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Down with Travel

Posted by Ralph at 11:02 Down with

Feb 232015

This will be short

and too the point today because it’s that time again. This Coot is getting ready to travel. You would think that I’d be an old hand by now with the amount of traveling we have done in the past two years. You would be wrong. I’m old but it seems that each trip is just as unsettling as the last. When we started I worried about what I didn’t know about traveling. These days I worry about what I do know. You just can’t win.

What I do know is that traveling sure beats staying home and twiddling your thumbs watching reruns of Law and Order. Some people get upset at the cramped airplane seats and terrible food. I just grin and bear it. I finally got my Doctor to give me something to make me sleep.

Just one of the fabulous sights in Peru.

We’ve had out share of disasters. I’ve been robbed and pick pocketed multiple times. My wife left her passport on the plane. We’ve waited hours for buses that never came and taken the wrong direction from time to time. Somehow it all worked out. Have I learned any lessons? Definitely. Have I learned how to do better? The jury is still out.

So Friday,

my wife and I set out for Peru on a four city marathon. Our past trips were all one city stays but Peru seemed to demand a more complicated trip. We start with a few days in Lima and then fly to the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu. Then on to high altitude Cuzco and finally to the beach at Huanchaca. The complexity of the arrangements is daunting- well maybe I exaggerate. We have it all booked. What could possibly go wrong?

Maybe I’ll post some pictures on the trip. Maybe I won’t. Everyplace we are staying claims to have internet. Stay tuned.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Celebrate Italy with the Coots

Posted by Ralph at 11:02 Up With

Feb 232015

Naturally, the Italians couldn’t possible tolerate a dull national anthem. It’s like grand opera.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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I know I’m late.

Posted by Ralph at 11:48 Plain 'ol Cantankerous

Nov 262014

Well, I missed it.

bob X 4 (Photo credit: jacob earl)

I know how much our faithful readers count on getting regular doses of cantankerosity and until now I’ve been committed to living up to my responsibilities here at COC. Heaven knows, somebody has to do it. Justin may be the grand visionary and slave driver but lets just say that he goes AWOL from time to time. Between the kids and the kettle bells, it is hard to keep his attention. Then, of course, there is Bob. You wouldn’t think that life in the wilds of rural Georgia would be so complicated but I’m afraid that every so often Bob goes all nuanced on us. Lately I fear he has his sights on Oprah and her wide-ranging network of influence. Becoming a network mogul keeps his eyes on the prize and distracts him from the mundane production of content. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he is trying to displace Justin.

Anyway, since I’m the only Indian left actually producing content here at COC, it is a heavy responsibility and yesterday I just flat out wimped. I had a post half written when I ran out of steam. The vim and vinegar necessary to season the post just turned to watery gruel and I had to stop. It sits there still, filed away in my computer waiting for future inspiration. I feel bad about that and I hate to go Bob and Justin on our faithful readers but it is not my fault. I have been distracted lately and I feel I must confess my lack of focus and offer an excuse.

It’s not much

when compared to Justin’s kids or Bob’s frozen pipes and it perhaps reveals that the strong focused mind that has carried me through life to this point may be failing, perhaps even drifting into senility but the faithful readers here at Coots deserve nothing less than the truth. In four weeks, this Coot, along with my long suffering wife are leaving the country to visit Europe. It’s been 40 years since either of us set foot in Europe so we are excited and anxious at the same time and it is hard to focus on business as usual..

It’s not the trip itself

Plugs look different

Making the trip isn’t what raises the concerns. We are great tourists. It’s the details. What kinds of electrical adapters will we need to power our electronics? Do we need a voltage converter for our computers. Is my Skype account set up correctly to call home and will our ATM cards work on those foreign bank machines? Will I go crazy in a cramped coach airline seat on an 11 hour flight and will the sleeping pills my doctor gave me actually allow me to sleep on the flight. And thoseare just the things I can think of.

I know that nothing that I worry about will actually be a problem. That is the major life lesson of my seven decades so far. I have pretty much learned to stop worrying about problems I can foresee. What I really worry about is the ones that don’t occur to me now. I can’t possibly prepare for them but maybe if I continue to fuss about what I do know, I will stumble over something else that really requires my thinking.

Enough for now.

I’ll close up this posts for now and promise to do my best to keep the content flowing, maybe even from the continent itself but maybe you can help me. If there are world travelers reading this, there is one thing I ask from you. Share with me the things that you never anticipated during your travels that you should have thought about before you started. I still have four weeks to work on them. It just may be enough.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Down with flying!

Posted by Ralph at 18:09 Down with

Jul 292014

It’s not the airlines‘ fault that air travel is so demeaning and degrading. Blame it on the public for demanding cheap transportation. Think about the degrading humiliation that air travel inflicts on every traveler these days. It violates every tenant of customer service. What organization would go out of their way to insult and demean their customers as a business plan for success? Unthinkable, isn’t it? It is a formula for failure in every market except one – transportation. In transportation we will accept any torture so long as you get us there cheap.

A recent trip reminded me just what humiliation we accept in exchange for cheap transportation. Young folks have no idea what air travel was like a mere twenty years ago when flying was civilized, passengers were treated like welcome guests and airlines competed by the amenities they offered. The new 747’s allowed airlines to offer passenger lounges – some with piano bars on trans-continental flights. Meals were offered on most long flights and though they were never much better than TV dinners, it was hot food, served with style and professionalism. TWA baked bread during the flights. Many airlines brought hot towels to refresh passengers at the end of the flight. Blankets and pillows were always available just by pushing the stewardess call button. Boarding was civilized as well because passengers checked baggage and carried only what they might need during the flight. You dressed up to fly because civilized people cared about their appearance and, of course, in those days you didn’t have to undress to get through security. And this was flying coach.

In those days, people flew because they wanted to get from one place to another fast and they were willing to pay for the privilege. People that weren’t, rode the bus or the train. Those were wonderful days. Flying wasn’t cheap but it was civilized.

Contrast those days with my trip this week. Start with the luggage. Most airlines now penalize customers for checking bags with the natural result that every passenger boards the plane with all their worldly possessions in hand. Without baggage, you never have to check in and can go directly to security, easing the burden of providing service by the airlines but upping the burden on TSA. This makes you a nuisance if you do want to free yourself from lugging your bag through security to the gate and on the plane. Most airlines now charge you for that service. They want to have as little to do with you as possible. And if they must deal with you personally, you will pay for that privilege.

Boarding is shear hell. You stand in line waiting for your boarding call, then lug your baggage down the boarding tunnel and wait while all the people ahead of you stuff the compartments with their luggage and squeeze into their seats. Dante must be smiling as he watches this modern day hell. Arriving you just reverse the process until you reach the relative comfort and civilization of the terminal, And we accept this! When we used to expect this.

What has brought us to this total breakdown of civilization we call flying? I think we asked for it. You ask how? Well come back on Monday to see what I think.

Down With Flying – Part 2 (cantankerousoldcoots.com)

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Up with L.A.

Posted by Ralph at 18:17 Up With

Jul 072014

: Image via Wikipedia

“L.A. Where there’s never weather, and walking is a crime. L.A.: where the streetlights and palm trees go on forever, where darkness never comes, like a deal that never goes down, a meeting that’s never taken. The city of angels where every cockroach has a screenplay and even the winos wear roller skates. It’s that kind of town.” Ian Sholes

I admit to liking LA. I lived there for 35 years, made a career and raised two sons. It was hard to give it up but now 400 miles away, my wife and I love to visit even for a few days and even if LA like the rest of California has been declining. My LA is from the 70′ when I arrived, fleeing from the stifling conventionality of my Midwest home and the pretentious cultural snobbery of the East coast. LA represented freedom; Anything goes; A fantastic freeway system and parking on the street – anywhere and every where. Alas all that is gone now, destroyed by Jerry Brown and his acolytes. His goal was to stop building infrastructure so that people like me would stop coming to California. It took 30 years but he has finally done it. People have stopped coming to California and I am primed to leave as well.

L.A. Is dead and unworkable and all of California is not far behind. LA freeways are impossible. The politicians are out of control. Living in LA means denying the reality that you see on the overcrowded freeways and overpopulated, urine-infused underpasses. Still it is great to get back from time to time and live the fantasy that LA used to be. You can do that when you visit because you can avoid rush hour traffic – to a degree- and enjoy getting from one part of LA to another quickly. You can remember the relaxed and casual feeling of shopping in Beverly Hills on a Saturday afternoon or finding a place to park at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. You can remember the ticket books at Disneyland.

We will be reliving our L.A. History, visiting museums and some of our old haunts as well as spending some time with our older son who still lives in LA. LA isn’t what is used to be; it isn’t what it wants to be; and it isn’t quite dead yet but L.A. Is unique and American to the core. It may be an acquired taste but once you get L.A. In your heart, you never get it out.