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06/16/2008: ""
My first flight was from San Diego to Seattle. It was on Alaska Airlines. Because I fly so much, when I fly American or Continental I usually get upgraded or at least get preferred seating. Alaska is a codeshare partner of Continental so I get credit for the miles, but no preferred seating. I was in a middle seat. The nice part about flying on the west coast and being in a middle seat is that there is a fifty percent chance the folks next to you will be diminutive asians leaving lots of room for shoulders. Flying out of Texas if I am in a middle seat I almost always end up between two folks who need seatbelt extensions.
The award for the best beverage service in coach goes to Alaska Airlines. I'm a coffee guy. I love black coffee. Even sitting all day at the Flying J black coffee. I'm not a coffee snob. Mcdonald's coffee is one of my favorites. Alaska serves Seattle's Best and you can tell that they take pride in brewing it properly and serving it at the right temperature. They were training two flight attendants on that flight, and they were making mistakes left and right, bumping into things, dropping stuff, messing up announcements, but the coffee was amazing.
They do a continuous beverage service which on that flight works out to two drinks. The seatbelt light goes off and the cart comes out. It goes up and down the aisles twice. We begin our decent and the cart goes away. I think they realized that if they block the aisle for the whole flight it is much easier to clean the bathroom afterwards.
For the second beverage I had a special treat. They serve Jones Soda. I don't drink softdrinks regularly, I consider them a special occasion treat. I thought I was maybe half asleep or that one of the new flight attendants messed up the announcement, but I could have sworn that they said that one of the things they offered was Jones Cream Soda. The flight attendant came by for the second drink service and I had to stop her from refilling my coffee.
"Did I hear you say that you had Jones Cream Soda?"
"That's right."
"I'd like one of those."
The tiny Vietnamese lady in the aisle heard my order and changed hers. We both nodded our approval to each other after the first sip.
The second flight was from Seattle to Juneau. Seattles best and a Jones later, I found myself in a van headed to the ship. The scenery is breathtaking. I think the white of the snow caps make the greens greener here. The sun stays up longer because there is more to see. The air is very fresh and envigorating. The first breath wakes your body and mind.
I had one show last night. I thought it was going to be two, but the cruise director here had changed it to one because there are a lot of very old people on board and after spending all day breathing that fresh air in Juneau, many of them just want to go to sleep and wake up tomorrow in Skagway. Not enough audience to warrant two. Plenty crowd for one, though. It was just me and they told me at the last minute that they didn't have another juggler working this cruise so if I wanted to and I had my props with me I could do some juggling. I got the picture and went back down to my cabin to get my bag of tricks. The orchestra pit is still stuck open on this ship and as always, some of my jokes just fell into that chasm I was stuck performing behind. All in all, it was a pretty good show. That was last night.
I have a show tonight at 12:15 am, which is 3:15 am my time. It is just one show, just comedy, R-rated. The folks on this ship are so old that they won't be able to stay up late enough to come to my show, but some of them will be able to get up early enough to make it if they go to bed right after their 5 pm supper.
There are a couple of great things I've gotten to experience in the last day that I missed when they first came out and I will now recommend them. The documentary 'The King of Kong' is an incredible piece of work that they were running on the crew channel on the ship. It is about the real life best video game players in the world and focusses on the legendary Donkey Kong world record holders.
Also, Bill Bryson wrote a book called The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America. I read four or five books a month and this one stands out. Extremely funny with some fascinating U.S. history mixed in. It actually made me laugh out loud numerous times. One of my favorite lines: "Many of the towns in America are named after the first white man to arrive there or the last indian to leave."