It's all good so far

Working several thousand feet in the air cruising to Brisbane in Qantas business class. The seats are comfortable and the attendant has furnished me with a nice Shiraz/Viognier blend. I am learning the ins and outs of the seat settings, the in flight entertainment system, and they other miscellaneous settings that ones can play with. More than adequate USB ports to charge the electronics.

The only penalty so far has been with the fountain pens. My kwako sport has disappeared and my pilot Praera has decided to flow boldly. I have over inked my entry document and had to request a replacement.

The flight is fifteen hours. I amy catching up on an Aussie tv series about a flapper detective. I saw three episodes on the flight to Dubai and have two to see on this one.

Had an attendant force a dessert upon me, figs and pistachios on a cake. The sacrifices one must make to keep the flight attendant happy

I tried to sleep and must have been successful. I had a vegetarian dinner ordered; however, I decided to wait and ended up getting some sleep. It is probably a good thing that I had m&m’s packed and used on trip to Dallas. A Popeyes chicken biscuit in Dallas was dinner. The dessert and wine was sufficient for the evening.

The Qantas pajamas were not quite right size but were warm enough. Getting the hips comfortable in any airline seat seems to be the drawback to quality sleep. Still have a preference for porcelain.

Finished up one of the longmire books on tape and started another. Breakfast with eggs & beans. Start the descent process and find the missing pen. Loaded and off the plane in a reasonable time.

Customs was easy and the luggage is now routed to Perth. Picked up $100 au from the ATM and have broken one of the bills with staples: snickers bar and a bottle of water. A letter cup of coffee aka a long black. Currency seems to favor coins.

The departure lounge has one free plug with the same poacher. I borrowed a wall outlet and was able to do a brief charge on the windows phone. I also set the data to roam and have texted and skyped Sandra. I also piggybacked the phone to check in on Path and Foursquare. Lost one set of ear plugs so I changed out. Need to review the power cords and see what I need to change out.

Email so far is football smack from the guys.

Now in Perth waiting on the hotel to get the room ready. It was no problem getting a cab ride in. Nice Somali driver. Weather is perfect. I seem to have lost the ability to do the Internet sharing with my company phone. I will have to work on that with the IT folks. I am ready for the room and the treadmill to be followed by a much needed shower. I don’t care for this hipster patina that I am wearing after 30 hours of travel.

Currently over at the Coffee Club (no wifi or plugs) getting lunch and waiting on the room. It is a race to see if the phone charge will last long enough for the hotel to call.

Signs up on the light posts advertising the conference.

The hotel was a fair experience in Perth. It was located in the CBD and was convenient to get to the conference. The meals were good, the Internet spotty, and the plumbing french. There was definitely some battle rattle. The staff was excellent.

It was a short walk to the riverfront. Nice green space and walking trail. Managed one walk of 3 miles and walked back from the convention every evening. The weather was coming into spring and with Perth being the capitol of Western Australia, we walked by some unique Victorian architecture interspersed with very modern high rises. A number of magnificent churches and a fair amount of public art ranging from an ongoing light show, to a herd of life size kangaroos drinking at a spring. Nice gardens and greens.

A lot of notes taken from the conference, we all seem to be in a similar space, those that have gotten further have more management buy in. Good networking and ambitious work by two consultants wanting to help us with the New Plymouth pipe plant. Will have to do a coin flip.

Several good talks w Karin ranging on philosophy’ of where WFT is headed.

Not sure that the body has caught up to the big shift in time. I have been waking up at 4 -4:30 in the morning and trying to get to bed early. Even shut down at a reasonable hour after the ERM social. Fighting a spring cold that I want to get over and enjoy the remainder of the trip. will be finding drugs soon to see if I can this beaten down.

Enjoyed the Qantas Club, I will definitely be taking advantage where possible. Hoping that I can get the Emirates miles added in soon so I can get closer to keeping the status. Much nicer plane on the way back to Brisbane.

Brisbane weekend was very enjoyable. Hotel in the city center and right off the river. Boardwalk within a block. Found a pharmacist, a bottle shop, and a grocery store and stocked the room with cold meds, some snacks & yogurt. Had a good conversation with the clerk about football, he is a Bengals can. walked the boardwalk to the restaurants and stopped at Grill’d on Friday for a burger and beer.

Saturday 9/15 was the tourist day. Although battling Aussie bronchitis, and armed with the nastiest cough syrup one could obtain from a stop&rob, I set off among the boardwalk. Walked all the way to the City Botanical Gardens and strolled through there. Saw the Old Government House (now a museum and closed tea shop) and meandered through the adjoining grounds of the Queensland University. Made my way back towards city seeing the Parliament Building and several other older buildings. Some which had Ben repurposed and some still running the government.

Made it to the shopping mall on Queens Street, shut off from traffic with shops within buildings and various restaurants and food courts. Had a fish & chips and a Fat Yak Pale Ale. Did some souvenir shopping, then made it to the Central Train Station to get a schedule and figure out how to get to the suburban offices after the NZ trip. Stopped into the Anglican Cathedral on the way aback and was very impressed with the gothic architecture and native sandstone. Just completed as originally designed but I don’t think they original folks had the very modern stained glass messages. Unfortunately I don’t think that they showed well with the backlighting,

Back to the hotel for a short rest and then back down the boardwalk to the Pig & Whistle where I had a steak, salad, & chips, another fat yak and tried to watch some of the All Blacks game at Wolff angle. Back to the room and packed for the trip to NZ.

This entry was posted on September 21, 2012 at 11:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.