I’ve been thinking about this and every trip, be it pleasure or business, has a moment that defines the trip. Karaoke in Nagoya, the unexpected hole in the wall barbeque place we were steered towards in Long Beach and so on. Nothing many others have not written about in the past.

Tulsa (and I was only in Tulsa for 36 hours) brought up a number of themes. There was the exceptional (the steak in Mahogany’s), the “we tried, but were ultimately totally incompetent (the hotel) and the “WTF” (security guard). The security guard provided the title, but it was a close run thing.

I’ve not spent much time in the midwest, Oklahoma city, Whichita and a few days in Omaha is about it. The people are always interesting and they know how to cut, age and cook a steak, which neatly brings me too…

The Exceptional

As we were leaving the factory yesterday we asked for a recommendation for great steak, we are in the midwest and it seems natural, we were told Mahogany’s is the place. They were right, lets be clear the wagu beef I had in Japan a few years ago will always be number one on the great steak list, but the New York Strip last night is a serious contender for the runners up place. Perfectly prepared (medium rare, I think this may be perfect for me) with no unnecessary sauces or seasonings.

We spent a very happy couple of hours sitting at the bar in the restaurant enjoying great food and stories. And they had TV’s in gents, is this an awesome place or what?

The incompetent

The ME responsible for this partner made the hotel choice, this decision is going to haunt him for some time. In the reservation system at work the hotel was listed as a Radisson and was close to the airport. It not. Apparently under new management and while I do believe the Hotel was trying, they were completely incompetent.

And not just in the details either, it was the big things too. It took almost 30 minutes for the shuttle bus to pick me up from the airport on Tuesday night, yes it was past 11 at night, but I then found out the hotel was less than 200 yards from arrivals. Rather than wait for the bus this morning, I walked to the airport, and judging from the mood of the people waiting for the bus at 5 this morning I was there far quicker.

Then there was breakfast yesterday. We had to be at the partner at 8. We met for breakfast at 7, plenty of time one would think for three rounds of toast and some pancakes. 45 minutes later, after being assured the cook was “working as fast as he can” we gave up and went to work sans breakfast.

Then there was the mildly entertaining. The remote control to my sleep-number bed was missing, apparently taken by maintance to another room and never replaced. In the bathroom I had four bottles of conditioner, one of shampoo and no moisturizer. On the plus side they did have decent free beer available and poured in propper pints too, none of the Embassy Suites tiny glasses. Three pints of Blue Moon before we left for dinner did a lot to make up for the failings.

The hotel was trying, they really were, but ultimatly they fell well short. Yes I sound like a spoilt traveller, and I’ve stayed in far worse (anything with Oakland or Detroit Airport in the title for a start) but I just want to get on with my day, and that was tough to do here.

The WTF

We are in the midwest and things are different here. Being greeted with “god bless” as we walked into the security office to pick up our badges and wait for our escort into the factory was just the start of a very entertaining, and wonderfully non-politically correct 10 minutes.

While we were waiting the guard waved in a little black Mazda Miata, turned to the three of us and said with a chortle “She is so hot, I had to call her boss last summer and remind him to enforce the dress code.”

He rather wistfully continued “One morning you could see her panties and bra when she arrived. I told him that’s distracting. When she left you could not see them, she certainly took her bra off, and her panties too I think. She is really hot, and knows it. She was only here a couple of months before she netted herself an executive 20 years older than she was.”

“Anyway [our escort] is here, god bless, have a good visit.”

The three of us looked at each other and wandered off shaking out heads to do the production audit.

The weather as we flew into Salt Lake consisted of low cloud cover and lots of turbulence, even more than is usual coming into Salt Lake airport. However, as we were flying in the clouds parted just for  moment and got this picture of the Wasatch Range just North of Salt Lake City.

In about my favorite grocery store and tough decisions to make. I went with the salmon in the end. It became a very tasty part of a miso-saki marinated salmon, damn it was good. I’ve brought a couple of Japanese cookbooks and am slowly picking and choosing my way through them. I’ve not tried roll-your-own sushi yet, maybe one day.

One of those beautiful days that make the winter so much more bearable, not warm, but the sun was out and I did not have to work.

I actually got to go topless in the Miata today, yes the heater in the car was tuned all the way up, but first time this year and that always feels good. Wonderful, just wonderful.

I went for a wander around downtown Snohomish, stopped for lunch and a rather awesome IPA in Fred’s Rivertown Alehouse, unquestionably one of the best pubs in the Northwest. Great food and enough good beer to keep the most snobby of beer snobs happy.

I can struggle to dress myself well at times, the colour-coordination gene has passed me by, that’s just the way it is, however I can do something about this by having a little help from Stephanie, a personal shopper at Nordstrom.

Football players don’t have the sane freedom, they wear what they are given and in 1978 Coventry gave their players what is probably the most infamous kit of all time. When footy fans get together to discuss ugly shirts exhibit A is THAT Coventry Kit.

It was shit-brown.

Admiral were the kit suppliers and created a new range of kits in the mid-70’s which featured an alarming triple stripe that curved in from the sides of the shirt and ran all the way down to the bottom of the shorts. Coventry had it in the tasteful hues of sky blue, white and navy blue. For their home kit.

At some point there must have been a meeting, probably the chairman and maybe a couple of directors sitting round a table listening to a pitch from Admiral about next seasons away strips.

Maybe it happened after a long liquid lunch, or a couple of whiskeys in the boardroom, but at some point in time one of the Coventry executives must have been the first to say “Yeah, I like that idea.” I’d love to know what went through the minds of the others present at that moment.

Only excessive alcohol, LSD or perhaps an envelope full of used notes could have made this a good idea. What ever caused this total lapse of reason led to Coventry spending the next couple of seasons visiting their opponents wearing something that looked like it was pooped out.

More than thirty years later whenever someone talks about ugly shirts, they all know they are arguing over second place. For nothing will ever be worst than that Coventry shirt.

Coventry are number-1, it’s not often they get to say that.

… now I have so much more natural light into the front windows on what is a beautiful, but cold, morning. The tree out front had got a little carried away and I spent an hour cutting it back and just about trebled the amount of light coming through the front window.

That’s the gardening done for now, it’s time to powerwash the drive way. I really get to have this much fun on a Saturday morning, I fear my weekend may have peaked early!

…the weather, just wait 20 minutes and something else will come along.

Sitting at home on a quiet evening there are many things I could be doing on the Internet, but one of the best places to spend an hour is on Porsche.com/usa  and playing with the “car configurator” tool.

Porsche is like BMW, the windscreen and three pedals is standard, everything else is an option (unless you want the carbon pedals that is). For example, a Cayman starts at a very reasonable $51,900. Want metallic paint – $710 (dark blue, looked hot), Carrera S wheels $2785 (I passed, they are not that much nicer), Sports seats with Leather interior is $5375 (and how could I not?) and so on.

By the time I was done my “it’s a lot of car for the money” $51,900 car was a touch over $83,000.  Over $30K in options…

And I left plenty of options unselected. Getting the seatbacks painted in the exterior colour was $1580. The $340 for getting the seatbelts in yellow at first seemed a little excessive, but suddenly looked downright reasonable when compared to the $1990 to have the air vents painted.

Among the options I did select the $2340 Bose sound system and six-disk CD auto-changer, the $1560 Xenon lights and of course getting the Porsche logo embroidered on the headrests ($285).

In the world of the Internet car configurators anything goes. Want A 911 Carrera 4 in “Amethyst Metallic” (looks like purple to me, and rather stunningly is a $3140 option, yes that’s over 3 grand for purple paint) with a Carrera Red leather seats ($1510) with blue seatbelts ($340) and blue leather interior (well over $12K for everything) then go for it.

I do hope any remotely professional salesman would stop someone buying the purple/red with blue interior, even if its out of self preservation, one day he may well have to try to sell it as a used car.

I finished my last packet of Marmite flavored cashews, my sis-in-law gave me some for Christmas (to go with the Marmite chocolate,not as good as the cashews) and I got another two packets when I was back a couple of weeks ago. An now they are all gone, they really were awesome. Thanks for the first packet my dear.

I was leaving the factory about 5 tonight after a long day. The sky was spectacular as the sun was disappearing behind the factory. The rain was just a few minutes away, and when it arrived it really came down.

The days are getting longer, and I like that.