CLOUD BUSTING

Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water.

Christopher Morley  (US author 1890-1957)

I love my life at 35,000 feet, I  now know why…it’s perhaps the closest I’ll ever get to the life of Jean luc Picard and James Tiberius Kirk et al.

Here in the stone cold silence of my home above the clouds I have lost the shackles that bind me, the ties that keep us emotionally bound…otherwise known as gravity.

Here in my space ship above the earth I am finally free…I’d live here forever if I could. I have never felt “at home” on earth and have travelled far and wide trying to find somewhere to settle down….perhaps the reason why is that instead of settling down…I should have always been looking to settle–up!

Up here!
Floating as we do in these amazing cigar tubes of the air,  gives life some perspective as we drift in and out and between clouds.

Pretty, gorgeous, and just out of reach…puffy..magnficent, intangible and unable to be tamed or grasped, turbulent , rocky, full of destruction, floating, calming cooling….

Sounds like many of our relationships yet I discuss only clouds….and I think we could all name someone in our lives that has many of these characteristics…a cloudy person !!…

And that’s a little why clouds scare me..

You see, I’ve finally found the second most amazing person on the planet…after me that is!

And she really does “complete me”…..she dot’s all my “I’s” and she crosses all of life’s “t’s”, she truly is my north, my south my east my west….my morning sun and my midday rest !! ( borrowed words!)

But just like a cloud…I’m not sure how to hold her down?

To catch her and to entrap her within the confines of a relationship,  will her perfection discipate as fast as the moist humid air that creates a cloud,  if captured.

So many of my friends have relationships like that, many have divorced because the magic has dissolved faster than a cloud in the morning sun.

A reason I have remained single for so very long.

Fear of cloud busting!!!

But what if this is my cloud…Do I catch it or do I let it go?

I guess just like the creation of clouds I see at 35,000 feet, only God knows the answer to all these questions !!

Wouldn’t it be nice if he shared this little bud of information with me, with all of us really !

Just this one time before my head which is currently stuck in the clouds, descends back down to earth.

Life up here seems so justified, so right, so much ability is possible , I have freedom and emotions which just are never there on the surface of the planet. Up here, I have so much possibility in life, so many dreams seem real and achievable. Relationships up here don’t scare me, for we would both be free, both have no worries……

I guess that’s why life is so perfect on the Battle Star Gallactica, deep into outer space, gone for decades or with simply no home to return to…you are free… there is no need for banks accounts, mortgages, cars or insurances. You live for the team and the survival of it all… If you don’t succeed then either you won’t be going home or their will be nothing to go home to…. A simplistic existence.

So anyway… our plane decends yet again, the clouds  once light and freeing, beautiful and resplendent have enshrouded us and toss us around to shake us up before the reality of life on earth begins again….

Again a relationship in the making…wondrous and romantic, before the shaking and enshrouding in fear and the final jolt back down to earth.

I’m off to email the second most amazing person on the planet and tell her how she makes me feel…she deserves to know before either of us decide to be a cloud ….and disappear !!

and May the God of your choice answer your prayers too.

FLYING MIDDLE CLASS !!!!

This is a missed Blog entry folks, so please forgive the bounce back in time to early September and mentions of flights to Alaska.

O.M.G.I.C    !!!!!!

Oh My God It’s Cold!!!

Today I flew from California to Alaska.

Two weeks back I flew from the Middle East where it was hot and humid.

I’ve hung out much of my time since in Los Angeles where it is warm and gorgeous.

This morning I touched down in Seattle where it was overcast and cool.

I have just ended my day arriving in Juneau, Alaska  where it is HELL ALMIGHTY FREEZING.

My father used to say of temperatures warmer than this, that the cold goes though you to the bone!! Well my bones are close to brittle today ! !!

Making the impact of the cold weather tougher was my mode of transport to this den of frozen climactic conditions.

Decades of business and first class even Private jet travel ended today.

For today I flew….Middle Class  !

What is that you ask?

Well , It’s when you’re on a plane so small that there is no designations such as first, business and cattle and the only way to describe the class that you find yourself in, on the aircraft is to take a good look at those seated on this tiny air bound cigar and summise their earning potential.

Today there were just eleven of us poor souls aboard this tiny tube with wings, and a rough guess at each person’s salary put their earning capabilities at around 120k per person before tax.

So you see. I flew Middle Class.

No Stars, no politicians, no excessively wealthy people just bumming it for the day. Just a group of eleven who make a menial, not major difference to anything in the world.

Had the plane gone down today in the Alaskan wilderness we would probably made page one of the Juneau Daily Herald, but I doubt that any of the rest of you would have been any the wiser to our fate. Our facebook pages would go un-updated, our emails unanswered and you would have thought us snobbish, but have no clue as to what had truly happened to us. The Alsakan eleven that is.

Anyway !!

Adventuring around the earth again I want to explain some of my  global travels and the  shift in priorities it has brought James Claire -new age tourist and middle age “tripulante”…

As I travel  I am noticing differences in pilots and the teams they command in regards to air safety….

Middle East to LA the pilots are so assured of your safety..They barely speak English and so their messages are brief. Flight crew mumble a few words but the majority of talking is left to smart modern digital screens which inform you via animated cartoons of how to survive an “event”.

Flying from LA to Seattle , real people show real concern about the safety demonstration, they even put on real life jackets to show you what to do, in the case of an “Emergency” and treat us all like morons by actually clipping a belt and buckle together like we are 3 years olds who have never sat in a car seat.

From Seattle to Juneau sitting in the cramped cigar tube with eleven others, the pilot, whom we can actually see, turns and gives us all a smile and a wave.

 Friendly character, his name is Roger (not that I really want to know the man who has my life in his hands, because by seeing him I can sum him up and it’s not a good thing for Roger. I suddenly wish I was back in the Middle East watching animated cartoon characters)

 Instead of a smart digital presentation or scripted announcement Roger merely yells at us.

”It’s 2 degrees in Juneau, Buckle up folks, it’s a bit windy today.”

And then I believe he mumbled a “Hail Mary” and signed the cross.

And the stewardess, where was she???

Well she was outside kicking a couple of rocks from the tires and cranking the propellers for Roger and a little too busy to be bothered with something as mundane as a safety presentation.

After all, she could see what I could tell.

There were no notables on board today, no famous stars, no elite or massively wealthy travelers on her little plane who would make headlines and nothing but trees and mountain tops that we would  barely clear.

On a day like today, what was the point with safety speeches.

Just buckle Up, sit back and pray like a crazed man.

2 degrees on arrival might not be desirable, but arrival right now, was the only thing any of us in Middle Class,  where hoping for.

29.10.2011

As an addendum to this Blog entry, which was written at the beginning of a hellish few weeks of massive amounts of travel, I have to say that I am not so scared any more about air travel. It has its pains, such as customs, immigration and security issues but within the confines of an airport there is always a Starbucks somewhere and usually somewhere warm to sleep. In just three months of my new life, these are about the most important things in my day, coffee to stay awake, or sleep at any cost.

Besides,  there is a bigger game at play these days.

It’s not so much about survival as much as it is about the accumulation of miles…..yes my friends…James Claire has the bug.,. Just like George Clooney’s character on Up In The Air, I too have found the modern world of Privilege Clubs, Frequent Flyer Mileage and Hotel Priority Membership.

IF IT DOES NOT GAIN YOU POINTS, THEN IT IS IRRELEVANT….

If only my editors paid me in mileage points by the word…mmmmh, now there’s a thought !!!

Till next time Adieu !!!

‘Gotta Love Working out of LA…..

Had to suddenly fly from Thailand to Bahamas, but the master plan had a mission for me....

For those of you who do not enjoy or believe in the world of science fiction and the classics of Star Trek, Lost in space and BattleStar Gallactica, well my friends you are denying the inevitable to yourselves.

I just want you all to know that today, 30^th October 2011, I sat beside Admiral Adama of the Battle Star Gallactica. He was flying under his earth name of Edward James Almos, and I am not certain as to his earth bound mission , perhaps he is reviewing us for Caprican purposes? Anway just being in his presence  is nothing short of amazing.

I’m not vain enough to ask someone for their autograph and I don’t own an IPod so photos are not possible, but you’ll just have to trust me. Adama was bumming it in Business class on an American Airlines flight to Miami this morning at 6am, and James Claire felt like a little kid for once, sitting beside his hero.

Now if I could just get a reason to fly to Hawaii and try to meet Grace Park filming Hawaii 5-0, then you may never hear from me again …..

James Claire Out….

Pattay Beach the day I left to fly to Bahamas

Anyone heading to Pattay should check out this thrid floor oasis of amazing food and clean environment called FOODWAVE...had a fantastic time and the food delicious.

Downtown Pattaya

LESS-ons !!

A lady on a plane sitting in the wrong seat explaining herself….

An aged pastry chef over decorating a plate….

A man with hair that is prematurely greying…..

A passenger entering Korea with the incorrect paperwork….

What do all of these situations have in common…?????

Well………..LESS IS MORE !!!!!!!!!!!

The lady trying to explain her way out of being  in the wrong seat should have spoken less, for the more she talked, the bigger hole of lies she dug for herself…

The pastry chef, had a basic and pleasant dessert, yet in over garnishing of the plate, made minutia of the basic dish and it was lost among the periphery of decoration….

The man with greying hair….was better off bald…less hair made him look modern and cutting edge and not old at all…

And the passenger entering Korea with the incorrect paperwork, realized that claiming ignorance and staying silent was a better way of getting through the situation than fighting a paper trail he did not possess…..

As humans we tend to overdo things, overwork, over eat, over achieve, over act, over react, over think and over talk.

Sometimes we need to make others and even our children for their betterment in the future, that LESS IS INDEED MORE…

Sometimes if we do less….we achieve more!

If we speak less – we have less problems!

If we thought less – we’d have less stress and less paranoia !

If we decorated a plate less – we’d have food that was far more attractive !

In no way am I purporting to laziness, or not doing a job at all, merely considering the consequences of our actions and realizing that the more one does in certain situations does not mean better things will come of it.

Consideration of ones actions before talking, acting, speaking rather than acting first and thinking later.

And as far as LESS-ons go….that’s all I’m going to say….

LESS IS MORE….think about it.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Street cooking,.....delicious

The amazing people of Vietnam with whom I spent some time this week....Less they have....happiness many of them had far more than my friends in more developed lands...proof yet again that Less CAN LEAD TO MORE....

Fishermen on a jetty north of the city of Phu My

A family make their income...cooking crispy pancakes

Young but entreprenerial and friendly to a bothersome western journalist

Break time ....and a coffee for us all

Stopping the Unstoppable.

My life’s journey has held many spectacular moments on which I pull for literary material, but today held a first. Something that in forty-two years I have never done, never considered doing and until recently would have never really had the audacity to do.

I am comfortable in life. I have realized recently that I do not need to work as hard as before, for I have that which we all seek- Financial freedom.

Life has indeed been good to me. That and the fact that over 40, I really don’t possess the desire for financial gain as I once did in my teens. Then money meant everything. Today, money means little. I need no material objects, I do not need the flashiest car and I do not desire ornaments for the house, the body or life in general. I eat well when I dine out. I rarely drink to excess unless I’m at Trader Vics, and I invest wisely.

So comfortable I am, not just financially, but comfortable in mind and life as well.

So what was it that I did today that I had  never done before in 42 years on Earth……….well……….…I stopped a Jumbo jet and got off after all where seated and the doors where closed…………..but that was not all……..and certainly not the pride of my month………………

The day got much better !!

Read on to find out the pinnacle of the day’s success..

Now those who have read a few of these blog entries will know that I am of no particular religious denomination….I am a modernist. I believe in a higher power. I do not believe in names, figures or statues….simply that some entity wiser than us - created all that we are and see.

The following joke offers a semblance of insight into my personal belief…and is one of my favorites…a flooding village, a man’s house is at risk and so he finds higher ground and stands upon a rock as the waters get higher. Another man on a mule passes by on even higher ground and offers the man assistance to safety, but he says,” I have always believed in God, God will save me, I do not need your assistance.”

The flood waters rise higher and the man stands upon his roof. A man in a canoe floats by and offers his assistance. The flood victim repeats his belief. ,” I have always believed in God, God will save me, I do not need your assistance.”

The floods grow higher. The man now stands waist deep upon his roof and a helicopter hovers overhead,  offering help. The man waves them away and repeats his belief.

In the end the man drowned. Upon entering heaven he states to God at the Pearly Gates. “I have believed in you all my life and yet you let me drown”. What did I do wrong?”

God replies, “but my son, I sent you a man on a mule, a canoe and a helicopter, what more did you want from me?”

With that joke in mind, I bring you to today……

3am in Auckland New Zealand I enter the airport and am told upon check in that I do not have the correct paper work for entry into my destination, Korea.

 There is not much one can do in the world at 3am, but I made a few phone calls, pleaded some more and called others again. Eventually albeit late for the flight, I got the paperwork required

Still one further hurdle to jump when they decided my luggage was too heavy and excess baggage charges would apply. A further delay while I pay the fee and finally head to the gate.

Hours later, I arrive in Sydney an hour late. The only hour I had between flights. Flight from Sydney to Seoul, had already boarded. I am rushed by buggy the miles it takes to get from one end of the airport to the other. Checked in and seated I am then informed that luggage will not join me. They inform me that once in Korea, I can launch an investigation and possibly have my luggage join me a few days from now. Current airline will not wait for the luggage as it is the first airline from New Zealand’s fault for the delay not thier’s.

And so I decide to get off the flight.

WHY?

It was not for the shirts and the shoes in my luggage. Anything of importance I always carry in hand luggage anyway. No, it was that joke I told before that made me get off the flight.

How many hints from God, must it take to learn I thought.

If today had been hassle free, then fine. I probably would have stayed seated. But I do not want to enter the Pearly Gates and have God say, “Come on, I refused you for the wrong Korean Visas, but you insisted. I charged you for excess luggage but you still flew. I delayed your flight so you missed your connection but you made it, and so I delayed your luggage, yet you still flew !!”

And that was why I got off the flight !!!!

And it felt amazing. To be the passenger on a full flight, to get up, grab your bags and watch the confusion on the faces of the air stewardesses and all others as I walked toward the door yelling for it to be opened so that I could get off!!

What was better though was the fact that as I walked to the top of the gangway, feeling it being retracted as I walked, and watching the plane pull back from its park. The airline staff found my luggage and confirmed that although it could not make the current flight, they would promise me that it would be on another carriers flight within 2 hours. Sadly I would not be, as this was the last flight for today to Seoul.

And so, thus began one of life’s most amazing experiences.

Despite the joke being the reason I got off the flight.

With luggage found and on its way, the joke would now be on me  when I tried explaining to my bosses the double payment for a single ticket to Korea.

And so I though…..I  had to fly.

In no uncertain words, I demanded the return of the aircraft to take me to Korea. Anxious moments ensued as a half dozen people made phone calls , and spoke on walkie talkies. Eventually I felt the gangway being deployed once again and could see the Jumbo 767 returning to the gate. When the doors opened, the faces of the flight staff was one of total shock. They could not believe what they saw, neither could I believe what I had seen.

Today I had stopped a Jumbo and made it return to pick me up.

Life just gets more amazing and proves that there is a higher power and who ever or what ever the entity, it cares for us.

 Sometimes it is us who misunderstand the signals, sometimes we fail to see them and other times we fail to even look.

Anyway, I’m happy to state that both myself and my luggage arrived within an hour and half of each other in Seoul Korea and both of us made the connecting flight to Busan, Korea.

Right now. I am succumbing to the hellish 24 hours of travel and am putting head to pillow to finalize another piece of this most amazing adventure.

Today I stopped a jumbo jet and made it return to pick me up.

Tomorrow is Nagasaki Japan. By the end of the week I’ll be in Shanghai China and by weeks end I’ll be in Hong Kong having had a week of laughter and fun with some new friends.

Sleep well my friends. !! Anything is possible….tommorrow we’ll try again !!!

Entering Hong Kong harbour

The amazing Light show at night time along the Harbour front of Hong Kong



Amazing Hong Kong



Bora Bora, Pago Pago, Sunburn Sunburn

Today was Pago Pago, US  Samoan islands on our continued trek around the Pacific islands. Oh what heaven are we having as far as weather goes. Gorgeous sunshine, scintillating atmospheres and amazing people…oh yeh…and today…McDonalds Island Style…Oh hold me down !!!

Seriously, Pago Pago may be small, but as an island formed by a sunken volcano and with a port which is one of the deepest in the world due to it, it is truly an amazing place to sail in and out of.

Tonight is one hour set back due to our ever continued travelling against the time line….soon we will enter a totally new dimension…We have a 5^th October but then we enter the 7^th October some where in the world we miss the 6^th October as we jump the International Date Line.

I tried to work out how many times this has happened to me in the course of a 30 year travelling existence and I believe I have lost about 10 days in total…and not please do not try to explain that I get then back somewhere else…the fact is, the reason I look so devilishly youthful at the age of 42 is because I continue to travel and skip days.

Now if I could just be sailing in this region on the 26^th March every year and jump instantly to the 28^th March, I would have in effect jumped an entire birthday and hence skipped a full year, plummeting me back into my youth even further than I seem to be heading now.

You see those who joke that im going grey, do not realize that as a child I was a pure blonde haired cutie…Im not going grey, im aging backwards and about to enter my second youth…

I have finally found the fountain of eternal youth and it’s not a place but a system…of travelling in only one direction around our planet and not the other.

I’m off to settle down my Pago Pago, Sunburn Sunburn before my skin ages prematurely . Last thing this great hulking boyish body needs is a patch of sundried leather.

Good Night Good Night to all, to all from Pago Pago

Next stop Suva, Fiji …does life get any better folks !!!!

View from McDonalds, Pago Pago 2011

Mode of transport

A house of prayer for the lucky life we lead

ONE WORLD…No More Running !!

Part of what gives me the words that I so lovingly adore to scribe onto these pages for all to read, is that I have traveled.

Traveled more than most in fact. Even a close friend who is a stewardess for a major airline, would have a hard time counting as many countries into her life diary as myself.

Yesterday as I touched down on Tahitian shores, I hit my 80^th country on which my feet have stood.

And as with the seventy-nine before her, Tahiti filled my heart with peace.

A feeling that I was home.

I was born in Australia, many many years ago.

I left school at 13, left home at 17 and left my country of birth at 18.

Since that day and perhaps even before, I never felt like I belonged anywhere.

I had amazing parents, I had a wonderful loving childhood and have been blessed with a sensational career, simply put, I never felt like I was born to the right country and there are times I feel I was even born before or perhaps after the period in which I was destined to have lived.

Wrong time, wrong place has lead me to run away, constantly as I have put it to many of my friends.

I try to settle, to find a permanent base, and yet after a very short period of time, I up and run… one more time.

One planet, so many cultures and so many borders and I really would love to see them all, shake the hands of some one from every race and talk to someone from every country that inhabits the singular entity on which we all live..

Big task, but small ask I feel.

We never ask to be born here, so why not make the absolute most of it once you realize that your career has succeeded enough to give you both the finances and the wings on which to travel.

Hitting mile markers in age make it a requirement to try and re-adjust my thinking. That and the soft sands of Bora Bora today…No this is not country 81… I have been here twice before.

But I’m aging, fast…and this continued travel makes me wonder if I will ever settle down, find a family to adopt me or even have one of my own.

But here’s the paradox in which today I find myself…I sit on the sands of Bora Bora, swim in her seas and relate to the people today , shop in her stores like I have been here for years and chat to the locals as if they are friends…

It is as if I have lived here forever…

I’m comfortable here, in fact everywhere I go I am comfortable.

I interact with every culture with ease. From Peru to Papeete, Russia, Japan, the Middle East- wherever I don’t mind war zones or fighting, I don’t take sides, but actually can see both sides of the coin in most arguments.

Instead of running away, instead of considering my self as a nomad, a close friend actually put it all into perspective for me in a recent email

I keep saying that I’m running away …but he proposes that I’m not .

I’m not running away.

I’m coming home……..one country at a time.

As industry has generated the need for globalization, as the Eurozone pulled down its borders, as the world shrank due to air travel for all of us….

So perhaps this has all given birth to a newer era of humanity. Once we discussed the Baby Boomers ,  Generation X and the Y Generation, well perhaps this is the first of the Earth Generation . True citizens of the planet, not of a country with borders. Our borders are the limits to which flight can take us off this rock and the limits of gravity and the atmophere, not man made borders on its lands.

We have no need for a passport of a singular nationality, we detest being branded within the borders of any nation and we see no sense of multiple currencies.

In my country, Earth, we are all one.

I wish we could all live with the same thoughts.

I love you all and you all return that love no matter where I travel. When I visit or come to stay , I feel like I am welcomed home.

And so, no more running.
I’m simply coming to visit everyone, one family at a time…my family, everyone of you.

Love you all , see you all soon…or eventually.



James Claire arriving in BORA BORA by tender...1.10.2011



If I ever have a honeymoon, this is the sanctuary I will reside in...Absolute heaven with soft golden sands !!

SILENCE IS GOLDEN

Hello my friends…James returns today with a vengeance. Look forward to several postings very quickly…

Today I am in Tahiti…Yep..in the South Pacific…

AHHH Heaven !!..Warm breezes, golden sands and crystal clear waters.

I have been silent for some time now…too long actually..I have traveled far and wide and silence..so they say “is Golden”.. but for me it is also a demon I do not sleep well with.

Silence my friends. Makes my mind work in overdrive and I when that happens every speck of life is shown to me in absolute clarity.

Good and bad. Things we miss in day to day life as we rush through our normal everyday existence without a momentary silence for ourselves, come down the pipe line to me in screaming visions, whereby a single word can be plucked from the air and lead to a thousand more within the silence spaces between my ears.

World of silence is a noisy world inside my mind.

Yesterday it was an eight and half hour flight to Papeete, Tahiti and too many movies on the inflight entertainment which I had already watched that brought about this accumulation of silence. I had also slept during the hours leading up to my departure from LA , something I rarely do prior to flights, this time.. relaxation won the fight, sleep the prize, a long flight of silence and solitude the reward.

So what has this silence brought about…

Well !! the ultimate current question…something that really never dawned upon me before on a global scale.. and here it is.

And it comes off the back of the last column on needs , wants and challenges..

but I have thought more about it and in the context of my own life and some of human history….here is that question!

What if… what we want is really the one thing we should never have desired at all ?

What if its all a con? Or a test ?

You see I’m a lover.. A lover of Science Fiction for one…I and many millions of people on the planet would love to see our attempts for alien communication come to fruition. We want to find ET and know that we are not alone in this universe. But what if ET is not friendly? What if there are multiple species also looking for us only to wipe us out upon their success? What if a single microbe from another planet wipes us out through disease or infection?

I am also a lover of women…so far they have all broken my heart. Some more than others. One in particular, written about at length truly shattered it with her heartlessness and self importance?.I wanted the relationship so bad I let her into the depths of my soul, she trod on my dignity and my self respect and taught me many lessons that will stay with me for the remainder of my days!

I love food too…but that has lead to pounds and kilos I could well do without.

What if we want a new job as we have staled in the last, only to find that the new job offers the same boredoms or complications. The grass is NOT always  greener on the other side of the fence.

I love the stock market and I recently got insatiably caught up on a sure bet. I wanted to prove the market wrong on something I was certain, as where others . It was going to change our futures from tomorrow onward.. Yesterday there was an announcement of an SEC investigation into our stock and as they say..that was the end of that.. A sure thing, simply became a sure loss!

So perhaps “wants” are the desires of the devil.

What we want…is really what we should turn quickly away from and run as fast as we can. Perhaps the “needs” are the only things we should cherish.

Love comes in numerous forms, I have highlighted a few above.

But is love a need or a want. Do we need love for survival or do we want it, only for our own self gratification, our selfishness of not wanting to live alone or do we need it for survival.

Seems to me, that with such an explosive overpopulation on our tiny planet, troubles feeding the masses, wars, corruption and the survival of our own species is going to soon bring everything into question for us all on this subject.

Perhaps the only thing I should love from now on is the silence…it brings clarity and questions and silence means being far from the madding crowds…a bit like right now…sitting on the soft white sands of Papeete, Tahiti, with the crystal clear waters lapping my toes as I write this.

Silence abounds, well except for a few gulls and an albatross or two.

Anyway silence may not be golden, but these beaches sure are, I’m off the swim in this idyllic paradise and contemplate some more.

What Happened to Moving Forward !

Some days it feels like this planet is moving one step forward and five steps backward.

As a youth we watched such forward thinking series as Logans Run, Buck Rogers and Battlestar Gallactica, Star Trek, Star Wars and Lost In Space (all the original series).

Along with those there were the original reality shows such as Beyond 2000 and the science shows of the time. They were amazing and pretty much said that the USA was ahead of the curve in everything on earth.

Back then in the early 80’s the United States of America truly was the Super Power of the planet.

We looked up to them in all things motor vehicle, all things hotel and all things modern and futuristic.

W.T.F.!!!

And W.H.P.?

What Happened People?

Is it me or is the USA now several decades behind everyone else. I mean we know that their dollar has slipped back in to the 1970’s compared to other currencies but seriously, why does it have to be the only country on the planet that still uses miles instead of kilometres, pound s and ounces instead of kilograms and grams and why can’t they accept that we all use Celsius as a measurement for temperature instead of the antiquated Fahrenheit scale.

Come on…

Get with the game people.

We live on ONE planet, yet some of us call a spade a spade but the USA has to call it a shovel…!

Why can’t we just agree on a singular temperature scale, a solitary unit system for measurement and so on.

I don’t care about your currency systems, keep them. The US Dollar isn’t worth that much these days anyway.

 The EU and the Euro have proven the flaws in that ideal of going to singular currency units for groups of countriess. The fact is Euros may become more valuable one day because they simply may not exist very shortly if any more of the EU countries file bankruptcy.

Sadly though it’s more than weights, more than temperature scales that are missing in the modern USA

I grew up working in the antipodean isles for a US based Hotel chain. We strictly had to observe a code of conduct as designated to us from the corporates in Head Office a billion miles away from our own country. And we were scared to change anything. Five Star hotels worked hard to maintain their ratings and we had such policies as never letting a phone ring more than 3 times, anywhere, anytime, any department. We were even told the words to say upon picking up that phone and the way to handle all customers, via phone, on the fly and face to face from front desk to back of house.

I  have just stayed in “Wysteria Lane” at a top rated and not inexpensive 5 star hotel chain and let me tell you, they certainly did not have the same rating system we had down under.

Upon arrival, room key cards did not work, they did not work the following day either, or the day after that. Bed sheets had been left by the housemaid on the television, not on the bed? I’m not even sure in the end of she changed them or not.

I tried calling my colleagues in another room, the system put me through to the front desk, the front desk operator who did not answer the first four times, eventually told me it’s not their job to take messages and put me through to the in room message system which, you guessed it, put me back through to front desk.

After 25 minutes I gave up and did not care if my colleagues  met me or not.

Perhaps I had a bad week and the hotel had a worse one. But something tells me not. Laundry returned to me was first sent to the wrong room, hotel charges included movies I had never watched and on check out everyone lined up waiting for tips. 
ARE YOU KIDDING ME PEOPLE !!!

Tips in my country are for service !!!

Not for your existence only on my point of exit,  as I load the bags into the car myself!!!

What happened to the super power  who had all the answers and possessed all the standards which everybody else aimed for.

Perhaps with call centers and manufacturing they also sent Common Sense and Professionalism off shore years ago as well.

It’s a real pity . 
I guess Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica now have to be made in China with Chinese actors, they seem to be the smartest people of our time and maybe that’s where our future lay.

Instead of Cisco, Janeway and Captain James Tiberius Kirk at the helm of the Enterprise it should have been Juan Hung Lo and his Chinese counterparts.

Let’s get back to the quality standards we set our selves before and let’s get the planet on one line of thinking for all things. 

And please don’t think that I’m bashing America, I just don’t see the sense in double standards for one tiny planet. None of us can agree on religion or politics that I understand, but seriously why can’t we just agree on grams, kilometres and Celsius. 
We are one people , on a singular planet, why must their be multiple answers for the same questions to confuse matters.

It’s bad enough I keep driving on the wrong side of the road.

Live long and prosper  folks.

Life’s Little Orgasm for Hard Workers

O.M.G.

OH MY GOD !!…

I’ve been missing out on something for so long ......and not one of my friends has explained the realities of life to me…Not one of them !

We jokingly referred to it over lunches among the Musketeers but none of us had really experienced it for a long time as we all lived within the confines of the life Bahrain had given us. Few of my local friends could have ever explained it either, many of them had relegated their lives to the Middle East and had lived in the same manner as we did.

But now I’m living a different life for a period of time and these past few days I experienced something more enjoyable than an orgasm….

A two and three day weekend!

If you live in the Western World….right now you have NO IDEA of the joy I’m experiencing.

But for those friends who I left behind in the dessert oasis we call home, let me explain my joy.

First of all the Corporate culture has kidded themselves into believing that they should do something for the environment, being such good people that we are here in Wysteria Lane.

So despite the fact they all drive oversized behemoths of vehicles that chug back gas(petrol) like a thirsty camel, they decided a while back to introduce what is known as a 9/80.

This refers to a 9 day working fortnight (two weeks) whereby you work one hour extra a day and thus by working SO HARD.. and doing 80 hours faster,  you do not need to transit in your vehicle on the tenth day…and of course this saves the environment so much carbon emissions that you have not only gained a 3 day weekend but also saved the planet.

What amazing people.!! (despite the fact everyone this weekend is driving to Santa Monica for the beach which is actually 30 minutes further than work and then the same trip back- the cynic in me fails to see the environment enjoying the difference?)

And does this additional time make everyone more work conscious and more productive? Hell no…!

You see obviously everyone can not take their 9/80 or additional day off on the same day, otherwise the office would be unmanned. So there are heavy days of absences and light ones. I enjoyed the heavy one yesterday when the majority where off and the skeleton crew worked. Well let me use that term lightly.

You see there where so few people there, we could not get the answers to anything we needed , emails went unanswered and unsent and we eventually left early because there was no-one left to worry if we stayed longer or not.

So the fact is, the people on the light days are enjoying an 8 ½ day fortnight.

Many of you in the outside world may enjoy similar lives.

But my closest friends and I have worked  ten days out of twelve fortnight for so long and many of us where even lucky then to even get a singular day off some months. Our particular industry is unrelenting. I have not myself had a two day weekend since the early nineties let alone a three day one.

The two and three day weekend…. Life’s little orgasm for hard workers!

I love corporations and am glad I finally found this existence.

I am a new man. A happy man, and today I am busier….Seriously… I gotta get ready to go to Santa Monica beach, go swimming, have a dinner party tonight at the Vice President of Marketing’s house and tomorrow, well I’ll just kick back and have a long sleep in ……..then contemplate more fun things to do.

I can’t wait to go back to work on Monday and tell everyone how amazing this is…

Needs Versus Wants Versus Everything else !!

Among my previous life with the Four Musketeers, we had one of the team who “wanted” things… all the time !!! But he did not particularly “need” them.

Part of the problem was his new found singular status after a decade of marriage the other was well, we guessed an early onset of mid life crisis !!

My brother, “Porthos” the red haired Musketeer, and I, Aramis (the chubby debonaire Musketeer) would often discuss the subject of needs versus wants, as we watch our friend, D’Artagnan’s life unravel with every dollar spent.

It gets complicated to discuss but pretty much our philosophy was, that in life what we “need” is not always what we “want”, and the same goes vice versa, what we “want” is not always what we “need”.

Okay so that’s simplistic and understated and I’m not just talking about materialistic objects such as laptops and motor bikes  and expensive holidays etc. Each of us could definitely put a strong case forward that we really “wanted” something, but the truth is we rarely do truly “need” it.

I have traveled far and wide myself. There was once, about 100 girlfriends ago, when I felt that I wanted to settle down and have a house for the future. I bought it, filled it with furniture and regretted it every day thereafter. For almost ten years all that furniture sat in storage. I eventually owned one of the most expensive sofas in the world thanks to that decade of wasted storage expenditure.

What I realized then was I “need” very little in my transient lifestyle. I have no “need” or “want” really for expensive furnishings or lavish lifestyles, because I’ll be the first to tell you…I won’t be here long enough to enjoy any of it.

But it’s not even about travel or eventual demise, its really just that I don’t desire to spend hard earnt salary on materialistic objects. You just can not take this stuff with you so why collect it all.

Unless of course you are Tutekhamun !! Now that was quite the collection.

Anyway, I digress yet again.

My reference here is about more than furnishings.

 It’s about love, jobs and everything in between.

You see, there is more than “Needs” and “Wants”; there is also “Challenge”, the unstated human element .

You see , ask yourself the following questions;

Do you want to fall in love…not really !!

Do you need to fall in love…who says ..right ?

So why do we?

Partly it’s because of the challenge of it all. To see if we can in fact woo another party into our lives? To see IF we can live together? To see if we really make a couple or just two people cohabitating with each other?

 And then there’s work ?

Did we ever want to change jobs…. not really!

Did we ever need to change jobs…. Not at all!!

So why!

It was because of the challenge.

The challenge inside of us to prove to self that we still have it ,within us , to do it. To seek a higher plane of understanding and to prove that we’re not that old yet and still can mix it with the young guns of our industry.

Complacency is an easy evil to befriend. “Challenge” on the other hand, is a friend we should all seek out and find, to remind ourselves that we are infact “ALIVE”. Challenge in life heightens our senses and reminds us that we can indeed do anything that we desire.

You may not “Need” to be out of your depth, you may feel that you do not “want” it either.

But let me tell you from experience; to “challenge” yourself, is to find yourself. To awaken that fire that burns within, that flickered close to going out for sometime, and it reminds you, who is truly important to you in the world……….YOU ARE !!!

Live long my friends, Prosper and go get ‘em …

I challenge you !!

Don't foget those people reading this in Bahrain to pick up your copy of Bahrain This Month magazine at a retailer near you for more on James Claire's perspectives on life and a whole host of other news and features. And everyone else, read us online at (http://www.bahrainthismonth.com/)

Living In Wysteria Lane !

Perfection !!

Ahhh such a delicious word… I’ve heard it a lot in my life…

Usually about food that I eat!!

But times they change and I awoke yesterday to find myself in a new homeland and perfection abounds.

I’m living in Santa Clarita California, a model community. The roads are wide and handle the traffic easily and smoothly, the transportation systems all work fluidly and on time, the grass is perfect height and groomed to , well, perfection! The flower pots are all aligned in a row and the streets are perfectly swept. There even seem to be a perfect balance between residential, industrial and commercial real estate. This place is absolutely perfect, to the eye!!

Yet sitting at breakfast this morning looking out upon perfection it felt strangely creepy and not real.

A new colleague at work, even asked me how I enjoyed living in “Wysteria Lane” .

He had noted it too!!

To me it feels and looks more like a Hollywood back lot, perhaps that’s the idea, Hollywood is after all only 40 minutes drive away.

You see , in my mind, whilst living in this idealized perfection looks and feels kind of great I’m wise enough to realize that perfection without flaws is just a fantasy.

It is definitely not reality.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people have flocked to this place. A few years back only 20,000 people lived here, now over 200,000 people live here. It is idyllic. Kudos to the architects, town planners, city designers and visionaries who conceived the town centre.

And in all essence of this blog I’m not just talking about Santa Clarita, hey I work here, I can think of worse places to go to work every day, but what I’m getting at is as per usual,  loosely based around my love life.

You see for years I sought perfection… I thought I knew what I wanted and after 30 years of trying I’m happy to say I never found it . I fell far short of the mark for three decades.

Now I see it why!!

A beautiful young lady that I’m in love with , is perfect in my eyes today,  because she too has flaws. To me she is reality !!

Absolute reality... and that turns me on.

I can’t believe I missed this for so long. 

And yeh….before you get up in arms or offended by my comment that she has flaws, don’t get me wrong, I have 50 kg of flaws, and I admit them all. But the fact that when we are together neither of us actually notices the flaws tells me something. 

They say beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, and I believe it absolutely.

If you find the one you love and you find true happiness then you see past the flaws and see only the perfection within.

Perhaps “soul mates”, perhaps its just destiny, perhaps love is blind, but I’d much rather live in this reality , than spend an eternity seeking the fantasy of perfection .

Perfection with flaws, in my eyes anyway, equates to the perfect relationship. To consider that perfection can be found without such, is to live in a dream world not even close to reality.

Albert Einstein and I would have been close friends, I’m assured of that, and in respect to the grand master of everything I donate the following mathematical theorum based upon the philosophy above.

A + X = Y

A equals Perfection plus X equalling flaws equate to Reality Y

whilst

A (Perfection) – X (Flaws) = Z (Fantasy)

As always, please feel free to comment and tell me I’m wrong. 

But while you do that, I’m going to write my friend, who I don’t call “Perfection” any longer, but my “Little Miss Gorgeous Reality”!!!

Eat , Pray and Love my friends !!!

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY !

I love movies!

Not your fluffy Hollywood romance, not your big extravagant Blockbuster, not the movies about sporting successes or exaggerated truths. I'm a fan of Sci-Fi for sure, but they are not, believe it or not the first choice for me. 

I'm a addict of the pain, heart break and desire movies that most of you will run away from. 

Movies that have a hidden message, movies that make me cry in the sanctity, safety and solitude of my own sofa. 

Movies I'm too scared with my fragile heart, to view in public cinemas.

All time favorites include Smilas Sense of Snow, To Gillian on her 32nd Birthday, The Messenger, Remember Me and most recently "THE BEAVER", starring Mel Gibson and Jodie Foster.

I agree, whole heartedly that these are not always your cheery, fun loving, have a ball kind of movies. Sometimes it even takes me 2 or 3 attempts to get through the first viewing. 

They often start slow and are definately not filled with explosions and heart pumping adrenalin. 

What they have is heart and soul and usually a message. 

Sometimes the message is , I believe, directly descended from my own history. Perhaps those who see the vision that the producer had when making such a film can only be viewed and heard because we have all suffered the same issues in life. A broken heart, a parent suffering psychosis, a friend ripped from our lives or simply a momentary bump along life's long road which causes us reflection.

From each of them though I come away different. 

Perhaps it's the outpouring of emotion, perhaps its the thanks that somewhere in the world, to have made this movie, I finally know that there is some body else feeling the same emotional vibrations from the cosmos that I can feel reverberating in my soul.....that feeling, that I am not alone !!!

The following speech is from the final moments of "The Beaver" - "Nora's Gradation Speech" and it connects with me. 

Ask not why or how..... just read!

If it connects with you, then this posting has been a success. 

If it does not, then carry on; richer for having stopped by for a momentary reading of nothing more than words.

The words will always be here and you never know; One day..... you may desire to come back, when you finally feel that "bump" in your own highway of life, when the cosmos vibrates upon your soul disturbing the equilibrium of your previously placid existence.

"Good afternoon, graduates, dead poets, painters,  future Einsteins and all those in between.

Today I’m here to warn you are that you being lied to !

Our parents, our teachers, our doctors have lied to us, and it’s the exact same lie,  the same six words… “Everything is going to be okay”

But what if it isn’t?  

What if some of human experience is just something you inherit, like curly hair or blue eyes?

What if pain is just in your DNA?

And tragedy is your birth right ?

Or what if,  sometimes, right out of the blue, when you least expect it

Shit just happens!

Okay I’m sure you’re all thinking just now, Man; this is the darkest graduation speech I’ve have ever heard. And it is, I agree with you.

But I didn't write it.

I've spent so much time waiting for this lie to come true, that i finally paid someone to tell the truth for me...

“I’m not okay.  Not at all.

The truth is, I’m missing something! The thing I loved the most, the face I wish was in the front row right now. The brother I’ll never get back!

So what do I do with that?

What do any of us, do with that?

Besides lie !

This is what I believe.....

Right now, in this auditorium there is someone who is with you; someone who is willing to pick you up, dust you off, kiss you, forgive you, put up with you, wait for you, carry you, love you….

So while everything may not always be okay, one thing I know is true !

You do not have to be alone!"

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