A Little Pee Problem

Honolulu - Saipan man sentenced for urinating on fellow airline passenger

Federal Court judge Leslie Kobayashi yesterday sentenced a 28-year-old man from Saipan to 21 days in prison for assaulting a fellow passenger on a flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu. Jerome Kenneth Kingzio had pleaded guilty. The incident took place on March 21. U.S. Attorney Ed Kubo said court documents show the victim, a 66-year-old woman, was watching the in-flight movie when Kingzio stood next to her and began urinating on her.

One has to wonder if "Human Rights" Commission Employees throughout Canada aren't angry that this didn't happen on a Canadian flight. For then surely Mr. Kingzio could have claimed a Lack of Multicultural Understanding, successfully suing both his fellow passenger and the airline in our Kangaroo Courts. With the money he would have been awarded he could have taken a vacation to Hawaii!

50 Years Ago Today: Aviation History

On October 26, 1958 a Pan Am Boeing 707 aircraft called Clipper America took off from New York City's Idlewild Airport (now called JFK) and flew to Orly Airport in Paris, with only a stop in Gander, Newfoundland. The aircraft carried 111 passengers and 11 crew. The entire journey took 8.5 hours. What we consider commonplace today was very much a novelty back then!

You can read more about this momentous event here and the British equivalent here.

Frontier Airlines: The Shape of Things to Come?

On the flight to Texas and then to Chicago, we went on Southwest Airlines. They're a great airline with the friendliest staff and brag in their advertising about no hidden (or less than obvious) fees.
On the way back though we got a good deal on Frontier Airlines, which took us all the way back into YVR in Vancouver. At least it *seemed* like a good deal. I should have more carefully read the fine print. Their rules are in transition and we were almost charged $25 for each of our first bags and $50 for each of our second bags. The lady in Chicago was kind though and charged us only $25 x 2 for our second bags.
Additionally, on the flights, additional surcharges included:

• $3 for each snack item
• $6 for 24 channels of Live TV

I'm not complaining, just observing. As a long time aficionado of the aviation industry, I'll be interested to see which business model more flyers flock to.

Blue Angels Redux

My friend just uploaded the remainder of the Blue Angels photos. These were taken on August 2, 2008 by my friend, Danny. You can view the full set here.

FAA: Communication Breakdown Delaying Flights

Seattle Visit: Day 6

What a fantastic final day we had in Seattle! We picked up Hannah and headed to Chinatown. She selected Shanghai Gardens, a restaurant she was familiar with. The food was very good.
Then we drove to the south end of Seattle to visit The Museum of Flight. This is another one of those places that I should have visited years, if not decades, ago but never did.

The museum is mostly about aviation but a portion of it is devoted to aeronautics. This was apparently a real satellite that came back to earth and was recovered.

The Great Gallery was by far my favourite part of the entire museum. It's incredibly amazing to see so many beautiful planes so close up.






There were two simulators. Danny & Hannah tried the one which allowed them to actually control it.



The "Red Barn" contains artifacts documenting the origins of airplane building, especially in regard to Boeing.
It's pretty amazing to learn that in the early part of the 20th Century the planes were mostly made out of wood!

This is a fascinating map which you may choose to enlarge.

Here's a shot of early air travel. Note how formally dressed each passenger is. The look on the face of the 2nd passenger on the right is priceless!
The Blue Angels, performing in Seattle in the previous days, were parked just south of the museum.
I'd long been curious about the Concorde and was gratified to find out that the museum had one! Inside though, it pretty much looks like a normal plane.
This is the Air Force One plane that flew through the 1960's.
Mr. Danny, near the President's desk.



These wee ones seemed to be having a fabulous day there!
Returning to Hannah's grandparents home, we found Winston, their greyhound. A gentler dog I have never met.
Ready, willing, and able for a water fun fight!
I took a series of photos to capture the amazing panorama that is downtown Seattle. Unfortunately I didn't have my tripod so the pictures didn't line up very well.
Danny and I finally left Seattle around 8:45pm that night. With little traffic, we made it back to my place in 2.5 hours, which included a 10 minute stop at a gas station and at the border. Being away for more than 48 hours I could legally bring back 24 bottles of beer duty-free, which you can see I clearly did. If you look carefully, you'll notice that I much prefer the darker beers!

Happy Birthday, America!

232 Years ago you declared independence for your nation. 60 years ago some of your finest citizens used ingenuity and determination to preserve the freedom of 2.5 Million citizens of Berlin, Germany.

Here's the fascinating story, called The Candy Bombers:

Traveling to Hawaii

H-Day had finally arrived! It was time for my Mom & I to fly to Hawaii! I had hoped to take her here a year ago but just couldn't swing it. But after much planning and some good deals I found on the Internet, we were now on our way. My friend, Deenu, picked us each up and drove us to the airport.

We checked in with plenty of time to spare and waited for our first flight, a short trip to Seattle.

Though we were technically on United Airlines all the way, this first flight was on a propeller plane operated by Air Canada. We began panicking when the flight didn't depart on time. 5 minutes ... 10 minutes ... 15 minutes ... it ended up leaving 35 minutes late!

There wasn't a whole lot to see other than the magnificent Gulf / San Juan Islands.

Arriving in Seattle, I thought we had to go across the entire airport to reach our next flight, but fortunately it was only 30 yards away. Most everyone else had already boarded! But the time we got into our seats, it was only about 3 minutes later when the doors were closed. Here's a quick video I took before the plane left the gate:



It was crystal clear on the way down to San Francisco, giving us gorgeous views of many mountains along the way.



Arriving in San Francisco, we were right on schedule so I knew we didn't have to rush for our next plane.



The SFO airport had some great large scale model airplanes hanging from the ceiling; a great tribute to the history of aviation.

Only in San Francisco!


A weary traveler has to eat! This was a superb burrito, one of the best I've ever had.


Our flight to Honolulu was absolutely packed. My mom and I were seated in different rows. I was fortunate to be seated in between a great father and his son from San Jose. I later learned that his wife and their 2 daughters were seated in the row in front of us.


United has a "Halfway to Hawaii" game. Based on the stats they provide, you submit an entry about when precisely the plane passes the halfway point. Using math, I calculated when the halfway point "should be" but failed to add a fudge factor to account for acceleration and such. If you ever play, add about 15 minutes to the mathematical midway point of the trip.


Here are the 3 great ladies of the aforementioned family. The girl in the center was turning 7 on the day after we arrived. She became my instant buddy and pretty much wanted to adopt me! I do hope to meet them again one day.