We’re here in London, safely ensconced in our hotel.  We sat around the Hilton LAX Hotel all day yesterday waiting for our 8:55 Virgin flight to London.  At about 3:30 PM I decided to see if online check in was available.  When I got on the Virgin sight, I noticed that they had a flight leaving for London at 6:15 as well as the 8:15 we were scheduled on.  We figured, what the heck, let’s get there early and see if we can worm our way on the earlier flight.

We got to the airport at about 4:15, went to the Virgin counter, were told it would be no problem to get on the earlier flight.  Since we were flying Upper Class – coutesy of a whole lot of work by MD with the American Express people to get upgraded with miles – we went to the Virgin lounge where we became tranquilized after multiple glasses of champagne.

We went aboard, consumed a few more glasses and the miserable night before was a dim and distant memory.  Virgin Upper Class is unbelievable.  We each had our own little compartment that made out into a bed.  It was the best flight I’ve ever had to Europe.  I’ve got a few pictures to post, but I’m on the hotel’s computer.  Their WiFi is down, so they let me use on of their machines in the business center.  They told me the WiFi would be back up in the morning, so I’ll throw a couple of pictures up then.

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I know everyone is tired of hearing about the problems that seem to be a part of our (mine and MD’s) flying life these days, but, once again, here we are: screwed by the airlines. At this precise moment we should be somewhere over the Atlantic about an hour away from landing in London; instead, we’re cooling our heels in the Hilton LAX Hotel, thanks to weather (which can’t be avoided) and total airline employee incompetence and indifference. Here’s what happened. It’s a cautionary tale that shows even if you do everything right, with the airlines you can still get shafted. We now have to add Continental to our growing list of airlines that provide less than stellar service.

We were scheduled to fly out of LAX to Newark on a Continental flight leaving at 9:45 last night. We were to arrive in Newark at about 5:30 this morning, then make our way to the Virgin Atlantic gate and catch an 8:20 AM Virgin flight to London. That was the plan. MD is one of those who, if the airline rules are to be there 3 hours before an international flight, wants to be there 4 hours before. Due to her frenzied pace of getting it all together, her constant exhortations for me to hurry, and an unaccountable and mysterious absence of traffic on the 101 and 405, we got there five hours before departure.

Of course, no one was there, we checked in in about three minutes, carted our two bags to be checked to the TSA station, dropped them off and headed to the gate. We are members of Priority Pass, (a great deal, by the way, for those who travel a lot and don’t want to spend the money on a half-dozen different airline VIP lounges) so we planned to hit the Continental President’s Lounge as soon as we grabbed a bite to eat. After roaming through the terminal, looking at all the less-than-appealing offerings, we settled on a place with that had decent looking chicken wraps, ordered a couple and ate them, sans wrap, of course. We then wandered at a leisurely pace to the President’s Lounge, figuring we had plenty of time to relax and – for me – to catch up on all the comments that have been stacking up while I’ve been getting my own stuff together for this trip. Little did we know the frenzied maelstrom we were going to be tossed into in very short order.

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Seth Godin has a great post on his blog today about marketing for the here and now. He uses the above pictured National Lampoon cover from 1973 to demonstrate a sense of urgency. Buy this magazine now or we’ll kill this dog will sell a lot more magazines than buy this magazine because if you don’t we won’t be able to keep up our contributions to the SPCA and thousands of dogs might die. The first scenario creates a sense of urgency; the second doesn’t.

In order for marketers – or anyone selling anything, for that matter, to successfully sell, they have to create a sense of urgency in the buying public. It works for all kinds of things. Take diet books, for instance. How many thin people do you know who bought a diet book so they could keep from getting fat? Not many, I would wager. How many people buy books on preventing heart disease? Not many. Those books never make the bestseller list. Books on treating heart disease once you’ve got it sell way more copies. Same with books on diabetes.

In fact, it’s the same with almost all preventative health.

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Here are a few renditions of the our national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner, performed by a various artists. Enjoy! And be safe.

Here’s Ted Nugent, a Protein Power fan, with the rompin’ stompin’ Paleo-meat eaters version. Can’t figure how the headdress fits in.

Here is Jake Shimbakuro with a little more mellow and melodic version.

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My mother called a day or two ago and during the course of conversation she asked me if MD had given up blogging. I told her I didn’t think so, but why did she ask. She told me that MD hadn’t put up anything new since way back in April.

I checked it out, and this is what has happened. MD switched from the Movable Type blogging platform to WordPress, the same one I now use, in late April. The guy who switched her over, gave her a new blog address. He moved all her archived posts to the new WordPress format and changed the Protein Power website (where both blogs can be found) so that it pointed at the new blog address. But he didn’t change the old blog address to point at the new.

Anyone who gets to her blog by going through the Protein Power website has been seeing all her posts. Anyone who has her old address bookmarked hasn’t seen anything new since April 20. And there is plenty of new stuff.

It’s all fixed now. All roads lead to her blog, so there should be no problem from here on. You can catch with all the good recipes up over the 4th.