Good story John. I pilot the B777 for a major airline and I can say that although the -200Bs are getting older, maintenance teams are top notch. Procedures are outlined so that even newbies have a solid frame work to trouble shoot. I have no reason to doubt the MX on our ships. The ships are getting tired. But, as you say, they are willing work horses and they are truly a marvel to fly.
It sounds like it was an excruciating trip with all the delays and I guess you wondered, if you would ever get back to Dallas.
I feel the same way as Eleftherios, I like to keep my tires on the ground and have driven across the U.S. ten times without a cellphone or a GPS. However, my children gave me a trip to Greece for Christmas in 1989. I went the following August. The first part was on a commercial airline, until I got to Chicago. Then, I transferred to Yugoslavian Airlines. I could not believe my eyes. The interior of the plane looked like an empty cargo ship or bomber. It had no seats in the front and perhaps 4 rows in the back...and not all the seats were filled. It flew over the North Pole to get to Beograd...and my arm was almost paralyzed from the cold. I left my sweater in a suitcase in the hold. There was no food on this long flight and I declined the water, which had rust floating in it. It was a good thing that I had brought a quart jar with honey, lemon, spirulina and water with me. It sufficed. I wound up sitting next to a Yugoslavian man who was wearing a heavy overcoat...and a big hat, which was pulled down on his head. He had a thick Yugoslavian accent and I had to listen hard to understand him...and I did learn something. He said that the English had a habit of going around the world...changing place names. He said that he did not live in Belgrade...He lived in Beograd. When i got to Greece, one of the places I set up to visit was the Island of Rhodes; perhaps, named after Cecil B. Rhodes. This is where the Colossus of Rhodes was located; One of the seven wonders of the Ancient World. It was perhaps 80 ft high and the legs of the Sun God Helios spanned the entrance to the harbor. Cecil B Rhodes was a British mining magnate and politician in South Africa. The Greeks did not call the island Rhodes; they called it Rodos.
When I was fifteen, I went to Beograd. I always wondered in later years if that was the same place as Belgrade. Thanks for answering a decades-long question!
And that is exactly why my cute little Sunkissed buns will remain in the United States and not be traveling to Europe anytime soon. The only upcoming flight I have scheduled is Key West in September and that damn plane better get me there because I’m gonna need that vacation. (Says the spoiled princess)
I agree. I certainly will not cross the oceans soon, maybe never again at my age. I do want to revisit the beach and waters of the Dominican Republic near Punta Cana, however, so I may have to take that chance. Otherwise it's the trains with sleeper cars and bedrooms for me!
I enjoyed this column. You are definitely heroic for not having a mental breakdown. I liked the line about the lady who talked like a New Jersey mafia made man. Sexy!
Sexy? I was a sailor (USN) and then a police officer, and developed a tendency toward profane speech. I don't like that in myself, and I am aghast when young ladies - lovely or not - speak so profanely, but I am old and was raised differently. I completely understand when others look down on me when I curse, so I work hard at not doing so in public (usually just to myself when my elderly arthritic body fails to function properly).
I hate profanity peppered into every sentence. I read an article in psychology, and it did say using bad language when under severe stress is a temporary stress reliever. I lose control when driving, other than that I have trained myself to find other words. But no judgement, I am guilty of it. In a general sense I find vulgarity destroys a decent image of the person using it, male or female.
I have been taken aback by this rise in use of four letter expletives in our language including females using them without hesitation. I am 78, and polite company, both male and female, would not be caught using such language. It was thought to be an indication of low class, or sailors. Now, highly educated young people of both exes use it with abandon. It still shocks me! When did this become acceptible?
Make of this what you will, but my daughter said people started saying bad words online and on television during the lockdowns (she was a child). It’s as if it never changed back.
I am 77 and, although over-educated, swear more than I want it. I thought about how that came about, in site of a strict dutch upbringing. The answer that came up, out of my experience as a learning specialist, is that people most readily imitate the language they hear most often. Hmm.... I guess I've spent too much time in North American schools.
As a fellow Dallasite, I’m doomed to use AA for most of my travel as well (despite Love Field being far more convenient- Not a SWA fan, alas). I thought it was just their ineptitude for a while, but I have a Houston friend with frequent mishaps on United as well. Twice in the last three months, I’ve had to deplane due to a flat tire. That seems both banal and utterly foreseeable.
I agree air travel is marvelous, but the maintenance issues that should be fixed long before passengers and schedules get disrupted is of mounting concern. The situation is fast becoming untenable, and I worry - truly and literally- what has to happen for the industry to take better care to prevent these mishaps.
The combination of aging aircraft and DEI-hired mechanics and air traffic control staff - but beginning with TSA - have kept me out of the air since 2001, other than when I pilot myself. I no longer can get the needed medical certificate (formerly commercial helicopter rated) and I personally would not chance what is left of my life in the air, given issues with FAA tower staff and airline mechanical staff (not just Boeing, but especially them).
I have driven coast to coast a number of times rather than fly anywhere commercial. I haven't a clue when things might improve. YMMV.
The flip of this is the outrageous costs to do things like remodel a bathroom. My friend was quoted $45K for a somewhat basic bathroom. A former commercial plumber retired made a visit to her house to do a job redoing the under sink pipes and install new 55ss Insinkerator. He brought up a friend of his paid $100K for new windows after I brought the bathroom quote. He said he and his retired buddies could do the bathroom much cheaper. His work under sink was stellar. The graft will not last much longer as the youngers in general cannot afford anything.
Passed Master Plumber exam in 1975 at age of 21 with 100%, both records, taught by Dad since age 10. 1975 AAS chemical tech engineering option, 1976 BA chemistry ACS certified,1980 MA chemistry. 2015 retired chief electric system chemist of three power companies, Dad said you already did all the plumbing and heating jobs from age 10 to age 25. At age 25 my employer offered to sell plumbing business to me because Master Plumber and technical education and good with people. I paid for college with plumbing shifts at local plumbing shop. Perhaps go with chemistry and good knees. He was right like always. Dad was pulled from school in 10th grade to support family. I was Master Plumber and Master Chemist German grand mother said you are the best of the useful careers.
Check DMSO at the DMSOStore and that company is on Amazon too. See A Midwestern Doctor on substack about DMSO. I use for college sports injured knee and for my spine after a hospital infected me with virus and gaslit me.
Yes-- I second your story. I have used it for years. Pharma makes no money so it isn't advertised or pushed at doctors offices. Some of my relatives are "medical professionals" and they look down on this "nature's own miracle" as it is not a product of PHARMA ...but originally came from trees. DMSO is what makes trees open their cells so tons of water can be pumped from under the ground into the tops of trees...sometimes as much as 4O ft high!
I use it on all kinds of problems and also combine it with other products like helichrysum to stop tooth decay. I never have to see the dentist any more!
Yes my Wife uses DMSO and reads mid Western doctor. Wife is putting on my cut finger now. DMSO been around for decades as supplement. I was chemist 40 years. My knees ok because I was swimmer and runner so no sports injuries. Why because need to work plumbing Saturdays. So none of those ball chasing sports.
Yes retired at 62 before I went to doctor for knee evaluation all good. Doctor asked when do your knees hurt. I said when dragging brush from yard to swamp. Doctor said you are chief electric system chemist of all utilities in DC, 1/2MD, DE and Southern NJ and your Wife is OBGYN. Perhaps hire young guy. I said and give up chain saw fun. I did hire local crew for cutting lawn and keeping place looking good. Fun fact the lawn crew all the ladies of that family were patients of my Wife. Joe says the ladies ask him " Did you take care of the MY GYN's house", LOL We are now 72 & 69 scuba diving, 4 dives per week in Hawaii six months a year. Knees good keep swimming.
PS Plumbing is usually a genetic trade. Dad taught me plumbing to assure a future. I was dyslexic in school only good at science, fixing stuff, 3d thinking and saving money. Now we know dyslexia is actually a super power.
I was working one Saturday at older guys house. My boss stops by to see if I needed any thing. The old guy says why did you send this young guy? My boss Steve is my only other Master plumber and has 2 chemistry degrees and has been doing plumbing 13 years . Did Steve offend you? No. Boss I can pull Steve off this job because I can send him do do any job. I can send less experienced man on Monday. Old guy I stand corrected. Old guy says please tell me your story Steve.
Dad said Plumbing or Chemistry both require fun with fire.
Just a caveat here, DMSO is fine for nine out of ten people, but for one in ten, they are susceptible to severe headaches when using it and they can't continue the regime.
John, I travel a lot. This has become the routine rather than the exception. Always a new set of particulars, but the end results pretty much the same. Thanks for putting this to paper. Everyone who travels to whom I have sent it is loving it.
I went through a similar set of follies with planes from London to California and the West Coast. I had some sticker shock finding out that many basic toiletries were 10x more expensive at Target now than at a similar British store when I had to buy some basics when my bag did not arrive because it was not put on the plane. Also had fun with a “rudder pedal adjustment problem” where it was unknown if we would have to disembark, or just wait for someone to sign a safety form after giving it a nudge. We circled over the SF Bay around and around before beginning our journey. Fun times. I’ll be kicked for saying this, but if communication inside the airports is anything to go by, I would expect there is a problem among staff with using or being understood in the chosen business language, as just one contributing factor, perhaps.
Welcome home John. Loved the wonderful descriptions of your trials and tribulations. Travel by air is a marvel but there is no disputing the experience is so degraded these days as to make a colonoscopy look like fun by comparison!
I am so sorry. We went to Italy for two and a half weeks in April, and had nearly as surreal and horrendous experience as you. I had not flown to Europe in many years, and was unaware that transatlantic flights which used to take six hours now take nine. They must have had the windows open, it was freezing cold. AI calmly and amiably agreed that it now took twice as long to make the same flight. Snafus, problems, delays at every turn. Two words. Never Delta. And I learned that Atlanta is now the biggest, busiest, most screwed-up, gratuitously hostile airport in the world. I spent hours corraled with other wheelchair users, with no indication of when I would ever be processed. Coming back, we had one hour from landing to get our shuttle home in St. Louis. An hour delay to board. Once on board, someone threw up on a seat. If only they had waited until we took off. Everyone had to get off and wait two hours. I was in conniptions. I hobbled to the front where two flight attendants were passing the time of day, and said we’d have twenty minutes on arrival to get our luggage and hobble to the Mo-X meeting point. 10 p.m., last of the night. They told me several times not to worry and to go back to my seat. We ultimately reached Mo-X at exactly 10 p.m., not a second earlier.
It is NOTHING like when I was young. Now the seats are crammed together, and there are few meals. This time not even tiny packets of peanuts St. Louis to Atlanta. They grudgingly had to feed us on the nine-hour flight as we were weakened from shivering so hard. The tableware was made from flimsy balsa wood, I guess because of stabbing incidents by frustrated passengers.
And that doesn’t address our problems in Italy. A B&B host in Milan who had forgotten when I booked that it would be during the Feria dei Mobili, when lodging rates doubled. He wanted to cancel us. A hotel keeper in Stresa said we had stayed the four prepaid nights when it was only three. He said Lucky for you your room is available, if you pay for it. I found correspondance on my phone proving the dates. Ah! La tecnologia! Cosa si può fare? In Sirmione, I had prepaid three nights. The BnB was locked. I found a phone number and called. The new owner, who had written to me in January assuring me that the Audrey room awaited us, said in April that in the interim he had bought the hotel, negating our pre-pay with Paula, now in Sicily. I sent him the correspondance with the SWIFT number for our pre-payment and an article on Italian law mandating that he honor our booking. He did.
The train didn’t go all the way from Milan to Stresa. We had to get off and change to a bus. The train back to Milan didn’t go all the way because of a rain storm, and we had to get off at a station crowded with thousands and drag our suitcases down the steps under the tracks and then up again, milling about with thousands to get a train to Milan. The door on the train didn’t open when it stopped, forcing us to get off at the next stop and go back. The train to Malpensa Airport had no lights and no announcements: I asked the two young women facing us when we should get off.
The following morning, we left the Holiday Inn Malpensa at 7 a.m. Milan time. We didn’t walk through our door returning home until 1 a.m. Central Time, 8 a.m. Milan Time. 25 hours en route. Much, much longer than my carefree trips to Europe in the ‘80s. Never again.
My husband and I went to Europe frequently during the 80s, 90s, and even up to 2011. Then personal illness put a crimp in our travels. The last time we went to Europe was in 2014. My husband died 3 years later. A friend and I had plans to go to Spain in Spring 2021. Neither of us had gotten the shots. Two days before the trip we were told we could not travel. Spain didn't want us and the US might not take us back in. I was envying friends who could go to Europe. I no longer do. I hear more and more of these sorts of things happening. I am not at all certain the snafus are not planned events. Can't keep people home with fake pandemics? Keep them home with the frustration of "getting there".
Could be planned, could be that virtually everyone has suffered severe brain damage from vaccines. Makes them, us (including myself), stupid, sick, and incompetent. It’s really end of the world stuff.
Did you get the shots? I didn't but I'm 83. I don't know if some of the stuff I suffer from is the result of "shedding" (is it real?) or the result of breathing the plastics, aluminum, and other toxins being sprayed to dim the sun. My shot up friends do seem to be doing worse than I even though they are all younger. This is the way the world ends, as the poem goes.
Yes, I got two Pfizers in May 2021 and a Moderna booster in November. The first dose caused vertigo and vomiting for twenty minutes, tge booster caused tachycardia. Also true that I had a bad case of Covid in Dec 2019, and a really bad case of long Covid for several years. In my case, the long Covid was worse than the long Vacvine. But of course I wish I hadn’t taken the vaccine.
However, I reacted to the DPT at three months old with encephalitic screaming syndrome and Asperger’s, as did my brother. My mother reacted to the diphtheria vaccine at four with Asperger’s and bowel disease. My daughter reacted to the hep-B vaccine, given without my knowledge or permission, and against my express orders, with encephalitic screaming syndrome and autism. The DTaP booster at 18 months erased her only words and she was diagnosed with autism two months later. I reacted to a tetanus booster at 19 with both arms being paralyzed for several days, brachial plexus neuropathy, which triggered multiple sclerosis.
I had natural measles at six, chicken pox at seven, and rubella at some point. Did you? That’s much the better way to go!
I’m glad the Covid vaccines have fallen out of favor, but disabling or fatal vaccine damage from many other vaccines is very common and still a big problem. I’m so glad RFK is doing so much!
Holy cow! The only vaccines I know I ever got were the small pox and tetanus shots. I did not get the polio shots. I only ever got one flu shot when I was going through chemo & the doctor said I really should. I don't know if in the mix of chemo it had a negative effect or not. I had measles, chicken pox and scarlet fever. I'm happy for RFK also. I hope he is allowed to do what he thinks is right.
I did not get the shots. None. However, my 81 year old husband did get two against my pleadings. Now he has guillaine barre syndrome and also sleeps about 16 hours a day. I have to walk beside him wherever he goes or he will fall over....he has lost his sense of balance and his digestion is worse than it was. He now needs to take medication for this and for his diarrhea.
I am 76 and feel fine. I take no prescribed medications or drugs of any kind. Most people I know did take the injections, though-
I tried to warn them with articles, books, personal letters. Nothing worked. I am heartbroken for them.
I too, am worried about "shedding" and constantly air out our apartment and also sleep in another room to avoid breathing it in. Probably I do get some of the stuff in my system.
I'm sorry to hear of your husband's problems and your need to deal with them (of course). I have been very unsteady lately. In fact, I fell over on my back while walking up a very slight incline. Didn't slip, just fell over.
I had a tooth extracted, a cyst removed, and a squamous cell cancer removed from my eyelid. The doctors all used lidocaine or similar. I've been reading that those numbing agents have been contaminated with mRNA. I haven't been able to confirm or deny. I have had some weird symptoms though since I had the procedures.
The last international flight I took was in Spring from Houston to Dublin via the Manchester Airport. It was an excellent flight on … Singapore Airlines. That route has (of course) been discontinued, but so has my interest in ever going overseas again.
The gung-ho, ready-to-solve-any-problem-former-1950s American (or Englishman or German or...) is now a blithering idiot who's had far too many disparate ideas entered into their heads through "education" and who can't, therefore, determine how they should proceed once their script fails. It's getting worse. If AI can't give them an answer soon, they'll literally be immobile and incapacitated.
I grew up an Army brat and flew MATS as a kid over to Taiwan. Our engine caught fire returning several years later, and we had to emergency landed in Guam. Love plane travel. Won't travel by plane again, though, in this life. Too much bull to make the travel worthwhile. Last time I flew was years ago to Iowa for a QHHT reading. Pilot who flew last leg entered local international airport and stopped on a dime. Loved it. Literally stopped on a dime. Hit the runway, traveled a few feet, and jerked to a stop. Now...that's flying.
Very tragic and STUPID that the depopulator globalists who think we are as disposable/interchangeable as insects and therefore pushed the highly toxic mrna on young healthy people. Who do they think we are dependent upon? Even those 70 private jets that decended on Venice for the Bezos bacchanalia need reliable uncompromised skilled labor. Their lives are dependent upon it. Is that duper’s delight of a smirk so frequently seen on Gates an indication that he thinks he actually got away with something? And made money at the same time? Coach Deon Sanders isn’t the only one currently sidelined… my friends in the skilled labor sector tell me the mental/emotional/physical abilities of their fellow workers who should be in their prime has taken a big slide post pandemic.
Good story John. I pilot the B777 for a major airline and I can say that although the -200Bs are getting older, maintenance teams are top notch. Procedures are outlined so that even newbies have a solid frame work to trouble shoot. I have no reason to doubt the MX on our ships. The ships are getting tired. But, as you say, they are willing work horses and they are truly a marvel to fly.
Check in with your Finance and HR departments. That’s where most of the trouble starts.
This is why I try not to go anywhere if I can't travel there by car. Air travel was a lot more fun back in 1992.
It sounds like it was an excruciating trip with all the delays and I guess you wondered, if you would ever get back to Dallas.
I feel the same way as Eleftherios, I like to keep my tires on the ground and have driven across the U.S. ten times without a cellphone or a GPS. However, my children gave me a trip to Greece for Christmas in 1989. I went the following August. The first part was on a commercial airline, until I got to Chicago. Then, I transferred to Yugoslavian Airlines. I could not believe my eyes. The interior of the plane looked like an empty cargo ship or bomber. It had no seats in the front and perhaps 4 rows in the back...and not all the seats were filled. It flew over the North Pole to get to Beograd...and my arm was almost paralyzed from the cold. I left my sweater in a suitcase in the hold. There was no food on this long flight and I declined the water, which had rust floating in it. It was a good thing that I had brought a quart jar with honey, lemon, spirulina and water with me. It sufficed. I wound up sitting next to a Yugoslavian man who was wearing a heavy overcoat...and a big hat, which was pulled down on his head. He had a thick Yugoslavian accent and I had to listen hard to understand him...and I did learn something. He said that the English had a habit of going around the world...changing place names. He said that he did not live in Belgrade...He lived in Beograd. When i got to Greece, one of the places I set up to visit was the Island of Rhodes; perhaps, named after Cecil B. Rhodes. This is where the Colossus of Rhodes was located; One of the seven wonders of the Ancient World. It was perhaps 80 ft high and the legs of the Sun God Helios spanned the entrance to the harbor. Cecil B Rhodes was a British mining magnate and politician in South Africa. The Greeks did not call the island Rhodes; they called it Rodos.
When I was fifteen, I went to Beograd. I always wondered in later years if that was the same place as Belgrade. Thanks for answering a decades-long question!
And that is exactly why my cute little Sunkissed buns will remain in the United States and not be traveling to Europe anytime soon. The only upcoming flight I have scheduled is Key West in September and that damn plane better get me there because I’m gonna need that vacation. (Says the spoiled princess)
IF I CANNOT GET SOMEWHERE WITHOUT FLYING, I WILL NOT GO THERE -- SIMPLE!
I agree. I certainly will not cross the oceans soon, maybe never again at my age. I do want to revisit the beach and waters of the Dominican Republic near Punta Cana, however, so I may have to take that chance. Otherwise it's the trains with sleeper cars and bedrooms for me!
I enjoyed this column. You are definitely heroic for not having a mental breakdown. I liked the line about the lady who talked like a New Jersey mafia made man. Sexy!
Sexy? I was a sailor (USN) and then a police officer, and developed a tendency toward profane speech. I don't like that in myself, and I am aghast when young ladies - lovely or not - speak so profanely, but I am old and was raised differently. I completely understand when others look down on me when I curse, so I work hard at not doing so in public (usually just to myself when my elderly arthritic body fails to function properly).
I hate profanity peppered into every sentence. I read an article in psychology, and it did say using bad language when under severe stress is a temporary stress reliever. I lose control when driving, other than that I have trained myself to find other words. But no judgement, I am guilty of it. In a general sense I find vulgarity destroys a decent image of the person using it, male or female.
I have been taken aback by this rise in use of four letter expletives in our language including females using them without hesitation. I am 78, and polite company, both male and female, would not be caught using such language. It was thought to be an indication of low class, or sailors. Now, highly educated young people of both exes use it with abandon. It still shocks me! When did this become acceptible?
I SAID IT EARLIER: EVERYTHING IN OUR PRESENT DAY CULTURE SCREAMS: "DECADENCE."
They think it's cool but its abrasive and is no substitute for real confidence and power.
Make of this what you will, but my daughter said people started saying bad words online and on television during the lockdowns (she was a child). It’s as if it never changed back.
I am 77 and, although over-educated, swear more than I want it. I thought about how that came about, in site of a strict dutch upbringing. The answer that came up, out of my experience as a learning specialist, is that people most readily imitate the language they hear most often. Hmm.... I guess I've spent too much time in North American schools.
Up here in blue-haired Portland, OR, women talk that way.
As a fellow Dallasite, I’m doomed to use AA for most of my travel as well (despite Love Field being far more convenient- Not a SWA fan, alas). I thought it was just their ineptitude for a while, but I have a Houston friend with frequent mishaps on United as well. Twice in the last three months, I’ve had to deplane due to a flat tire. That seems both banal and utterly foreseeable.
I agree air travel is marvelous, but the maintenance issues that should be fixed long before passengers and schedules get disrupted is of mounting concern. The situation is fast becoming untenable, and I worry - truly and literally- what has to happen for the industry to take better care to prevent these mishaps.
The combination of aging aircraft and DEI-hired mechanics and air traffic control staff - but beginning with TSA - have kept me out of the air since 2001, other than when I pilot myself. I no longer can get the needed medical certificate (formerly commercial helicopter rated) and I personally would not chance what is left of my life in the air, given issues with FAA tower staff and airline mechanical staff (not just Boeing, but especially them).
I have driven coast to coast a number of times rather than fly anywhere commercial. I haven't a clue when things might improve. YMMV.
IT ONLY GETS WORSE.
The flip of this is the outrageous costs to do things like remodel a bathroom. My friend was quoted $45K for a somewhat basic bathroom. A former commercial plumber retired made a visit to her house to do a job redoing the under sink pipes and install new 55ss Insinkerator. He brought up a friend of his paid $100K for new windows after I brought the bathroom quote. He said he and his retired buddies could do the bathroom much cheaper. His work under sink was stellar. The graft will not last much longer as the youngers in general cannot afford anything.
Therefore, I'm eternally grateful that my son, with a Master's Degree in History, is into his 2nd year as a plumbing apprentice. ;)
Passed Master Plumber exam in 1975 at age of 21 with 100%, both records, taught by Dad since age 10. 1975 AAS chemical tech engineering option, 1976 BA chemistry ACS certified,1980 MA chemistry. 2015 retired chief electric system chemist of three power companies, Dad said you already did all the plumbing and heating jobs from age 10 to age 25. At age 25 my employer offered to sell plumbing business to me because Master Plumber and technical education and good with people. I paid for college with plumbing shifts at local plumbing shop. Perhaps go with chemistry and good knees. He was right like always. Dad was pulled from school in 10th grade to support family. I was Master Plumber and Master Chemist German grand mother said you are the best of the useful careers.
Check DMSO at the DMSOStore and that company is on Amazon too. See A Midwestern Doctor on substack about DMSO. I use for college sports injured knee and for my spine after a hospital infected me with virus and gaslit me.
Yes-- I second your story. I have used it for years. Pharma makes no money so it isn't advertised or pushed at doctors offices. Some of my relatives are "medical professionals" and they look down on this "nature's own miracle" as it is not a product of PHARMA ...but originally came from trees. DMSO is what makes trees open their cells so tons of water can be pumped from under the ground into the tops of trees...sometimes as much as 4O ft high!
I use it on all kinds of problems and also combine it with other products like helichrysum to stop tooth decay. I never have to see the dentist any more!
Yes my Wife uses DMSO and reads mid Western doctor. Wife is putting on my cut finger now. DMSO been around for decades as supplement. I was chemist 40 years. My knees ok because I was swimmer and runner so no sports injuries. Why because need to work plumbing Saturdays. So none of those ball chasing sports.
And...your knees are holding up?
Fantastic family, BTW!
Yes retired at 62 before I went to doctor for knee evaluation all good. Doctor asked when do your knees hurt. I said when dragging brush from yard to swamp. Doctor said you are chief electric system chemist of all utilities in DC, 1/2MD, DE and Southern NJ and your Wife is OBGYN. Perhaps hire young guy. I said and give up chain saw fun. I did hire local crew for cutting lawn and keeping place looking good. Fun fact the lawn crew all the ladies of that family were patients of my Wife. Joe says the ladies ask him " Did you take care of the MY GYN's house", LOL We are now 72 & 69 scuba diving, 4 dives per week in Hawaii six months a year. Knees good keep swimming.
PS Plumbing is usually a genetic trade. Dad taught me plumbing to assure a future. I was dyslexic in school only good at science, fixing stuff, 3d thinking and saving money. Now we know dyslexia is actually a super power.
I was working one Saturday at older guys house. My boss stops by to see if I needed any thing. The old guy says why did you send this young guy? My boss Steve is my only other Master plumber and has 2 chemistry degrees and has been doing plumbing 13 years . Did Steve offend you? No. Boss I can pull Steve off this job because I can send him do do any job. I can send less experienced man on Monday. Old guy I stand corrected. Old guy says please tell me your story Steve.
Dad said Plumbing or Chemistry both require fun with fire.
Just a caveat here, DMSO is fine for nine out of ten people, but for one in ten, they are susceptible to severe headaches when using it and they can't continue the regime.
do you have a link for that information about 1 out of 1O peeps get headaches from DMSo
I was quoted a 55k roof we all had a good laugh as I read quote. See you later boys.
Yes, the young can't pay for the exorbitant prices of the greedy.
“Time to spare? Go by air!” to quote a venerable retired AA pilot
John, I travel a lot. This has become the routine rather than the exception. Always a new set of particulars, but the end results pretty much the same. Thanks for putting this to paper. Everyone who travels to whom I have sent it is loving it.
I went through a similar set of follies with planes from London to California and the West Coast. I had some sticker shock finding out that many basic toiletries were 10x more expensive at Target now than at a similar British store when I had to buy some basics when my bag did not arrive because it was not put on the plane. Also had fun with a “rudder pedal adjustment problem” where it was unknown if we would have to disembark, or just wait for someone to sign a safety form after giving it a nudge. We circled over the SF Bay around and around before beginning our journey. Fun times. I’ll be kicked for saying this, but if communication inside the airports is anything to go by, I would expect there is a problem among staff with using or being understood in the chosen business language, as just one contributing factor, perhaps.
Welcome home John. Loved the wonderful descriptions of your trials and tribulations. Travel by air is a marvel but there is no disputing the experience is so degraded these days as to make a colonoscopy look like fun by comparison!
I am so sorry. We went to Italy for two and a half weeks in April, and had nearly as surreal and horrendous experience as you. I had not flown to Europe in many years, and was unaware that transatlantic flights which used to take six hours now take nine. They must have had the windows open, it was freezing cold. AI calmly and amiably agreed that it now took twice as long to make the same flight. Snafus, problems, delays at every turn. Two words. Never Delta. And I learned that Atlanta is now the biggest, busiest, most screwed-up, gratuitously hostile airport in the world. I spent hours corraled with other wheelchair users, with no indication of when I would ever be processed. Coming back, we had one hour from landing to get our shuttle home in St. Louis. An hour delay to board. Once on board, someone threw up on a seat. If only they had waited until we took off. Everyone had to get off and wait two hours. I was in conniptions. I hobbled to the front where two flight attendants were passing the time of day, and said we’d have twenty minutes on arrival to get our luggage and hobble to the Mo-X meeting point. 10 p.m., last of the night. They told me several times not to worry and to go back to my seat. We ultimately reached Mo-X at exactly 10 p.m., not a second earlier.
It is NOTHING like when I was young. Now the seats are crammed together, and there are few meals. This time not even tiny packets of peanuts St. Louis to Atlanta. They grudgingly had to feed us on the nine-hour flight as we were weakened from shivering so hard. The tableware was made from flimsy balsa wood, I guess because of stabbing incidents by frustrated passengers.
And that doesn’t address our problems in Italy. A B&B host in Milan who had forgotten when I booked that it would be during the Feria dei Mobili, when lodging rates doubled. He wanted to cancel us. A hotel keeper in Stresa said we had stayed the four prepaid nights when it was only three. He said Lucky for you your room is available, if you pay for it. I found correspondance on my phone proving the dates. Ah! La tecnologia! Cosa si può fare? In Sirmione, I had prepaid three nights. The BnB was locked. I found a phone number and called. The new owner, who had written to me in January assuring me that the Audrey room awaited us, said in April that in the interim he had bought the hotel, negating our pre-pay with Paula, now in Sicily. I sent him the correspondance with the SWIFT number for our pre-payment and an article on Italian law mandating that he honor our booking. He did.
The train didn’t go all the way from Milan to Stresa. We had to get off and change to a bus. The train back to Milan didn’t go all the way because of a rain storm, and we had to get off at a station crowded with thousands and drag our suitcases down the steps under the tracks and then up again, milling about with thousands to get a train to Milan. The door on the train didn’t open when it stopped, forcing us to get off at the next stop and go back. The train to Malpensa Airport had no lights and no announcements: I asked the two young women facing us when we should get off.
The following morning, we left the Holiday Inn Malpensa at 7 a.m. Milan time. We didn’t walk through our door returning home until 1 a.m. Central Time, 8 a.m. Milan Time. 25 hours en route. Much, much longer than my carefree trips to Europe in the ‘80s. Never again.
My husband and I went to Europe frequently during the 80s, 90s, and even up to 2011. Then personal illness put a crimp in our travels. The last time we went to Europe was in 2014. My husband died 3 years later. A friend and I had plans to go to Spain in Spring 2021. Neither of us had gotten the shots. Two days before the trip we were told we could not travel. Spain didn't want us and the US might not take us back in. I was envying friends who could go to Europe. I no longer do. I hear more and more of these sorts of things happening. I am not at all certain the snafus are not planned events. Can't keep people home with fake pandemics? Keep them home with the frustration of "getting there".
Could be planned, could be that virtually everyone has suffered severe brain damage from vaccines. Makes them, us (including myself), stupid, sick, and incompetent. It’s really end of the world stuff.
Did you get the shots? I didn't but I'm 83. I don't know if some of the stuff I suffer from is the result of "shedding" (is it real?) or the result of breathing the plastics, aluminum, and other toxins being sprayed to dim the sun. My shot up friends do seem to be doing worse than I even though they are all younger. This is the way the world ends, as the poem goes.
Yes, I got two Pfizers in May 2021 and a Moderna booster in November. The first dose caused vertigo and vomiting for twenty minutes, tge booster caused tachycardia. Also true that I had a bad case of Covid in Dec 2019, and a really bad case of long Covid for several years. In my case, the long Covid was worse than the long Vacvine. But of course I wish I hadn’t taken the vaccine.
However, I reacted to the DPT at three months old with encephalitic screaming syndrome and Asperger’s, as did my brother. My mother reacted to the diphtheria vaccine at four with Asperger’s and bowel disease. My daughter reacted to the hep-B vaccine, given without my knowledge or permission, and against my express orders, with encephalitic screaming syndrome and autism. The DTaP booster at 18 months erased her only words and she was diagnosed with autism two months later. I reacted to a tetanus booster at 19 with both arms being paralyzed for several days, brachial plexus neuropathy, which triggered multiple sclerosis.
I had natural measles at six, chicken pox at seven, and rubella at some point. Did you? That’s much the better way to go!
I’m glad the Covid vaccines have fallen out of favor, but disabling or fatal vaccine damage from many other vaccines is very common and still a big problem. I’m so glad RFK is doing so much!
Holy cow! The only vaccines I know I ever got were the small pox and tetanus shots. I did not get the polio shots. I only ever got one flu shot when I was going through chemo & the doctor said I really should. I don't know if in the mix of chemo it had a negative effect or not. I had measles, chicken pox and scarlet fever. I'm happy for RFK also. I hope he is allowed to do what he thinks is right.
I did not get the shots. None. However, my 81 year old husband did get two against my pleadings. Now he has guillaine barre syndrome and also sleeps about 16 hours a day. I have to walk beside him wherever he goes or he will fall over....he has lost his sense of balance and his digestion is worse than it was. He now needs to take medication for this and for his diarrhea.
I am 76 and feel fine. I take no prescribed medications or drugs of any kind. Most people I know did take the injections, though-
I tried to warn them with articles, books, personal letters. Nothing worked. I am heartbroken for them.
I too, am worried about "shedding" and constantly air out our apartment and also sleep in another room to avoid breathing it in. Probably I do get some of the stuff in my system.
I'm sorry to hear of your husband's problems and your need to deal with them (of course). I have been very unsteady lately. In fact, I fell over on my back while walking up a very slight incline. Didn't slip, just fell over.
I had a tooth extracted, a cyst removed, and a squamous cell cancer removed from my eyelid. The doctors all used lidocaine or similar. I've been reading that those numbing agents have been contaminated with mRNA. I haven't been able to confirm or deny. I have had some weird symptoms though since I had the procedures.
I have heard the mRNA products are in our food and the "vaccination schedule" for children.
All of us need to keep these stories out in the open and keep warning about these toxic products.
mRNA is inherently toxic...according to many....including
former vp of Pfizer Dr. Mike Yeadon has stated as has renowned epidemiologist Sucharit Bhakdi and the Doctors4covidethics.org
There are many others warning about this. But our government is going ahead and plans to MURDER OUR CHILDREN.
This is beyond horrifying.
I loved your balsa wood comment!
The last international flight I took was in Spring from Houston to Dublin via the Manchester Airport. It was an excellent flight on … Singapore Airlines. That route has (of course) been discontinued, but so has my interest in ever going overseas again.
DEI hiring.
The gung-ho, ready-to-solve-any-problem-former-1950s American (or Englishman or German or...) is now a blithering idiot who's had far too many disparate ideas entered into their heads through "education" and who can't, therefore, determine how they should proceed once their script fails. It's getting worse. If AI can't give them an answer soon, they'll literally be immobile and incapacitated.
I grew up an Army brat and flew MATS as a kid over to Taiwan. Our engine caught fire returning several years later, and we had to emergency landed in Guam. Love plane travel. Won't travel by plane again, though, in this life. Too much bull to make the travel worthwhile. Last time I flew was years ago to Iowa for a QHHT reading. Pilot who flew last leg entered local international airport and stopped on a dime. Loved it. Literally stopped on a dime. Hit the runway, traveled a few feet, and jerked to a stop. Now...that's flying.
TOO MANY COLLEGE JOES AND NOT ENOUGH REAL SKILLED WORKMEN.
Very tragic and STUPID that the depopulator globalists who think we are as disposable/interchangeable as insects and therefore pushed the highly toxic mrna on young healthy people. Who do they think we are dependent upon? Even those 70 private jets that decended on Venice for the Bezos bacchanalia need reliable uncompromised skilled labor. Their lives are dependent upon it. Is that duper’s delight of a smirk so frequently seen on Gates an indication that he thinks he actually got away with something? And made money at the same time? Coach Deon Sanders isn’t the only one currently sidelined… my friends in the skilled labor sector tell me the mental/emotional/physical abilities of their fellow workers who should be in their prime has taken a big slide post pandemic.
Curse Mercury Retrograde for your problems..........the fleet footed messenger oversees travel and mechanical things!
I'm afraid that that sort of thing is the norm now. I flew to India in February and it was a similar horrible mess.