travel

Chillinati

Chili and Diet Dr Pepper I officially ran out of tchotchkes last night at 6:59 p.m., just as the reception was winding down. The featured dinner was … Skyline Chili in meat and vegetable varieties. The chili has the familiar texture and appearance, but has a vague curry aroma. Its non-Scovill spiciness makes it interesting. […]

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Day three in the Queen City

The keynote this morning was by Michael Wynne, Secretary of the Air Force. His overarching theme was integration of the engine into the systems on and off the aircraft. For example, since the F-86 fighter, the military has included the engine in the airframe design for efficiency. In commercial aerospace, most planes have the engine

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Day Two in the Queen City

Last night I assembled my bike in anticipation of seeing the greater Cincinnati area up close and personal. The bike made it through TSA’s clutches fine, but I discovered my frame pump was missing. TSA never fully closes the latches, so my theory is it fell out while they were rummaging. Grrr…. The nearest bike

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Duty Free

On the way home, passengers at Trondheim’s international terminal are routeed right through the Duty Free store on the way to the departure gate. Having walked through this the other way, I realize the intent was that I should/would have gone through it the first time, meeting Norwegian customs at the other end after an

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Ice Planet Hoth

The white noise and vibration during the takeoff phase of an aircraft always puts me to sleep. It was my hope that I’d stay that way for a significant portion of the flight to Amsterdam. Unfortunately, The Machine That Goes Ping does so at 10,000 feet, when it’s arbitrarily okay to operate portable electronic devices.

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Beautiful Baltimore

Ginormous map! An interesting facet of the conference I’m attending is each subset has a “lightning round” whereby the presenters have one minute to pitch their subject matter. This and the bound copy of the presentations were enough to narrow down the list of things I would be sitting in on for the first few

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Back in Seattle

Back home! It’s warm, so no cookie for me. The weather cooperated Thursday morning, and I had a pleasant 25-ish mile morning ride. I had my helmet, but if I ever do a bike rental again, I’m going to bring a couple of tools to adjust things and change a flat. Thankfully, I didn’t have

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Austin: Day Four

Flash Flood Warning… and not all from perspiration The tone for Wednesday’s episode of the trade show was foreshadowed by the two Mexican brown-tailed bat carcasses on the sidewalk of the Congress Avenue bridge. Dead. The printed schedule said the show was going to run until 6pm. Morning attendance at the plenary session was about

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