Samsonite

The problems will be worked out and in a couple of months forgotten about. The other 49, of the 50 so far delivered, are still flying and have logged over 18,000 cycles and 50,000 flight hours. As soon as the authorities have the information they need and the repairs are made (battery and wiring replaced) this one will also be back in the air. The 777 has turned out to be the most reliable plane produced to date, especially the 777-300ER, but it too had its problems when it first went into service. All airplanes do. Some more than other. The Lockheed L-1011 was a great plane, but it had engines problems due to the Rolls Royce engines. Currently the A380 has had wing component cracking problems which will take each plane so far delivered and everyone yet to be delivered this year, out of service for up to 8 weeks to repair the problem. It won't be until next year that they start delivery A380s without the problem. We could go back 43 years to the first generation 747s that sat on the flight line with weights hanging off the wings where the engines should have been due to problems with the P/W engines. As I said, they all have initial problems that are worked out. Thankfully, nothing has happened with recent "new" jet airliners like what befell the Comet, the first jet airliner, back in the 1950s.

We have gone over this before, but Clinton signed an amendment to the Human Trafficking Act that didn't go into effect until two years after he left office. Basically, REGARDLESS of the law in the country you are in, if you engage in "commercial sex" the other party has to be at least 18 years of age. If the U.S. authorities were to somehow find out you engaged "commercial sex" with someone under the age of 18, you can be prosecuted upon your return to the U.S. You can look it up at the Department of State's web site.

Many of the pneumatic and hydraulic systems found on other jet airliners have been replaced with electrical systems on the 787. The onboard generators produce enough electricity to power 400 homes. Some say these recent incidents are "teething problems," but they have had years to work these things out and I would think these problems should have been found and solved a long time ago.

They still have a few of the 747-400 Combi, but they are now using the Boeing 777-300ER on most of their long haul passengers routes.

You were on the upper deck? http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Eva_Airways/Eva_Airways_Boeing_747-400_Combi.php

Found this on an aviation web site. It was taken in the lobby of a Bay Area Japanese restaurant. ANA now has 16 of the 787-8 and will take two more before the end of this month. That is half of their 787-8 order and they will also take 30 of the 787-9, deliveries of which should start late next year or early 2014.

Has nothing to do with the plane itself, but the airline and how they chose to outfit the cabin (type of seats, etc.). Most people wouldn't know the difference. I've flown on the 747-400 Combi on four different occasions and it was just fine.

EVA Air (pronounced "E-V-A Air(ways), an affiliate of shipping conglomerate Evergreen Group, is first and foremost a cargo company. The money is in shipping cargo not flying passengers so they have strict rules on weight so they can get the maximum amount of cargo into the belly of their passenger airliners. At one time most of their long haul aircraft were Boeing 747-400 Combi-s that have a moveable bulkhead on the passenger deck so they can carry additional cargo (and fewer passengers). Since 2005 they have been adding the Boeing 777-300ER to their fleet and now have 15 with 3 more on order. While the 777-300ER carries fewer passengers than the passenger version of 747-400, it has more room below the main deck for cargo than the 747-400, making it the nearly perfect airplane for EVA and many other airlines as they retire their older 747s.

+1.

+1 for Cathay Pacific. They may not be as plush as Singapore Air, but they are definitely the most efficient airline I've flown. I also have had positive experiences with Korean Air and Asiana.

Only know what I see, and Opera does what I want to do better than any other browser I've used over the years.

Taking a page out of the bill gates' "guide to business ethics" Google has reached an agreement with Adobe for a version of flashplayer for Linux that will only run in Google Chrome. Adobe will maintain previous versions of the flashplayer for Linux, but has said they will not release new versions for Linux. This forces Linux users to install Google Chrome if they want the latest and greatest "flash experience." Yesterday I discovered that while youTube still works with the regular flashplayer for Linux, it no longer works at the cbs.com sites where you can view past episodes of their various TV shows. So, I installed Chrome for Linux and its libflashpepper player (or is it libpepperflash.so) and the cbs site came back to life. However, after now having used Chrome for several hours, I don't see the appeal to it as a everyday browser. Opera is noticeably faster. Each to her own, I guess.

I can understand giving the donations to an orphanage, but to a service organization like Rotary? By the time they get done with their adminstrative costs little will be left.

Isn't that Hugh Laurie in the picture above?

That they did and they did it using some pretty underhanded tactics. Some good friends built from scratch a small chain of coffee shops, one in a landmark San Francisco hotel, plus their own roaster, and they were also involved in the office service end of the business. When they first started I helped to literally build the first store (interior), plus showed them how to take inventory, keep their books, etc. They had all the coffee making gadgets and were one of the first to sell, in the "modern era," bulk candies out those huge old fashion glass jars. They were selling "Gummy Bears" from Germany before most people in the U.S. had ever heard of Gummy Bears, chocolate "ladybugs" from Switzerland, etc. They did well enough to move the original store from Fillmore to around the corner directly on California Street. One day the landlord came in and said he had just been approached by a lawyer representing a company called, "Starbucks." They said they would paid the landlord a "bonus" to throw them (my friends) out so they could have the location and would be willing to pay considerable more rent. The landlord, surprisingly, told Starbucks to go pound sand. The world is big enough that those type of tactics are not necessary, but greed, as they say, knows no bounds.

$3.30 for a cup of coffee?! In Thailand??!!!!! Starbucks is the last place I would go looking for good coffee. Hell, I couldn't even consider them, period.

Great pictures! Many Thanks! BTW, when did they start charging a fee to enter the palace?

ANA 787 service out of Seattle starts on 1 October 2012 and, as you have pointed out, out of San Jose in January 2013. This coming week ANA will take delivery of their 14th and 15th 787-8, and just a few days ago placed an order for 11 more 787-9s.

United has picked up their first 787 and it is on its way to IAH (Houston) as we speak and should arrived at 9:48 a.m., 22 September 2012, Houston time. It has not been reported as to whether the 787 was delivered yesterday or in the wee hours of this morning, but as it left BFI (Boeing) in the Seattle area, around 6 a.m. PDT, ownership must have changed hands yesterday. That makes 23 of the 787s delivered so far, 13 to ANA, 5 to JAL, 1 to ET, 1 to LAN, 2 to AI and 1 to United. Another 6 are scheduled to be delivered this coming week. Including the 6 just mentioned, there 16 completed aircraft sitting on the ramp waiting for first flight (B1 flight) and/or delivery (i.e., flight testing is finished and Boeing is waiting for the customer to do their test flight (C1) and accept delivery).

It looks like Google Chrome took the lead this last March and continues to pull away from the competition. http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

With Ricky at the helm it will be a success. No doubt about it! Give 'em Hell Ricky!

Yes, absolutely correct. In Opera and Firefox, "incognito mode" is called "Private Browsing," but as mentioned just above, your ISP is logging your travels on the Internet. Its real purpose is to keep others who may be using your computer (or the same computer) from seeing where you have been on the 'Net. The only way to keep the ISP (and other "interested parties") from tracking you on the 'Net is to use a proxy such as Tor. https://www.torproject.org

Ditto, especially here, but more than anything else it turned out to be the connection. I changed the router and the problems "magically" disappeared. Odd though, as IP Boards, running the most recent version of the software, were the only places I had problems

United will get their first Boeing 787 this month (September), but it will be another week or two before they actually "get the keys." :) As part of the delivery ceremony the airline receives a ceremonial key. As of 5 September, twenty 787-8s have been delivered. Thirteen to ANA, five to JAL, and one each to Ethiopian Airlines and LAN (Chile). There are four finished and setting on the ramp waiting for Air India and the Government of India to make up their minds as to when they will take delivery. Supposedly there is an Air India flight crew waiting at the Boeing delivery center. Qatar will probably be the next to take delivery or maybe it will be United. http://nyc787.blogspot.com/

Thanks for the update.