Yujin

Quartz has an interesting article about how Boeing transformed itself from an innovating and safety driven aeronautical engineering company into a "bean counter" company run by non-engineers to maximize profit over everything else . . . including safety. The 1997 merger that paved the way for the Boeing 737 Max crisis https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-merger-led-to-the-737-max-crisis/

I haven't tried it yet, but vegans are being warned that if you go to Burger King or another fast food restaurant, there will be cross-contamination since they are cooked on the same grill as their beef patties.

I finally got around to watching John Wick 3. It's almost non-stop action with l-o-n-g fight scenes and a high body count. I was almost physically fatigued watching all the fighting. Despite all the violence, I enjoyed the subtle and not so subtle humor like when Halle Berry went off on a revenge killing spree because someone killed her dog (similar to what set off John Wick in the first movie). John Wick 3 is better than John Wick 2. From the ending of John Wick 3, there's going to be a John Wick 4 and I hope Halle Berry returns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSXc5z9F7Do&t=152

If popularity is based upon $$$, then the US Women’s Soccer team (USWNT) is more popular than the US Men’s Soccer team. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/19/us-womens-soccer-games-now-generate-more-revenue-than-mens.html Right now the FIFA Women’s World Cup and the Copa America games / matches are on TV. I’ve found myself watching more of the FIFA Women’s World Cup games / matches than the Copa America regardless of the countries playing.

Boeing CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, admits his company at fault (“we own it”) in connection with two plane crashes involving 737 MAX 8. And he said that his company will fix the problem.

The co-pilot only had 200 hours of flying experience or "basically . . . a student pilot." https://www.businessinsider.com/ethiopian-airlines-flight-302-co-pilot-200-flight-hours-2019-3

That’s a very good video about Boeing’s quality control problem. Unfortunately, Boeing continues to have problems with quality control. Last month, the USAF stopped taking delivery of new Boeing KC-46 tankers after finding “trash, tools, nuts and bolts . . . scattered inside the aircraft.” You would think that someone from Boeing would have walked through the KC-46 before delivery with a checklist to make sure the inside was vacuumed, windshields clean, tires filled with air, etc. (like at your local car dealership). This shows the "I don't give a damn" attitude of Boeing. https://

I just finished Mark Bowden’s “Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam”. It’s one of the best non-fiction book that I’ve read about the Vietnam War. I was in high school in 1968 and getting too close for comfort to draft age so I was paying close attention to the news media accounts of the Tet Offensive. I thought I knew a lot about it, but Mark Bowden’s book revealed that I knew very little. I apparently was drinking General William Westmoreland’s Kool-Aid about the inconsequential and ineffective Viet Cong and NVA forces during the Battle of Hue. https://ww

I live in a condo in the US and there are two Russian families (mother, father, grandmother, kids) who live on the same floor. Everytime I would see them outside of their condos, I would smile and greet them "Good Morning" or "Good Evening". At first, they wouldn't acknowledge me and just scowled. After a few weeks, they started to smile and greet me or acknowledge my greeting. I spoke with one of their adult kids and she said that people in Russia never smile or greet strangers so they were suspicious when I started to smile and greet them. They invited me to a holiday party where

From what I’ve read in other articles, this EVA passenger has displayed and made similar conduct on other round-trip flights between Los Angeles and Bangkok. He seems to be a frequent flyer to Thailand. If you fly between those cities, you might have had the misfortune to have flown with him . . . or you might be him. https://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2019/01/21/awful-passenger-meets-eva-air-hospitality-in-the-lavatory-and-it-gets-crazier-from-there/ EVA Airlines “blacklisted” the passenger, but he somehow got around the “blacklist” by making a slight change in the spellin

I saw Peter Jackson’s “They Shall Not Grow Old” at my local theater. It’s an amazing documentary film on World War I about a war that I must admit I did not know much about. At the showing that I attended, after the credits, there was a special 30-minute clip by Peter Jackson explaining how he turned 100+ year old silent B&W film into color with dialogue and sound effect. I don’t know if the impact of this documentary film will be the same on a small TV screen or computer monitor so see it on a big theater screen if possible. The sound effect of the artillery shells explod

Evil Penevil - Thanks for posting your restaurant reviews! You've given me some interesting restaurant choices on my next visit to Pattaya. I also must be getting "old" when I'm more interested in reading restaurant reviews than about massage parlors and the best places to find female companionship.

I saw SEARCHING and it was the best movie that I’ve seen this year; and it’s worthy of its win at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. It’s a real “Whodunnit” movie with lots of unexpected twists and turns similar to an Alfred Hitchcock movie. As in our normal lives, the movie makes heavy use of personal computers, social media, Facetime, “catfishing”, texting, etc. to tell the story but in a coherent way. The movie’s underlying message is that the cover-up of a crime is always worst than the crime being covered up. [video=youtube;T8zaNxmQC9s]

Evil Penevil - Thanks for the review, photos and directions to Akatsuki! The one thing that impresses me is the price and the quality of food at Japanese restaurants in Bangkok and Pattaya. Where I live, the prices at Japanese restaurants are much higher compared to Thailand so I splurge when I go there. I'll have to add this Japanese restaurant to my list when I get back to Pattaya.

I haven’t stayed there “recently,” but I wasn’t impressed when I stayed there several years ago. Unless the Bay Breeze under went a major remodel, I don’t think much has changed. The rooms are small. The balcony is so small that it’s only useful to hang your clothes to dry. The rooms have small safes but they do NOT work. From what I was told, the hotel deactivated all the room safes because too many guests were finding their valuables stolen from the room safe. On their website, a room safe is NOT listed as one of the “room amenities.” Instead you have to use the front desk safety de