UMTravels

An 8:30am flight to Houston, continuing onto Boston. All is on-time and I used miles to upgrade to First so at least I’m comfortable for the two four hour flights. Breakfast (Seattle-Houston): Dinner (Houston-Boston): Fernando met me at the airport and we took the Silver Line to the Red Line to his place in Sommerville. […]

Jim spent a good portion of today getting the wine club shipments ready — my how the club has grown! It’s gotten so big that we had to rearrange the back room. There could be worse problems. After work it’s dinner with Swanda and DamonTheCaveman – a day late (be still appreciated). With the rains […]

Birthday day. The big 57 – still years away from being able to start collecting retirement money. After the sun of the cruise (well, some rain, too) the return to Seattle has been soggy. Here is a shot from the shop today: As they say in Canada, “It’s pouring mooses and mounties.” Actually I doubt […]

Skipped breakfast – or shall I say, I had coffee and the cheesecake left over from yesterday’s lunch. It felt better to sleep than eat a heavy breakfast. I’m here to report that at least when we are in cell phone range, the wi-fi in the Parlour Car seems to be keeping up with everyone. […]

For me it was a tense morning – those of you who know me know that I don’t do well with tight connections. Off the boat at 7:45am and a connection $75 later (cab) to Union Station for a 10:10am train to Seattle – well, fraught with panic on my part. Coming into LA…. Gay […]

Two pictures: Boring sunset… and the Luke Skywaker Lounge: Another book down, boys at the club with the two new ones from Oly, dinner at the buffet because we are both too tired for sit down, then room service for things for tomorrow’s breakfast since we are out of here VERY VERY EARLY. [? ? […]

Lazy day here on the boat – lots of lying around reading. Finished: Where The Sea Breaks Bad (non-fiction about a Bering Sea adventure) Started: Anatomy of Motive (non-fiction about FBI profiling techniques) Why I seemed to grab three non-fictions and one fiction is beyond me – guess I packed in a hurry. I still […]

Another boat ride, another couple of lines: Not as bad as Seattle – 1 hour compared to 1.5 hours. This time there was a Preferred Line for the frequent cruisers like me and my guest so that knocked half an hour from the process, and the dual boarding ramps helped as well. By a little […]

We had to be out of our room at 8am… early. We were packed and on-time, and hit the buffet line at the same time as everyone else… the downside of disembarkation day. Had a light breakfast and headed to Customs – not bad, a half an hour line, and no luggage search. Luckily the […]

Too much puttering around that with nasty traffic I was over half an hour behind schedule. And more ugly traffic trying to get to the Cruise Ship terminal. Oh well, we don’t sail until 3:30. Magnatrious clocked our time getting through the check-in process to actually getting on-board – 1.5 hours. Maybe I should start […]

Hitting the water at noon on the Star Princess (balcony cabin) for my birthday ramble with Magnatrosious. This was originally booked for CaddyDaddy and I – may he rest in peace. Tomorrow is Vancouver for a night at the WorldMark at The Canadian. Monday we board the Golden Princess (mini-suite) for Los Angeles. Thursday morning […]

Today is my monthly work Friday – and it wasn’t too bad of a sales day, broke four digits which isn’t bad for a Friday. SalamanderHellbender showed up around 6:30 to taste some wine and take me to a thank you/birthday dinner after work – unfortunately it started to rain before I noticed – and […]

Well, today was supposed to be date day with the Seaside boy – alas – he had to cancel. Seems it’s the last day to get his xBox360 out of hock in Everett. Insert sad face. Instead it was just running errands around town – like picking up a package at the shop as well […]

No upgrade on the return – actually a downgrade from 6C to 30C – at least when I got to the airport there was a middle exit row seat available. Who thought a 4PM flight would be so popular? I was number 14 of 46 people wanting upgrades. Waiting in line for my flight – […]

This is the first of three trips to SFO this fall –as much to see the boys as for the 10,000 bonus miles. This isn’t the jet that I was flying on – the Salmon Thirty Salmon (one of two I believe), but it’s a cool paint job. Not my favorite seat (1C), but at […]

It must be fall – all the distributors are having their Monday Trade Tastings… apparently all on the same Monday. Four today. I made it to one, Jim made it to two. American Northwest was the tasting that both Jim and I made it to. I figure I got through about half of the wines […]

Well – the weather has finally turned. Cooler, light rain during shop hours, good for sales of Cabernet, not so much for the whites. Managed to sell out of the $10 Cabernet from the Columbia Valley that we had on offer today – so much so that we’ll be getting in some for special orders […]

Up at 8:30 for some reason. Ate at 10:00, then for some reason took an hour and a half nap. One last picture from my holiday. This is the Carl’s Jr. Restaurant in Terminal Two at the Cabo San Lucas Airport: Notice the Modelo and Corona Light Beer in the cooler – welcome to Mexico. […]

Well – I was out of the condo at 11 – I should say we as it was all of us. After a little traffic snarl I was to the airport around noon. Check-in was easy – and off to the terminal go I. Free Wi-Fi courtesy of Carl’s Jr. in Terminal Two – remodeled […]

Mm Before I get onto the Cabo Concoctions, and word about my sleeping arrangements for these four nights… I didn’t even bother to fold out the couch. It was that wide and that soft: And now onto some tips and trips for Kondo Kamping â„¢. The meal for my last night. Tilapia dipped in an […]