Paul & Libby's World of Travel » Business Travel

Home… again.

Paul — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 23:40:47 +0000

Well, I’m finally on my way back to Tampa to remain there for more than 10 hours, unlike my earlier ‘visit’ home this week. This has been a really long week… between travels in/from Europe on Mon-Wed and work/meetings Thur-Fri.

When I sit back and reflect on it, it’s actually fairly amazing that one can be in Slovenia, Croatia, or Italy in the first half of a week, travel back to Florida in a single day, get on a plane a couple of hours later and travel halfway across a different continent — all in relative comfort and safety. In most of the span of human history such a sojourn would have been physically impossible, if not utterly inconceivable. It’s really just amazing. A friend of mine once shared a funny (and ironically true) YouTube clip from Conan O’Brien’s former show of Louis CK pointing out that “everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy.” Such seems to be the paradox and state of the modern human condition. Oh well, I suppose that’s at least good for self-help authors and psychopharmacologists. The economy can use the stimulus in any form, I suppose.

In any case, I plan to spend my weekend with Libby and Emerson in an entirely unproductive fashion.

P.S. It looks like my flight is delayed due to a problem with the plane: too much fuel. It takes an hour to pump it off. Amazing. Yes. Happy. No.

JAL to join Delta in SkyTeam?

Paul — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:37:52 +0000

A number of news sources (including this BusinessWeek article) are reporting this morning that Japan Airlines is close to partnering with Delta and joining the SkyTeam Alliance. This would please me greatly as it would improve the scope of SkyTeam in Asia (good for me as a Delta FF, especially since Asia travel will be in our future). And, it would be a stick in the eye of American Airlines, which is my least favorite major carrier (and the only that I refuse to fly).

Two birds. One stone.

Off to Minneapolis…

Paul — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:50:51 +0000

We depart for Minneapolis today. I’m going to try to update the blog more as I would for a vacation both to give a sense of my life in Minneapolis when I’m on business and to record the visit with Libby. So, expect daily posts for the next couple of days.

Traveling to the Twin Cities

Paul — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 02:49:33 +0000

I recently confirmed plans for Libby’s first visit to the Twin Cities.

We’ll be departing Tampa on the afternoon of Wednesday, October 7, and returning on Sunday, October 11. Like I usually do, we’ll take direct flights between TPA and MSP. We’ll also be sitting up front, as I managed to book First Class upgrades for both of us using my Delta Platinum Medallion certificates. (Finally, put to use… as I never cash these certificates in when flying solo because I normally get upgraded anyway.)

We’ll stay at my home-away-from-home, the Radisson University Hotel (Minneapolis).

I’m really excited for Libby to (finally) see Minneapolis and meet my co-workers.

Blogging from 36,000 feet…

Paul — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:02:31 +0000

I’m writing this brief post on a Delta 757 at cruising altitude somewhere over southern Georgia. I’m using the GoGo Wireless Inflight Internet service on this “butt shaker” of a flight (due to “convective activity”—fancy pilot speak for “thunderstorms”—along the flight path).

I got a free 30+ day pass from Delta as a Platinum Medallion member of SkyMiles. So, I thought I’d check it out. The access is actually pretty good… fine for checking e-mail and browsing regular web sites. Indeed, it’s much better than the Internet access I’ve “enjoyed” (cough) on cruise ships. And, at $9.95, it’s not even a bad deal for a long flight.

GoGo Inflight: two thumbs up.

Now, if we could only find some smooth air…

Oh well, this is my last leg of business travel before our vacation starts on Friday!