Well, it’s been a while, so I’ll offer an apology and an excuse. The apology is for allowing more than two weeks to slip by without a new blog. The excuse is that I was out of the country for 10 days (as if they don’t have internet access there). Anyway, with your permission, I’ll comment on some things that happened over the past 19 days.

Well, I understand there was an election. Just kidding – As mentioned in my last blog, I was one of those early voters. Unlike some, I did not have to endure a 3-hour wait to vote. Got in and out without any trouble. And we were home to watch the results roll in on Election Day. I will not allow this blog to become political, but I do want to make a couple of observations.

First, no matter which way you voted, you had to be touched by the scene in Chicago after Obama was declared the winner. It’s impossible for me, and I suspect for most of my readers, to understand what this means to African-Americans, but their tears of joy, and the excitement of other supporters, young and old, black and white, gives one hope for the future of this country, doesn’t it?

Second, and also no matter which way you voted, I think you had to be impressed by McCain’s concession speech. It was respectful and positive, and it made me think that he would have been much happier without all the negative campaigning that took place in the closing weeks, even if he “approved this message.”

Third, the reaction around the world is overwhelmingly positive. That may be more a reflection of the past eight years than any belief in what the next four/eight will bring, but if we can immediately start to repair the image of the US around the globe, that’s a good thing.

OK, enough on that. We were in Brazil for the entire World Series. Talk about a misnomer – “World Series.” I suspect that Japan and Cuba and Taiwan and Venezuela and some other countries might like a shot at that. But nonetheless, the Phillies and Rays battled for that title, even if TV ratings were historically bad. I did happen to see part of one game on ESPN International. It was interesting that ESPN had broadcast rights in South America, while it was on Fox in the US. It was also interesting that the audio was in Portuguese, but apparently some things just don’t translate well. So we heard things like, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, full count, blah, blah, blah, ” and “Blah, blah, blah, blah, strike three, blah, blah, blah.” Pardon me for blah-ing the Portuguese. It still made more sense than Tim McCarver does any more.

Let me conclude with an observation about traveling. While the service and amenities have steadily declined on US-based airlines, that is not true of foreign carriers. We flew on TAM, the Brazilian airline, from Miami to Manaus, a few days later from Manaus to Salvador, and finally from Salvador back to Miami. Every flight had food service, friendly flight attendants, and beverages, including beer, wine, and whiskey on the international flights. All of that was at no extra charge. And they didn’t hit us up for $15 per checked bag, or $25 for a second checked bag, or any of that stuff that American and Delta and USAirways and Continental and the rest all now find necessary (interesting that they implemented those fees when fuel costs were so high, but they’re not eliminating them now that fuel costs are about half as much as before).

There was one other notable difference, something I’ve seen every time I’ve flown on TAM to, from, or within Brazil. When it’s time to board the plane, they announce that the flight is now available for boarding. And everyone calmly walks on, finds their seats, and stows their carry-ons. They don’t do the board-by-rows thing, or assign everyone to boarding groups or zones, or (my most detested system) make the passengers line up in numerical order a la Southwest. Nope – they assume that, as adults, we can find our way on in a reasonable fashion. And you know what? It works. All the flights left the gate on time, and it was a lot less stressful.

Well, less stressful flights, lots of good Brazilian beer and food, and a relaxing ten days in Manaus and Salvador combined to make it pretty hard coming back to work a week ago. So you can add that to my excuse for the lapse in blogging. I’ll try not to let it happen again.

Oh, did you happen to hear that APPX 5.0 is out in beta?

This entry was posted on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 4:45 pm and is filed under Al. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.