On My Way to Mumbai II

Now at London Heathrow. LHR is just not a pleasant airport. After finally getting to my departure terminal I was told that I could only bring one of my two bags that I had been carrying from San Diego through security. They told me to stuff one into the other. That would have been impossible so I stepped aside and sort of bound them together with their straps and that was acceptable.

The flight from JFK was pleasant. First, I watched My Bollywood Bride, for obvious reasons. The opening scene was of a Californian dude arriving in Mumbai and being accosted by touts (the people that are constantly trying to get foreigners to hire them). That's going to be me in 9 hours! TheCalifornia dude was going to India to meet a girl - just I am! The parallels end there, however. He is going to seek out an Indian woman that he had met in Santa Monica. They had some kind of relationship and then she suddenly left. Upon his arrival in Mumbai he discovers that she's a huge Bollywood starlette! You'll have to rent it to see what happens.

After My Bollywood Bride I read. First I read The Economist which was largely about how it is likely that George Bush will launch an attack on Iran for various reasons. They believe the clincher is that he doesn't have to answer to anyone now (can't be re-elected) and will be concerned about his legacy (which is looking rather dismal right now).

Following The Economist I read the February edition of Wired. Very interesting article in there that basically tears apart Terry Semel's management of Yahoo! The author's position is that Semel has no clue about the tech side of things and Google is, technically speaking, everything that Yahoo! is not. Semel's a great marketer and deal seeker/maker (though he did blow a chance to buy Google early on) but Google is engineering-first and in the tech world you can't catch up by relying on marketing.

And finally, I did the Tuesday New York Times crossword. Did any of you try Feb 20's NYT crossword? That's a Wednesday if I ever saw one! Unless you happen to be very knowledgeable about Sidney Poitier's career, I suppose.

And this is a cool picture (at least it is for IFR pilots): It shows our route of flight coming into LHR. We had been asked to enter a holding pattern and soon thereafter we were released and told to fly the approach. You can see the pilot's teardrop entry into the pattern and then, just after entering the 4th leg, she does a 270 degree turn to the right to enter the approach. At least that's my theory.