Rhonda Bracey: At Random

QF93 left Melbourne about 45 minutes late but arrived right on time in Los Angeles, at just after 7:00am today. We were at the gate and being deplaned just after 7:15 and I was through immigration, baggage claim and customs and in the rental car shuttle bus by 8:00am. That has to be a record!

The seat next to me remained empty the whole flight, which meant I could dump pillows, blankets etc. there whenever I needed to get up to go to the loo. We were served two meals — I had the roast rump of lamb on a pumpkin puree for dinner, and scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast. There was a snack bar too, where we could help ourselves during the flight.

Despite the fully flat bed in Business Class, I still didn’t sleep, though I felt my eyes closing about 1 hour out of LA… Wish it had been earlier! Instead, I watched 3 movies, read about 30 PDF articles I had accumulated on my laptop, and almost completed a novel.

I found this t-shirt downstairs at the Pike Place Markets in Seattle — I thought it was pretty clever and entirely apt for Seattle (note the dates…)! So much so that I bought one.

Witty Seattle t-shirt

The only annoyance in our room suite at The Westin Seattle was that a power outlet’s ability to work was reliant on a light switch being turned on! I’ve had this once before, in a cheap motel somewhere in the US, but it was the last thing I thought of when the power outlet next to the desk stopped working and thus stopped charging my laptop etc.

There were lots of power outlets and light switches in this suite, but for some reason the one near the desk was chosen as the one to be linked to the light switch near the main door — some 10+ feet away! Go figure. You had to turn on the light switch for the power outlet to work…

How did we find this out? After the first night, I realised my laptop’s power light wasn’t on and nor was the light on the power board. So I tried the power board in other outlets around the suite and it worked fine. It just didn’t work in the power outlet near the desk. The top outlet was connected to a power board that ran the router, desk lamp etc, so I couldn’t swap it out. Anyhow, I called maintenance and the very nice man said that probably at one stage a lamp was connected to that outlet that turned on when you came in the door and turned on the light switch (one of TWO) near the door. Well, the lamp is no longer there, and there are PLENTY of other lights in the room. So why are these things still connected. You’ve got to think that they get regular complaints about this, so how come they don’t fix it?

I’m waiting in Alaska Airlines’ ‘Boardroom’, their club lounge, for my short flight to Vancouver which boards in about 40 minutes. Qantas Club members don’t have reciprocal rights with this lounge, but they do sell a US$30 day pass (and it took them a while to let me know about it after I’d exhausted all other possibilities!). As I was leaving within 2 hours, the girl kindly let me have a day pass for half price. But it included the usual stuff — free wireless, basic breakfast food and drink, etc. Oh, and they appear to have Aeron chairs (or similar) at all the workstations.

My flight to Vancouver is only 50 minutes or so, then I have a 5 hour wait for the flight to Hong Kong. Fortunately, Qantas has reciprocal rights with Cathay re: the lounges, so the wait shouldn’t be too arduous. The flight to Hong Kong is about 12-13 hours, I think. Whatever. I don’t arrive in HK until around 8pm Friday night (it’s Thursday morning now), and pretty much miss most of April 3 — it’s like it never existed for me (but then I got two March 25ths, so I guess I can’t complain  😉 )

Snow falling in Seattle in April

And no, that’s not an April Fool’s Day joke! I went up to the room suite during the mid-morning break and saw snow flakes dropping past the window. Seriously. I then thought that maybe they were up this high (40+ floors), but at ground level they would be gone. Nope. When I got to the next session (on the 4th floor) the snow was still coming down. It doesn’t appear to be accumulating on the ground, so I expect it’s melting pretty much straight away.

And right now at 12:30pm it’s still coming down (though more lightly now).

But it IS snowing. In Seattle. In April. Sheesh.

I mentioned that we were in this massive suite and that we’re 40+ floors up in space. What I didn’t mention is that the view from the room extends from downtown all the way across the harbour and Puget Sound (?) to the Space Needle. I took a few photos and tried to ‘stitch’ them together for a panorama — it’s not very good, but it will give you some sense of the view we have!

Seattle panorama

You can view this photo in a bigger resolution, and all the photos I took for it here:
http://community.webshots.com/album/570720633iLYKLJ?start=24

I slept through the night! yay! First time since I landed on Wednesday… Maybe the jet lag has gone now???

When I arrived in Seattle late yesterday it was grey, low clouds and bucketing down with rain. And cold — like 38F cold. This morning it is clear blue skies and sunshine! I have no idea how warm/cold it is outside, but right now the weather looks great from 40+ floors up!

Char and I got upgraded to a suite at The Westin in Seattle. It’s massive, and it’s a long way up… above the 40th floor!

Here are a couple of photos to give you some idea of the scale of the room; more photos are here ( the photos start at the bottom this album page in the link and go on to the next two pages of the album).

The Westin in Seattle -- main bedroom

The Westin in Seattle -- looking from dining area past the Murphy bed in the wall and the office desk to the living room

My good friend Char was waiting at baggage claim when I arrived in Seattle late this afternoon. Her flight from Boston (via Denver) had got in about 15 to 30 minutes before mine and we’d agreed ages ago to share a ride into town. What we didn’t expect until a few days ago, was that the ride would be provided by Chuck, the conference’s official photographer and all round nice guy!

Chuck’s number plate is great “User1st” (user first); he drove up from San Francisco yesterday and was happy to wait in the cell phone carpark for us both to arrive (they have a car park just off the SeaTac airport for those picking up loved ones; as far as I know they don’t charge for it and it keeps the access points from being clogged by people circling looking for their party — an EXCELLENT idea). Chuck dropped us off at The Westin in town which is where the conference is being held.

Thanks Chuck!