Far East Cynic

The Patriot Express is running again. Much to every-one’s chagrin who actually has to take the plane.

The Patriot Express is the name of the Air Mobility Command charter plane that runs from LAX to the bases in Japan. For several years now the AMC was trying to kill the service in order to save money. For equally as many years the Navy and Marine Corps have whined and whined about the need to keep the service running. I’ve never understood why. For someone PCS’ing out of Japan having to take the aircraft was nothing but a royal pain in the ass. Same is true if you were coming into Japan PCS.

At least in this interation it is being run by Northwest-so perhaps the experience of the traveler is better than it used to be. Before it was run by lowest bidder airlines, left at an ugodly hour from the states and arrived at a bad time over here. Any one who could work the system did-to avoid having to use it. ( I know because I was one of those people).

Arriving at Yokota from Okinawa on Thursday, Staff Sgt. Angelo Bryant said Northwest’s Patriot Express was problem-free and things ran “really smooth” even though he had four small children in tow. 

“Compared to riding in the back of a [military aircraft], this was heaven,” he said.

Maybe-but you have an entitlement to an commercial air ticket that does not cost much more than the Express does. And I’ll bet would have made your travel time a lot less and more comfortable.

Problem is, it is still the USAF and AMC running the boarding and debarking, and you still have to show up 4 and 1/2 hours before your flight. So that you can sit around and log J-time in the terminal. Even having to go to Narita by bus is not that bad.

If one is stationed in the Kanto Plain there is no benefit to using the aircraft. For Misawa based personnel there is some, less so for Iwakuni and or Kadena based personnel. Flying into and out of Osaka pretty much negates any advantage of using the aircraft for those folks. And, as I mentioned-the advantage of being able to go direct to the East Coast outweighs any other advantage that taking the aircraft creates-if one is moving to the East Coast. (Or east of Denver…).

So this is nothing to celebrate. The thing to celebrate is the day that AMC and the USAF cancels the route for good.

It would appear at least a couple of Obama supporters are-when it comes to the subject of last nights debate:

Update! That particular video has been taken down. Suspect ABC filed some sort of copyright protest, I’m sure. Or maybe not. I found another version and have updated the post.

Its good to be home! Even if the weather is bad and the amount of things on my “to do list” just went up exponentially since it is now pretty certain I am moving. Even the dulcet tones of the cute little broadcaster on TV Tokyo were joyous to my heart.

I noted with great sadness the day we left to come back, the upcoming merger of Delta and Northwest Airlines. While it may help the profit margins of the two companies, the traveling public has just been handed another bad deal. I thought about this during the long hours of the trip back.

Inevitably what happens in a merger like this is that one carrier gets pulled down to the service standards of the other. Northwest, whom I have had generally positive experiences with,  will be reduced to the same level of crappy service that Delta now typifies. And that’s just sad.

Ah, for the good old days!

There is a lot that US carriers could learn from Asian Airlines if they would just choose to do so. I submit to you that every US air carrier has lost sight of the service aspect of their industry-as well as professionalism by all their employees across the board. As a result, air travel has become, in the United States, the mass transit experience of other countries. Which is sad if you ask me.

With the Northwest merger here is what I think will happen:

1) The two pilots groups are going to have a huge fight about merging their seniority lists. Even if its amicably resolved there will be bitterness on both sides for a while-more so if the airline management does not give the impression of caring about their ideas. There is big money and job security in these things so it will be hard fought. Same too probably with the flight attendants.

2) Both companies will annouce that there will be no changes to the existing route structure or levels of service. Then they will get on with the firings and the consolidation of Northwest routes to Delta’s hubs. This will especially hurt people in the norhteast who have to travel to Asia. ( The saying will be even more true: “Even if you have to go to hell, you still have to change planes in Atlanta.”).

3) Air fares will go up and service will go down.

4) The number of flights available will go down as the new carrier tries to maximize revenue. So more people will be packed into fewer aircraft.

During our trip, the service aspect was the main thing that jumped out at it me-and we were on United and Singapore Air-so the differences were easy to see.

“Oh get off it, all you cared about was that the Singapore Airlines stewardess’s are gorgeous”

Yes they are. They are also, in my observation, very professional and as I watched them both ways deal with surly Sri Lankans- they held their own keeping things under control while providing good service.

The point is though, that Asian airlines, for the most part, have a certain professional image and they take time to cultivate it. And that image permeates across the airline-not just with the cabin crew.

For example, on the way over to Shopping Mall USA, Singapore Air had separate lines for their Gold customers and were able to provide boarding passes all the way. The folks behind the counter are dressed professionally and in a manner that shows pride in their company.

On the return trip? A rather put upon, heavy set, woman,  in a United shirt and rumpled pants, tried to tell me that I would have to recheck my bags in LAX because I was not flying all the way on United. I informed her that was impossible due to our connection time and furthermore, “Singapore Air is a Star Alliance carrier, so what was the problem? ”

“But your United tickets are only to LA.”

” True, but laying on the counter before you is my confirmed reservation with Singapore Airlines and all the info you need.”

” I’m not sure I can do that…I’ll have to ticket you just to LAX”.

” I can’t make my connection if you do that. Please call your supervisor”.

Who immediately told her that yes it is done all the time-and then had to show her how to do it in the computer. Even at that, they gooned up the luggage tags the first time-good thing I checked them.

Its little things like that , which should just drive people up the wall and make them revolt against what the airlines are offering. However good alternatives are not really available. Go to American Airlines? They screw you coming and going with ticket changes-and if you try to upgrade on short notice? Its going to cost you.

Speaking of upgrades-that’s another thing that just rankles me. On an Asian carrier, I have never flown in business class without it being full.  That’s the way it should be, because using upgrades to reward their frequent flyers is a way to build customer loyalty. I’ve been upgraded three times on Cathay Pacific without even asking. Never with an American carrier. A half empty business cabin is just wrong.

The other thing that rankles me is drink coupons or charging for drinks on long over-water flights.

Look too at the differences between economy cabins on a Singapore Airlines 747 and a United one. Headrests and individual TV’s are not going to break the bank. Neither does real silverware.

Sure you pay more many times on the Asian carriers-but if you are careful and shop around there are deals to be had. Like the inexpensive air fare we got from NRT-LAX. The service was still good though.

Ticket prices are competitive-I know that. However there are more than a few people who would be more loyal to a particular carrier if they knew that loyalty was going to be repaid somehow. On an Asian airline it is. 

Back on the good side of the international date line. Trip back was not too bad, the flight from LAX on Singapore Air was not so full and the food was pretty good and drink service plentiful. Next time US airlines want to know why they are having problems-they should look at SINGAIR. Sevice still seems to matter there.

The US Navy released a long list of flag officer assignments last week. In the flurry of activity in shopping mall USA, I seemed to have missed it. Two of them jumped out at me:

Rear Adm. (lower half) Kevin M. Donegan is being assigned as commander, Carrier Strike Group Five, Yokosuka, Japan. Donegan is currently serving as director, Strategy and Policy Division, N51, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C.

That is interesting because of the “I wonder where (fill in the blank) will go now” types of questions it will generate. Kid Donegan is a former CO of USS Coronado and USS Carl Vinson if memory serves-where I think he relieved the same guy he will relieve here.

That is the understandable news. Then comes the assignment that just is really hard to comprehend:

Rear Adm. (lower half) Earl L. Gay is being assigned as deputy chairman, Armed Forces Inaugural Committee, Washington, D.C. Gay is currently serving as commandant, Naval District Washington, Washington, D.C.

Call me silly-but this requires a flag officer exactly why? Seems to me that is overkill unless this is a collateral assignment-and if it is, why announce it as something its not?

Try telling me again the Navy does not have too many flag officers. Things like this make it hard to believe.

The S.O. has been watching the HGTV channel for at least an hour and a half. With the concentration that an alcoholic pours into a pitcher of martinis or margaritas. Wide eyed and awestruck is a bad way to go through the evening………………..

As in lets go home!

After taking the S.O. out for what I thought would be a nice farewell dinner to shopping mall USA, I got treated to a tirade on American food. The restaurant-a nice Italian grill with some very cold and tasty micro-brews did serve some very large portions. I reminded her, that is just kind of the way it is at nice restaurants. Besides people don’t eat out every night. If we were at a home we could control the size of our portions.

“American food is so greasy and here there is no choice but greasy”.

I’ve known her long enough now, that when I hear that-I just contemplate my beer, keep silence, and flag the waitress down to order another. If it were not for the road nazis and mad mothers I might of even ordered 2!

All that said-this has been a productive trip. Change is coming to Skippyland. I’m slowing working through the five stages of the near term death of expatdom. Anger is slowly giving way to …….denial…………….

Whimpering will continue all along the way. More detail when it is better suited to do so.

Got to pack and be up early tomorrow. See you back on the right side of the international date line!

I guess I’m a snob and elitist myself. Because I find myself agreeing with Obama about Pennsylvanians-or the people living here in shopping mall USA. Then again I take the time to read and understand things in context. So if that makes you anti-small town America-guilty as charged.

Sometimes, whenever I come back here-I truly believe the country has gone mad. Besides the fact that more than a few people here who are incredibly fat, I’ve been in more than a few doors here that say knives or weapons of a certain length cannot come inside. Guess it makes sense-but being a guy who believes that NO weapons or knives should be crossing the entry threshold-this is a statement that borders on sheer lunacy. Sorry all you budding NRA members-there is no God given right to have a handgun. (I like others will be watching the Supreme Court case with interest-except I will be rooting for the DC law to be upheld).

So it was with great interest that I watched Obama and the reaction his statement has generated from morons people on both the right and the left.  He’s learned one of the cardinal rules of American politics. Don’t tell the voters how stupid they really are. Or how in the past 20 years they have allowed themselves to be manipulated like sheep.

Even though its true. On both sides of the aisle.

I grew up in Western PA. Truth be told there were more than a few people I encountered along the way that met this description:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Now the key part of Obama’s statement is not the second paragraph-it is the first one. The Town Hall Harlot and the rest have of course used this to show yet again how Obama has abandoned the supposedly erudite masses that listen to Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Praeger; read MM and the other loons, and or watch the Fox Noise network.

Now probably Obama would have been best off stopping at the end of the first paragraph. However in a poorly constructed way-he actually did a good thing. He highlighted the really useless things that enter into the landscape of Presidential politics. Especially when it comes to a religious litmus test that so many people in the states seem to love.

Its a gaffe now though and it is going to come back to haunt him in the campaign.

But just because it is a gaffe does not mean its not truth.

Which he points out well in his speech in Indiana:
 

Besides if you want to meet a real elitst-why not talk to the man who used to own a pro baseball team? And has not lived paycheck to paycheck in his life?

Oh I forgot, we are all supposed to think he is a regular guy.

I never liked NASCAR anyway.

Created by OnePlusYou

Somethings are just worth cussing about!

H/T to OPFOR!

You have to have been in any large city in Japan to really appreciate this:

Indiana makes a good point:

The irony here is that the world, our jobs, the grind to “get ahead” does a perfect job of squashing our dreams and crushing our egos without you, our supposed lovers and friends doing the same…

Sounds like he’s been eavesdropping on my conversations with the S.O. this week.

Of coming to Shopping Mall USA.

I can OD on these:

And have! (9 Krsytals wolfed down in two days! YMMMMMM.)

I can also get my fill of these:

There’s plenty of these:

And, sadly, more than there should be of these:

And not enough of these:

 Every cloud has a silver lining!

Not that surge. The one that is slowly ripping apart the beautiful life I spent 8 years perfecting. Like it’s counterpart in Iraq, it is just as frustrating though.

Now conscience wakes despair That slumber’d, wakes the bitter memory Of what he was, what is, and what must be Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue! -Milton in Paradise Lost.

That scream you heard last night was my body and soul being trapped-that’s right trapped- in an existence I thought I had left behind. That giant sucking sound was my karma being sucked back into a conformity with rules and covenants I had spent years breaking free from.

The whimpering will die down soon enough, to be replaced by the wind, whispering across a dying flame: that of the dream coming face to face with a sharp cold reality. 

Subaltern: [after losing his composure, and calling out to God, in front of the late Romney Wordsworth - and on national television - the Chancellor, the EX-Chancellor, enters the State Judgement Chamber... and discovers that he has been replaced by the FORMER Subaltern] Stay where you are. No further. You have been removed from office; the Field Investigators have declared you OBSOLETE.
Chancellor: …Obsolete?
Subaltern: [like a robot] You have disgraced the State before the masses. You have proven yourself a hypocrite, and a traitor to the ideals of the State; you have, as such, no function. You are OBSOLETE.
Chancellor: But I’m not! I’m NOT obsolete!
Subaltern: YOU ARE OBSOLETE!
Chancellor: [becoming hysterical] You’re making a mistake! *I’m not obsolete!* I BELIEVE in the State! I WORK for the State! I help give the State STRENGTH! How can you call ME obsolete? HOW CAN YOU?
Subaltern: YOU ARE OBSOLETE…!
[dozens of shouting jurors pounce on the ex-Chancellor and tear him to ribbons]

From the Twilight Zone.

So other than the fact that I’m dying to get on a plane direct to Jaffe Road, do not pass go, do not collect 200 (HK) dollars-I’d say the trip is going pretty well. 

More to come later. It has been a busy day and now I need to cry myself to sleep. After a long and successful day of meeting people, answering questions, and familiarizing myself with the new landscape-I came face to face with the dilemma that is my life these days. The need to do that which I must vs that which I want. As we left the Chinese restaurant this evening (or what approximates Chinese in this out of the way southern outpost), there -behind the cash register-was a full sized picture of Hong Kong at night from the Peak.

For most people it is just a nice view of a far away place. For me,  it was a personal mockery of my dreams and ambitions. Would that all of this was occurring Central and Mid-levels rather than in the middle of Shopping Mall, USA.

The irony of that one little moment is not lost on me I assure you…………………….

And as I type this, furtively, on the laptop, the S.O. sleeps.  Sure she’s happy. 

You would be too in her position. As one side loses, the other gains-and she is sleeping with same smile that a Filipina in Hari’s gets when she hears she is going to get 3500 for only a short time. ( Those who know-know).

Stay tuned…………..

Greetings from Shopping Mall, USA-deep south version.

Long day yesterday. Because this trip is on my dime, I had opted to save money. I would have saved even more money on the tickets had not the S.O. been such a bitch so insistent that we travel together. Had we done it my way I could have bought and upgradeable ticket to the east coast and turned in some miles to get her here with less pain. She might have had to travel after me is all, which might have meant I could actually have some fun for a couple of days. Because she insisted we travel together, it cost me more than I wanted-but not as much as it could have.

We flew on Singapore Airlines from Narita to LAX. Which is the way to go if you have to be back in the cattle car. On the plus side the service was good-they did not forget about you after the meal service and they did not snarl at you if you wanted some 12 ounce sleeping pills during the course of the flight. On the down side-our seats were in the middle of the screaming baby / Sri Lankan refugee section. Aside from the fact that I do not generally sleep well on airplanes unless I’m farther forward, it was not too bad. And the tickets-purchased on line from the Singapore Air web site were a bargain, all things considered.

Of course, once you get to LAX, you begin to experience the drudgery that is travel at any airport in the USA these days. It all comes swimming back at you as soon as you clear customs-the rudeness, the surly airline personnel, and the losers bracket known as the TSA security screening line. Since I have a lap top, and shoes and a jacket, the assembly line disassembly of all my packed briefcase / back pack takes a couple of minutes.

We find our connecting flight to Denver. No issues, and get on and immediately fall asleep. Upon arrival in Denver though, we have about 25 minutes when we get there to race the length of the airport to get to our final leg to Shopping Mall USA. The plane from LAX had arrived early, but we sat on the ramp for 30 minutes waiting to get to the gate. By the time we got off at gate B-12 to discover we had to get to gate B-95 we were definitely time constrained. The S.O. was less than amused. That did not stop her from making a quick pass through Starbucks though, where she could not decide if she wanted to buy a Denver city mug. She did not like my advice very much, ” Just pick one and let’s go!”. She did not buy one.

Thank goodness she’ll never have to answer the phone at 3 AM at the White House. She will still be trying to figure out what country to bomb.

Getting the rental car was itself both easy and not so easy. Getting the keys was painless-it should be for a Gold Card member-but it seems they forgot that they should put the car in the front rows. So I had to hike past construction to the suth 40 to  find the car.  That got us to the motel about midnight. Which meant we had had just shy of 20 hours getting there.

So after some deep sleep, woke up this morning with the phrase, “You’re making a big mistake………….” echoing in my subconcious thoughts.  S.O. is back asleep so I will go for a run and look around.

What the hell am I doing here? There’s got to be a bar in Wanchai that I could tend…………..At least I won’t have to watch NHK for a week.

The adventure continues………….

The part that Lex forgot to show:

Hornets are cool and all-but a CV flyby with a COD and an E-2? That’s worth bragging about! 

Not for work this time, that’s all done. For new work-hopefully good work-but not in the location that I would ever have wanted or expected. Such is life I suppose-and it is true everything is an adventure. S.O. is going along with me on this trip, which is going to be interesting. Probably a damn-fool decision to bring her along-but I’m too big a wimp to just tell her to go away. Besides, her smile still does it for me. Sigh……….    

This is not the big jump-but just a 10 day visit to shopping mall USA. Still hoping against hope for a miracle to keep away from the big jump, but we will see.  More info to follow when it can be told. For now-just stay tuned. All will be revealed in good time.

New laptop going along-we’ll see how the blogging goes.