining to fly
both these approaches. Last time I flew into
either airport was in the A-319/A-320. B-777's
don't service either of these airports, but
utilize JFK in New York and Dulles for
Washingtond, D.C.

On another note, this week it was an honor and a
privilege to attend a luncheon for the Board of
Directors of CIPA (Colorado Independent
Publishers Association). I was invited as a
guest along with about half a dozen other authors
who won "Evvy" awards in 2004 in our respective
book categories (autobiography was my category).
After winning the Evvy Award, some of our books
were selected for the "CIPA STAR" program, which
establishes a solid relationship between authors
and all the Barnes & Nobles statewide. There
were some representatives from B & N there as
well.

I was previously able to establish a relationship
with Barnes & Noble on my own and even had a book
signing at one of them here in the Denver area.
My books are in some B & N's on both coasts, but
otherwise not widely distributed other than
through Amazon.com, my own site, some airport
stores and other scattered bookstores such as
Borders. This new honor provides me a solid
footing in Colorado B& N bookstores.

There was a speaker at the pre-lunch meeting as
well, from Amazon.com. Although I sell a lot of
copies of my book through Amazon, it's easy to
forget that this is a real company with actual
people as opposed to some virtual establishment
where nothing is "real." The speaker gave us
some insight on various Amazon programs for
authors and some upcoming programs coming soon,
like a marketplace for E-Books and On-Demand
printing capabilities for authors who want to
print books only after they're actually ordered
by customers. I mention this for some of my
readers who are either aspiring or actual
authors.

My next book will not be self-published, but will
be through a mainstream publisher in New York.
Originally scheduled for publication this coming
June, the schedule has been pushed back just a
wee bit as we see how my current situation
resolves itself in a few months. I'm a very fast
writer, so when my agent, publisher and I all
come to some agreement as to the content of the
next book, it shouldn’t take long to produce a
manuscript for it (she said, with great
optimism).


And with that,
Until Next Time,
Maintain Airspeed,

Cap'n Meryl

www.fromthecockpit.com
www.flyingfearless.com
www.fromthecockpit.com/profile.htm(keynote speaker)