I’m in the Northwest Airlines Business Class lounge at the Los Angeles
Airport waiting for the flight to Tokyo to board in about 10 minutes. The
flight is scheduled for 11 hours and 30 minutes. That’s a lot of
increasingly tired hours. The lounge is fairly full — it looks like a lot
of folks will be on the Tokyo flight. I’ve never made this connection as
the flight from LAX is about 90 minutes longer than from Seattle. But going
through LAX is about $700 cheaper, so that’s the way I have to go. After I
get to Tokyo’s Narita Airport, I’ll have a three-hour layover before
starting the four-hour flight to Manila. It’ll be a long day / night.

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1:40 pm Belgium time 2.5 hrs underway:
Airplane food is not very good under the best of circumstances. Today’s
menu was very poor and even the best choices for me were not very good. It
is just as well as food isn’t my biggest interest right now. Only problem
is, I need a mint to clean some of the taste out of my mouth. The lavatory
is empty so I’ll take my “passenger amenity toothbrush” and go make my
mouth taste better for a while.

2:25 pm Belgium time. We’ve travelled 1689 miles in 3 hrs 24 minutes and
have 6 hrs 17 minutes to go.
The cabin lights are out and most folks are sleeping. I’m reading a book,
New Spring by Robert Jordan. Across from me a fellow who works for
Rolls Royce is putting together some kind of a status PowerPoint show that
shows costs and revenues all going the wrong way. I don’t think I want to
be him in that meeting! The lady next to me is kind of snoozing and kind of
watching a movie. She’s some kind of a consultant in the paper and pulp
business and has over a million miles with Delta. The flight attendant
mentioned that when welcoming the woman on board. The woman replied that
those were the Delta miles and that she had a couple million more on other
airlines.

Three million miles on an airplane is astounding. That’s more than 6 round
trips to the moon. When I was in the Air Force I flew more than 3,000 hours
in the backend of C-130’s, most with headsets on trying to make some sense
of the Chinese radio traffic we were monitoring. That would be about
600,000 miles and about 125 twenty-four hour days. These jets today fly
much faster so she’s probably spent more than 250 days of her life inside
an airplane and another 60 days waiting in airports on airplanes. That’s a
lot of airport and airplane food.

3:50 pm Belgium Time, 4 hrs 50 since we left and 4 hrs 50 to our arrival in
Atlanta. We’ve come 2,170 miles.
We’re on a much more southerly route. We went southwest out of Brussels
towards Paris and then out over the Atlantic Ocean rather than out over
England and Scotland. I suspect this is a little shorter routing. We have a
50 mph headwind and a groundspeed of 500 mph.

The flight attendants make regular trips through the cabin bringing water.
I’ve had a couple of bottles and will drink at least one more. The lady
next to me is sound asleep with a light snore. The guy to the right is a
Vice President and is plowing through e-mail. He has something to so with
fuels and consumption.

Music and a good book are comfortable things. I’m listening right now to
Loreena McKennitt on my iPod and reading. If the seat was a bit more
comfortable, I’d be set. The airplane has lots of little things that need
fixing. Two of the seats in Business Class have no seat padding installed.
It looks like they’ve been cannibalized to fix something on another seat.
Such is life on a nearly bankrupt airline.

5:10 pm Belgium time. 6 hrs 8 underway with 3 hrs 31 left.
The remaining flight time has decreased slightly as we’re nearing the US
coastline. Maybe the winds have lessened? The dynamic flight map says we
have 1,568 miles to go to Atlanta. As we burn off fuel, the airplane gets
lighter and flies faster. We’ve also turned a bit more southwest and
climbed from 33,000 feet to 35,0000 feet. The display just said the
headwind was down to 40 mph.

There is a bit more activity in the cabin. About half of the passengers are
awake and reading or watching the TV monitors. Lunch will be served in
about an hour and a half.

Dang, I pressed Send instead of Save as Draft. I’ll get to learn how some
other features work in this little computer.

7:00 pm Belgium time (11 am in Pocatello) and we’re over the US mainland
about 30 miles from Newark now at 38,000 feet. We’ll kind of follow the
coast south to Atlanta from here. We’ve slowed down — 454 mph groundspeed.
Arrival is still estimated to be 2:41 EST (about an hour and 35 minutes
from now). I’ve been up go to the bathroom and have most everything packed
away. Lunch will be in a few minutes and a hamburger is on the menu. I
wonder what airline food would be if companies who know how to feed and
satisfy the public actually had the catering contract?

Airbus unveiled their new huge airplane — a double decker with the ability
to carry up to 850 passengers. Imagine clearing customs with that many
souls at a time! The initial configurations will have lots of free space,
stores, workout center, and such. It won’t last long. The Boeing 747
started that way and it wasn’t many years before that space was filled with
seats and paying customers.

8:18 pm Belgium time (12:18 in Pocatello). We are about a half hour from
disembarking. The hamburger was edible but would have been thrown out at
any respectable burger joint. This leg is close to an end. Last time
through Atlanta the immigration and customs worked very smoothly. Here’s
hoping it will be so today!

Time to queue this for sending upon arrival.

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Boarding has started and the flight is scheduled to leave in 40 minutes.
I’m in seat 3E; middle two seats, aisle, right side. The flight doesn’t
look to be very full. In this Business Class section that seats 36 there
are 9 of us. A couple more will join later in the boarding process but
nevertheless it won’t likely be more than half full.

The scheduled flying time is 9:43, which is a bit longer than normal. We
must have some serious headwinds to contend with. The woman seated next to
me has arrived and has put her stuff away. Another 5 Business Class
passengers have arrived as well. She just loaded up on pills and may have a
cold. Dang!

We’ve introduced ourselves. No cold, just some allergies. The front door is
closing. We’ve 21 people in Business class. We’re not scheduled to leave
for 20 munutes, but are going to start early. I like it!

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I’m on the bus to the airport from the Holiday Inn. That turned out to be a
bit of a trick. The bus leaves every 30 minutes. But, there are two busses!
One goes to the airport, the other takes people to various businesses in
the area. No mention of which bus is which, except that at 8 a driver came
into the lobby and said (in Dutch) “airport”. A whole crowd of people
surged out of the lobby and I followed in the middle of a group. Got on the
bus and the driver started asking for destinations: “Cicso,” “NATO,” “DHL,”
and then me, “Delta.” Big commotion. About five of us were on the wrong
bus. The driver jumped off and stopped the other bus. We five got onto the
right bus and are now safely on the way to the Brussels Airport and back to
the US.
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The weather has changed! Rain and clouds have rolled in. The day was very
grey. It is in stark contrast to the weekend — a weekend that hasn’t been
all that wonderful. Today I’m feeling much better and not as well as I will
feel tomorrow. That is definitely goodness.

I moved to a much better hotel in Gent (the Sofitel Belfort). The
difference between the two hotels is simply amazing. The price is almost
twice as much (particularly when I include the cost of parking), but the
difference in services and amenities is also more than twice. For instance,
the availability of English-language newpapers. It is good to get
re-acquainted with what is going on in the world. I think my
experimentation on hotels is coming to an end. I may look at another hotel
here in the area but the looking in Ourdenaarde is over.

This week is also a week of a couple of sad anniversaries. Traci was born
and died on the 15th of January and Trevor died on January 18th. The week
helps me remember how fragile this life is and how suddenly it can come to
an end. Perhaps that’s why a bad weekend at my age is such a waste. There
are far fewer weekends left in my life than I’ve already enjoyed. Traci, we
never knew you and have that opportunity to look forward to. Trevor, we
miss you terribly and the reunion will be sweet. We love you both!

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On June 18, 1815 Napoleon was defeated by Wellington in a day-long battle
near the Belgian city of Waterloo (just south of Brussels). I’m here at the
battle site waiting for an audio visual presentation to start. The
battlefield was not easy to find. There are no roadway markings pointing
out the way to the battlefield until you are there and can see the Lion’s
Bluff. That tall hill (pictures to follow) was hand-built by peasants
carrying pails of dirt. On top is a statue of a lion representing the Duke
of Wellington. There is a staircase up to the top of several hundred steps.
I think I’ll not do that this afternoon!

My first stop was a kind of a diorama overview of the battle. When that 10
minute piece was finished, we moved into another room for a film which
hasn’t started, yet. The diorama presentation was supposed to give an
overview of the day and I think the film should then fill in some detail.
Napoleon with 130,000 soldiers outnumbered Wellington who was being
reinforced by the Prussians under the command of Bluecher.

The film was very good. It showed parts of the battle from a child’s point
of view. The next stop was the Panorama Display which showed what the heat
of the battle would have looked like in a 360 degree painting. The final
stop was a very tired wax museum.

The whole complex closes in a few minutes. Most of the souvenier shops were
closed anyway for the season. There was very little available in English. I
picked up one post card and that was it.

I’ll now turn the car back towards Gent and go back to the hotel there.
I’ll probably have some more comments when I get on the Internet at the
hotel.

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I’m in Priesthood Meeting. This branch has the same meeting order as in our
ward in Pocatello. One of the missionaries here is from Pocatello. I’ll
find out more later. We’re talking about lesson #2 in the David O. McKay
book — right on schedule. There are 17 brothers here and one baby in a
crib. The Branch President started Priesthood Meeting by making assignments
for the opening and closing prayers in Sacrament meeting as well as who
would bless and pass the sacrament. That’s one good reason for having psthd
mtg first!

There’s quite a debate going on about something and I’ve no idea what it
is. Some fellows are quite involved in this discussion.
I’m actually quite tired. I’ll probably not take a nap, but will likely be
early to bed!

Priesthood is coming to an end. The arguement isn’t concluded as there are
still a couple of side discussions. Oops, I just got called on to say the
closing prayer! Fortunately, I understood his question.
Sunday School has started. There are about 30 people here so far. Others
are coming in so the total number will definitely increase. I’ve no idea
what the discussion is about. I’m hoping she will write on the board to
give me a clue…. The opening prayer was in English and the woman who gave
the prayer doesn’t look like she understands any more than I do.

The lesson seems to be about the founding of America so that the Church
could be established. Some discussion about whether or not that could
happen in America today because the government is so bad. I think there are
some folks here with strong political feelings.

Sacrament Meeting is now well underway. The Sacrament has been passed and a
youth speaker is talking about free agency. The transmitter isn’t working
very well but we’re getting the gist. The earphone is also very
uncomfortable as the earpads are gone and only the bare plastic plugs into
the ears.

The second talk is a young lady who played the piano to accompany the
hymns. She is talking about weaknesses and the necessity of faith.

The rest hymn was True to the Faith. The closing speaker talked
about preparing for the 2nd coming. Then Church was over.
A couple of people recognized me from the last time I was here. That was
interesting. I’m not sure I would remember someone from that long ago.

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