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.