Greg & Veronica's Singapore Update

Volume 16

Monday, January 04, 1999

"Around the World in 84 Hours "

Happy New Year!

We just returned from a far-too-short trip back to the U.S.A. We spent a week enjoying the holidays with Greg's family. It was great seeing some family and friends although we couldn't squeeze everyone in, so our apologies to everyone we missed.

We were travelling on our frequent-flyer miles, so we splurged and flew business class. Wow! Now, that's the way to travel. The trip is still far too long to be enjoyable, but business class makes it much more comfortable and bearable. As an added treat, Veronica arranged to have us seated up-stairs on all of the 747 flights. Getting up those stairs has been a life-long dream for Greg, so he was very happy. Instead of being seated with 300 fellow-passengers and fighting over a few lavatories, we sat with less than 30 people and had two, TWO!, lavatories. (For those that haven't traveled on very long flights; this is a very big deal.) On the Tokyo-Los Angeles leg, we were in one of United's newest planes. Our amazingly big seats included headrests, personal reading lights (on a flexible arm), extendable footrests, personal video entertainment system (3 channels of movies, 3 channels of other video and a dozen channels of music) and personalized lumbar support (with some form of massaging action). Veronica was even able to adjust were the seat ended, allowing her to sit with her feet on the floor. We had a very impressive tailwind and completed the L.A. to Washington leg in less than 4 hours. On the other hand, our return flight was marred by an unexpected 5-hour layover in Chicago that also resulted in an unexpected hotel stay in Tokyo (at United's expense). So, while the trip to the U.S. was only 24 1/2 hours; our return trip lasted 42 hours (including the few hours sleep in Japan).

One interesting thing about our trip was that we left on New Year's Eve Day (31Dec98), which meant we were on the plane for New Year's. We weren't sure what to expect: a very surly bunch of people flying on free frequent-flyer tickets angry with missing the opportunity to "party like it's 1999"; or a very lively group intent on partying "like it was 1999" for the entire flight, celebrating every time we crossed into another time zone. While our fellow passengers weren't surly, the trip was rather quiet. Unfortunately, rather than experiencing the stroke of midnight (and New Year's) numerous times, we missed it completely. As we left Washington, it was midnight in Tokyo, as we flew west, the planet (and New Year's) was moving east. So, we never caught up and never really saw midnight. I guess you need to fly by way of Europe to enjoy 24 hours of midnight.

Veronica enjoyed an entire 15 hours here in Singapore before flying off to Australia for some training (i.e. we arrived around 6:00 p.m. on Saturday and she left at 9:30 a.m. Sunday). In fact, the last few weeks have been her chance to fly all over the place. Here's where she has been and what trips remain to be done:

November 13-15	Banyan Tree Resort, Indonesia
November 26-28	Bangkok, Thailand
December 02-04	Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
December 14-18	Bangkok, Thailand
December 22-31	Washington, D.C., U.S.A.
January 3 - 8	Sydney, Australia
January 8-10	Cruise to Nowhere (5 hours b/w arriving from Australia & leaving)
January 13	Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
January 15-19	Chiang Mai, Thailand
January 26	Bangkok, Thailand
January 27	Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

All in all, 11 trips, 40,000 miles and 6 countries in 10 weeks, pretty impressive. For some of these, Greg will also be traveling which will be nice since he'd like to see his wife sometime.

Finally, we will close with a little New Year's parable.

Once upon a time, in a far away place, there lived a fool and his wife. One day, they returned home from a shopping trip and the fool was struck with a brilliant idea, guaranteed to get a laugh from his wife. So, the fool ripped open a package of little hooks for the bathroom and attached them to his forehead. Rushing into the bedroom, he was disappointed to discover his lovely wife was not there, but in the bathroom. He waited patiently for the chance to surprise his wife. And waited. After a short time, he felt some pain and removed the suction cups and hooks from his forehead. When he thought his wife was about to come out, he reattached the suction hooks and waited. And waited. Finally, he felt the humor of the situation dissipating and became impatient. Rushing into the bathroom he was elated when his wife was struck dumb and then became quite hysterical. His initial pride was soon replaced with concern for his wife seemed incapable of stopping. Only then did he turn to see his reflection in the mirror; only then did he see the two very large, very round and very red marks on his forehead; one on each side. Quickly, he removed the hooks. But the bruises remained. He waited. She continued laughing. He waited some more. She laughed some more. Dread set in. As several minutes passed the fool realized two very important things: first, the marks weren't going anywhere anytime soon, and; secondly, his wife was enjoying this far too much.

At this point, the fool remembered the very important meeting he had scheduled for the next day; a meeting with a very important potential customer to discuss a very, very large project. A meeting in which his involvement was critical and his presence was intended to reassure the client that the fool's company was competent and professional. As his wife's laughter finally subsided (more from exhaustion than anything else), the fool started contemplating his options. His preferred course of action would be to call in sick and hide in the apartment until the marks left his forehead; probably no more than 3-4 days. Unfortunately, the meeting made this unacceptable. For a short time, he considered the use of cosmetics; but preliminary testing indicated that this would not be successful. Covering the bruises with bandages seemed promising, but the perfect symmetry of the twin bruises meant that the bandages would generate as many questions as the bruises. Claiming he was attacked and robbed might work, but again, the symmetry of the bruises would make this hard to believe. Abduction by aliens seemed a promising cover story. But, remembering the lessons of his youth, he considered telling the truth. Simply explain to his customer and co-workers that he had attached two bathroom hooks to his forehead and left them attached long enough to cause permanent scarring; all in the name of a good laugh. He was still undecided when he went to bed, hoping that the bruises would disappear on their own in his sleep. Unfortunately, when he awoke, he discovered that some prayers go unanswered and his forehead still bore the marks of his stupidity. As for the question of how to deal with the meeting, he realized, as I'm sure all of you have do, that there was only one "right" thing to do. He slapped a Band-Aid on the uglier bruise and claimed he bumped into a cabinet. (By the way, the bruises took 4 or 5 days to completely disappear.)

Of course, that is a completely hypothetical and fictional story only meant to teach an important lesson. While everyone is free to identify their own lesson, we suggest the lesson is: "don't put suction cups on your forehead!"

Greg & Veronica

Check out our archive of past newsletters (including the "missing" Newsletter 15) at:

http://home.pacific.net.sg/~veronica_greg

Note: We haven't uploaded the pictures, yet; once Veronica stops doing so much travelling, she'll be able to upload them all.