Airports you ever flown in or out of ?

So over at Flyertalk, there is a thread discussing the airports where people have ever flown in and out of (transits count). It took me a while to compile my own list :

US :
JFK LGA EWR ORD SFO
GSO PHL BDL SFO LAX
ASE DEN HNL SYR IAD
AUS ATL MDW ABQ BOS
IND SMF ARB PIT CLE
SNA RDU RNO SBA DTW
IAD

+ YYZ

32

International :

Asia :
KUL SZB SIN PEN BKI
KCH MYY JHB BKK PEK
DXB AUH HKG TPE KIX
NRT LBU BTU

18

Europe :
LHR STN LGW MUC HHN
TRS VCE KEF SXF AMS

10

total 60

Best airport : SIN (Singapore Changi). It's like a highclass mall, but just better.
Worse airport : LGA (La Guardia). It's big and ugly.
Most ridiculously arranged airport : IAD (Dulles)
Smallest airport : LBU (Labuan). Landed in a piper single engine turboprop.
Strangest location : BTU (Old Bintulu airport). It's right in the town center...you land and walk out into downtown. Inevitably, they closed it and moved to a modern airport out of the city.
Weirdest Restroom Amenities : MUC (Munich). You can buy condoms....and sex toys in vending machines at the Men's restrooms. (I want to know what the Women's restroom offers.)

Travel Mania and Stats Whoring

I am sitting in Aspen airport (ASE), waiting to head to Newark Interational (EWR), where I will spend about 16 hours before I head off to Trieste (TRS), via Munich (MUC). This would be the last leg of 7 city hop that started on May 19 with a trip from La Guardia (LGA) to Waterloo (via Toronto YYZ), back to LGA (via IAD) on May 23 before my flight to Aspen on May 24. I will cover about 12500 miles in total. Comparing to the 20000 odd miles I fly each time I return home to Penang just makes me feel even more further away from home.

While I am whoring my miles stats, might as well also throw in a nice milestone : I got my 500th citation yesterday, with an average of 26 citation per paper (30 for published ones). My h index is 11.

Anyway, gotta catch a plane. Bye.

Blog Neglect : excuses, excuses (and a paper!)

Excuses (bad ones)
(1) Trip to U Maryland in March
(2) Trip to Beijing in April
(3) Sheer laziness

Excuses (good ones)
(4) Writing a grant proposal
(5) Working on too many different projects

Excuses (really really bad one)
(6) Blogging on Other People's Blog (you still should click through, since that is actually a useful and informative post instead of the usual useless chattering here)

This is the question : To Marry or not to Marry

One of my favorite biographies was Adrian Desmond and James Moore's Darwin, which I eagerly read, huddled in the corner of a tiny YMCA bedrom while I was in England more than ten years back. In one of the most illuminating part of the biography, Desmond and Moore recounted Darwin's struggles with deciding whether he wanted to get married or not. At that time, he had returned from his Beagle trip, and his research had garnered him both acclaim and a comfortably wealthy life in London.

Before, and during his 6 years on board the Beagle, he has suffered through an on and off tumultuous relationship with his college girlfriend Fanny Owen (one day somebody will discover this wonderful and rather bittersweet romance he had and make a movie about it). And he wasn't quite ready to commit to a new relationship, having found comfort in his work and success. So, when faced with a burgeoning love in Emma Wedgwood, he turned on his scientific brain and made a list on the pros and cons of getting married.

This is the question

Mary

Children — (if it Please God) — Constant companion, (& friend in old age) who will feel interested in one, — object to be beloved & played with. — —better than a dog anyhow. — Home, & someone to take care of house — Charms of music & female chit-chat. — These things good for one's health. — Forced to visit & receive relations but terrible loss of time. —

W My God, it is intolerable to think of spending ones whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all. — No, no won't do. — Imagine living all one's day solitarily in smoky dirty London House. — Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps — Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro' St.

Not Mary

No children, (no second life), no one to care for one in old age.— What is the use of working 'in' without sympathy from near & dear friends—who are near & dear friends to the old, except relatives

Freedom to go where one liked — choice of Society & little of it. — Conversation of clever men at clubs — Not forced to visit relatives, & to bend in every trifle. — to have the expense & anxiety of children — perhaps quarelling — Loss of time. — cannot read in the Evenings — fatness & idleness — Anxiety & responsibility — less money for books &c — if many children forced to gain one's bread. — (But then it is very bad for ones health to work too much)

Perhaps my wife wont like London; then the sentence is banishment & degradation into indolent, idle fool —

His conclusion :

Marry — Marry — Marry Q.E.D.

A year or two later (the date of the document is conjectural), Charles and Emma got married. They had a long and loving marriage and 10 children.

(This post was inspired by a friend of mine who is getting married : you know who you are ;)).

The Marcin Wasilewski Trio

I've been listening to a lot of jazz on NPR since I moved here. They play a variety of jazz, but almost without fail, they are usually either (1) the usual classic acts such as Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis etc (when the DJ is some old dude) (2) latin/bossa -- almost 50% which comprised of Jobim stuff (3) modern stuff, if you are lucky you'll get a DJ who plays other than stuff from Marsalis-Hancock-Corea, very American-centric.

That's too bad. Because there is a lot of great jazz musicians from Europe that almost never get any airplay around here. One of my favourite jazz group is the Swedish band Esbjorn Svensson Trio (EST) -- I actually heard them being played while visiting a record store and thought "man that's awesome". Sadly, Esbjorn Svensson died recently in a scuba accident last year at the young age of 44, at the height of his considerable powers.

Another band that I discovered almost by accident (trolling Youtube videos), is the Polish band Marcin Wasilewski Trio. A band so obscure that it has no wiki page (Marcin Wasilewski is also the name of a Polish soccer player, and that's what you get if you search wiki). But oh man, are they good. Led by 30 year old Marcin Wasilewski on piano, the trio with Slawomir Kurkiewicz (bass) and Michal Miskiewicz (drums) is a relatively young band. Their playing however, is incredibly mature. Here is the Trio, intepreting Ennio Moricone's love theme from Cinema Paradiso :



And here is First Touch from their latest album January :



There are a few more rips on Youtube of songs from January. Here is a cover of Prince's Diamonds and Pearls :



I have a couple of their albums (they were known as the Simple Trio before -- I am guessing that their manager thinks that's not exactly a great name), and it pretty clear that in each album their playing becomes more and more controlled and mature.

Now, if we can just get some US jazz stations to play some European jazz.

The new and sucky Tropicana Orange Juice Carton

I like Tropicana orange juice -- especially the Grovestand with its tons of pulp. I regularly pick up a box or two every week. So I did a little double take when I found that Tropicana (which is owned by Pepsi Co.) has changed its box! Here is how the original box look like :


I like this box, which was introduced about 2 years ago. The "Tropicana" name is prominent, and the orange looks enticingly....juicy. The straw sticking out of it is a nice touch.

But look at the new box :


What an abomination of a box! The juicy orange is gone, to be replaced by a glass of orange water -- it looks like watered-down orange juice. The cheery "Tropicana" banner is replaced by a smaller, more perfunctory word sideways...in ARIAL font! And they renamed "Grovestand"...wait for it....high pulp.

The new carton makes Tropicana looks like a store brand. Seriously, some marketing person working in Tropicana ought to be shot.

Merry New Year etc.

Everything is possible.