Thursday, September 18, 2014 en route SEA to SFO, United 1292, Seat 4E, 2:58 PDT

It always starts the same, no matter how exotic the destination or complex the itinerary. Jay Taylor picks me up and drives me to SeaTac, the airport. We have been doing this for years and we have become friends. He refuses after all these years to raise my fare, despite my counsel that for his businesses' welfare he needs to. Our conversations are wide-ranging and the 45-minute trip just barely allows us time to cover our favorite topics: family, sports, politics, technology.

Jay probably doesn't realize it, but our conversations do much to get these trips off to a good start. Whatever the next few days hold, there is something balanced and straightforward in our discussions of the Mariners, Seahawks and the latest political absurdities.. My arrival at the airport is stress-free thanks to Jay who has handled the transport expertly.

I'm bound for San Francisco where I will deliver a presentation at the conference of an International commercial real estate network, TCN. I helped them develop strategic plan a few years ago and every couple of years they are nice enough to ask me to share my thoughts with them. I have made some friends among the TCN folks, so this will be a reunion of sorts. It's also a chance to get in front of an audience of potential clients, so the event represents an opportunity to do some very low key marketing.

I'll go to the cocktail reception at the Union Club, but plan to make it a short evening. I need a good night's rest in preparation for tomorrow. My presentation is at 10 and soon after I've got to race to the airport to catch a flight to Narita. I'm headed back to Micronesia, via Tokyo; the reverse of the trip Kathleen and I took last year.

Once again, you are invited to join me on my journey.

Friday, September 19, Intercontinental Mark Hopkins, 8:42 a.m.

Just waiting to make my presentation to commercial real estate brokers from around the world attending this conference. I'm going to be talking about goal-setting something that is particularly vexing to people who make a living in sales. Brokers make their living through commissions on their production and many believe they could do better if they set and kept to goals.

I have a really informal and practical piece, about an hour, I do on setting goals and improving performance. It's a little off topic from my core competency, strategic planning, but it is something they can use. Instead of using a Powerpoint presentation to back up my remarks with strong visual cues, I've prepared a simple list of practical reminders printed on a piece of cardstock that can be folded and kept on a desk for ready reference. One side exhorts them to "set goals;" the other commands them to "perform."

I think I'm a pretty good presenter and I love being in front of an audience if I can give them something new and useful. TCN is going to post this on the internet somewhere, so you can watch it someday if you're curious. People seemed interested and no one left. Afterwards a couple of folks came up with more questions and hints of future business. As I told them today, setting goals is not about stating them, it's about getting results and, in this case, it seems to have worked for me. Making presentations at these conferences gets my name known (or reminds folks I'm still here) and the sponsorship of their association lends me some credibility.

As for the journey, it wouldn't be one without a surprise or two and I'm hit with my first one right away. My presentation was scheduled to end at 11, which would allow me just enough time to make my 12:35 flight to Narita (Tokyo) then, after a four hour lay-over, onto Guam where I would overnight before proceeding to my final destination, Pohnpei. Except... .

I woke up at 3:00 a.m. I must have heard the text message alarm on my iPhone. Sure enough, United was calling to tell me the first leg to Tokyo was cancelled "due to aircraft maintenance." I'm always glad when we don't fly for safety's sake... but what could be so bad that they would scrub a flight TEN hours before departure? Safety aside, I don't have a lot of time to play with... I've got to meet the bank's CEO at 9:30 Monday and I'll be losing a day crossing the International Date Line.

United will rebook me, but where and when? The rule of travel is keep as much in control as you can ('cause there's plenty you can't) and I don't want some computer algorithm sending me God knows where. As early as it is, I get on the phone.

I've written before as to the advantages of being a high mileage frequent flyer and, once again, my dogged loyalty to UA pays off. As a 1K Premier (100,000 tariff miles a year) I have a special secret number I can call. At the other end, 24 7, a bunch of really smart UA agents wait to serve the damnedest needs of their customers. And they NEVER let you down. I envision them, mostly ladies who sound mature, cloistered in a room somewhere in Denver. They ALWAYS save your bacon. Partly because they know every route and permutation between points A and B and, until recently, would go out of their way to help you even if it cost the airline. I once had a 1K agent book me on a competitor airline when I had to be in Honolulu to make a presentation.

Good as gold. The agent got me rebooked, but not until TOMORROW morning, through Honolulu to Guam. I'll miss the brief stop in Japan (let's face it, even four hours in Japan is a lot cooler than not being in Japan at all) and United better not present anymore surprises, because I have no time to spare if I'm going to be in Pohnpei Monday morning. And, worst of all, there's no real break in this journey. Before I had a long overnight layover in Guam. Now I'm powering straight through: 21 hours of travel punctuated by two 2-hour lay-overs. 17 of the next 21 hours in the air. Yikes!

8:43 p.m.

Excellent dinner. Most everyone is gone from the convention so I dined alone! Actually it worked out well. I had a peaceful afternoon and just wanted sometime to quietly compress from the excitement of the day and to get centered for the next 24 hours. My comments were well received. I ran into a lot of people who told me they enjoyed it and got a lot out of it... which makes me feel good because, despite my intentionally relaxed style of speaking, a lot of thought went into this one. I took a different approach and, apparently it worked.

Nice French restaurant, Rue Le Pic, on the corner of Mason and Pine. I have duck in a creamy orange sauce. Nicely done. Had to have the duck having heard Anthony Bourdain recently proclaim that even more than pork, duck is the perfect meat (actually he said goose, but it's got a long neck and bill... close enough). I couldn't argue with Tony after tonight's meal. Excellent cheesecake for dessert. Creamier than NY, much the way Kathleen makes it. Wonder where she picked up a French recipe?

The restaurant is just down the hill from the Mark. I emphasize down because Mason qualifies as one of San Francisco's steeply infamous hills. Even one block going back up was a tough haul after a full meal and two! flutes of champagne (my reward for a job well done today).

Early to bed. Will watch the M's fight to get a play-off berth thanks to MLB.com which, for a reasonable cost, allows me to watch every major league game on my iPad during the season. M's are up 8 to 2 through 5. If A's lose, we're tied for the wildcard. Go's boyos!

Saturday, September 20, 9:22 a.m., SFO gate 86

On board getting ready to depart for HNL. Got a first class upgrade, thank you Gods of United..

A few comments about The City. I usually have something to say about the locales I’m traveling throughI.. It's hard for me to write about SF because, few know this, it is part home to me. I spent my infancy through the 3rd grade here. My Menlo Park elementary school was close enough to Stanford that I could see the campanile. And on Saturdays the University's notorious marching band could be heard indistinctly from my backyard.. We didn't go into The City a lot, but one of my earliest memories, around three, is going somewhere near Chinatown to buy a puppy. A sweet memory (until my dad ran over her).

When we moved, heresy of heresies, to southern California, San Francisco loomed mythically for the rest of my life. I quickly adjusted to Orange County and as a teen-ager and young man identified much more with LA. I mean I had to: I loved the Dodgers and Rams. And as chic as the Bay Area might be, the Huntington Beach surfing scene and Disneyland were unquestionably cool. And I loved Sandy Koufax (I never saw him wield a Bat to bash someone over the head like you know who, Giant's fans). While I enjoyed and considered SoCal as my home, I never believed LA to be a city, not, at least, as I imagined one to be. A city was The City, San Francisco.

When I was 13, in the 8th grade, my mom, dad and I took the train from Union Station in LA to San Francisco. I remember much of that trip and discovered my vague childhood recollections and the conceptions I had built up in my head about this city's wonders were absolutely true. It was and is one of the most romantic and glamorous cities of the world in a class reserved for the very best, London, Paris, Rome, Manhattan and, a recent discovery, Tokyo. I can still remember riding a cable car one night, glimpsing the moon and its reflection on the bay through one of the narrow canyons of buildings bordering an improbably steep street. I can't remember where we stayed, somewhere down by Union Square. I do remember a pidgeon dropping his load from some height directly on my shoulder. I can still feel the weight and warmth and recall the horror of it all. Surely an avian Giants fan.

Afterwards, in the Huntington Beach Public Library I happened upon a book of collected newspaper essays written by Herb Caen, the venerable columnist for the SF Chronicle. Caen wrote a daily piece, one of the last of his breed. He wrote snappy prose as he chronicled the city's many characters, from high society to low. Much of what I came to think about what he called "Bagdad by the Bay" I derived from Caen's witty observations. Undoubtedly he influenced my own prose style and as a budding journalist I started to see the world in compact paragraphs. Some of his columns can be found online. They're dated and the topics obscure. But you can catch his great love for The City and understand how he, along with the city”s beauty and sophistication, aided in the seduction of me and many others.

Over the years, whenever I had a chance, I took trips to savor The City. There are simply too many extraordinary experiences to recount them all here. What is common to them all was a sense of being grown up, even now, when I really am grown up.

I'm not much of a wine drinker, but champagne cocktails seemed most appropriate for dinner at Rue Le Pic.

As a footnote, purely by coincidence, my wife and all her family are from San Francisco. The city of the love-of-my-life's nativity is one of my adopted homes now (although some of her family still consider me to a Philistine from southern California). Sorry, guys, there's still too much Dodger Blue in me to ever root for the Giants and with unalloyed joy I cheered on the Seahawks as they beat the 49ers in last year's playoff. But marrying Kathleen, a native San Franciscan and pretty much sealed the deal. From birth to maturity The City has been foreground or backdrop to many significant events in my life.

We're in the air. One mishap, somewhere this morning I misplaced my noise-cancelling ear buds. I hate being careless when I fly (again control what you can) and I can barely hear anything through the cheap ones provided on the flight.

1:13 pm HNL, United Club

I board the plane for Guam in a few minutes. Found some replacements for my earphones, talked to Kathleen and Larkin and am ready to go. Headed for the western Pacific. As we landed I picked up an email sent while I was in the air. New business! Omaha! I'm delighted. This is a terrific firm and I'll be able to help them. Thanks, Tim.

Kind of summarizes my life: Pohnpei to Omaha.

By the way 2,162,100 lifetime miles.

Aloha. By the way, I love it when you respond with questions or observations. Keeps me connected to all of you.

September 22, 2014, 2:02 a.m., Kolonia, Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia, Yvonne's Hotel, Room 1

For the first time in 26 hours I am laying down in a bed. Not that I haven't slept. I cat-napped across the Pacific. I've gotten pretty good at at reaching a kind of comatose state on airplanes, but I reached an impressive personal best on the fourth and final leg from Chu'uk to Pohnpei. The last thing I remember was the doors closing, then nearly two hours later I awoke on final approach.

Lights out. I go to work at 9:30.

7:33 a.m., Yvonne's Hotel

Not surprisingly, I slept well, but not that long. I was wide awake by 6 and antsy to get to work. That's about the time I arise at home, so my usual tactic for dealing with jet lag seems to be working. Whatever the local time is, no matter the difference (and it's six hours earlier here), I act as the local time dictates.

The room here is functional and very clean, which along with quiet, security and a comfortable bed are all I could ask for. No view to speak of and minimal amenities. Pretty much what you find throughout Micronesia. I've got to hunt down and iron and board. The wrinkles in my Micronesia clothes packed three days ago look like a geologic map of the Grand Canyon.

The restaurant is open and I'm famished. 24 hours of airline food is not to be recommended.

Kia's is a bright cheerful place. I have my usual, a Micronesian specialty that fits my tastes, a cheese and onion omelet just stuffed with grilled ham. Much hot coffee. But a wonderful surprise. They subscribe to the NFL channel and have the Red Zone tuned in. It's Monday here, but it's Sunday back home. I'd given up any chance of watching the Super Bowl rematch between Denver and Seattle... but there they are, my much loved Hawks.

The game is even 3-3 when I come in, clearly a defensive match-up and the Broncos get a tip of my cap, they didn't underestimate the Hawks this time. I shouldn't complain, I didn't think I'd see any of the game, but the Red Zone covers several contests at once. They'll pick up a driving team and stay with that game until a score, turn-over or change in possession when they switch to another game mid-drive. It's disjointed and choppy, making it hard to make sense of a game when you're dropping in and out. The perfect thing for the ADHD afflicted. I end up seeIng a series of Seahawk plays then have to wait until something more exciting happens to attract the NFL Network's attention. Better than nothing for sure, but hard to get a sense of the game's momentum. My patience is rewarded, however, when close to the end of the half Russell Wilson hits Ricardo Lockett with a 40-yard touchdown pass. Go Hawks!

Time to go to work. A few of you are new to this post and I want to explain where I am and why I'm here, so regular readers might want to scan down to >>>>> where you can pick up the new narrative without having to wade through background details you read before (although I do share the story of a brazen attack that I've not told before).

The term Micronesia encompasses a lot of things. It denotes a geographic area in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a series of massive island archipelagos ranging southwest from the Hawai'an islands, mostly just above the equator, northwest to the edge of the Philippines and Japan. Their ethnicity traces more to southeast Asia and the Philippines than do their southern neighbors, the Polynesians. For a variety of reasons, mostly dealing with the trade winds, Micronesia was economically and politically less important that the islands of the South Pacific. Depending on the era, they progressively became colonial outposts for the Spanish, Germans and Japanese.

Their liberation at the end of World War 2 changed the status of these "island nations" to UN Trust Territories overseen for nearly 20 years by the US. The American government did little to encourage economic development in these nations, most particularly tourism, probably because these locations were useful pawns in the Cold War and some offered unique opportunities for the advancement of US defense interests. It is no accident that Bikini and Eniewatok atolls became grounds-zero for nuclear testing (not only devastating for the relocated residents of these atolls, but deadly for the downwind citizens of Rongelap). To this day, Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands is a US military outpost, kept so secure for Star Wars research that only passengers holding a military pass are allowed to step off of the United flights that come through twice a week.

From the beginning, the US has supported these nations financially. The original Trust Territory agreement called for governmental self-determination by the mid-1960s and economic self-

sufficiency by the ’80s. The first occurred with Guam and American Samoa choosing to become US territories, the Mariana Islands a commonwealth and Palau, the Caroline Islands (renamed the Federated States of Micronesia) and the Marshall Islands independent nations. The Commonwealth of the Marianas are a kind of US territory, but less so than Guam… a hybrid status that I’ve never really understood. Self sufficiency expected in the 1980s, then pushed back to the 2033 has yet to come and may be a long way, if ever, to arrive.

Billions of US tax dollars are spent here and without such aid these nations would be very poor. I'm sure there is a specific technical definition of Third World status, I don't know what it is, but I would imagine some of these islands qualifying but for the abundant natural resources that make food easily attainable and a moderate climate that requires very simple housing. The generous and welcoming nature of Micronesian kinship structure provides basic welfare. People take care of each other, although healthcare is an expensive problem.

Still the US spends a lot of money out here and it expects accountability. For years there was, very little of that and the first public audits uncovered all sorts of "exceptions" some, illegal. Congress reacted by requiring the US Department of Interior, who governs through the Bureau of Island Affairs, to demand better audits and corrected behavior. This led to a serious effort to upgrade public auditing in Micronesia and a cottage industry of consultants to provide training, planning and evaluation services.

While the educational infrastructure Is insufficient to produce a large pool of trained accountants and auditors, Interior has provided training and technical assistance to oversee the expenditure of US funds. Many staff of these public auditor office only have a high school diploma or AA degree but they have been educated through DOI programs are capable of very sophisticated, professional work.

A few years ago, my dear friend, Cheryle Broom, invited me to work with her on a contract out here and that resulted in my providing counsel to several of these governments to do planning aimed at strengthening their operations and better fulfilling their missions. These collected efforts, of which mine are but a small part, have significantly improved audit practices to ensure monies are spent correctly.

I admire the people I work with out here. They are true patriots enduring a lot, working exceptionally hard to build their nations. I'd go so far as to label them courageous. These are small islands where everyone knows everyone else and all are connected through complex kinship and village memberships. When mismanagement or careless treatment of funds occurs, the worst representing fraud and corruption, these auditors end up investigating neighbors or relatives.

One Sunday, on Guam, I took a car from the Public Auditor's Office to drive across the island for lunch at Jeff's Pirate Cove in the mellifluously named village of Talafofo. The car was emblazoned with the OPA crest. I came out 90 minutes later having eaten the best cheeseburger of my life to find all four of my tires slashed. This can be serious business.

>>>>>

I've been working with public auditors in Micronesia for 12 years. All that work has been supported by a federal program, the Pacific Island Training Initiative (PITI). They find people like me and Cheryle and match them up with agencies. Because I specialize in strategic

planning, I'll sometimes get an assignment outside of public auditing to a finance office or economic development unit.

My current job in Pohnpei is a special one. It is the first time a national entity has hired me independent of my affiliation with and support from PITI. I got this one all on my own reputation. That an agency is willing to invest its own funds in hiring me makes me proud, and humble. I always work hard and give my all for a client, so being specially selected doesn't change the nature of my work or commitment to it. But I do feel honored to have the quality of my work recognized.

My new client is the Development Bank of the Federated States of Micronesia. They capitalize economic development throughout the nation. To maintain their confidentiality I'll only write about my process, leaving the substantive details of their plan to their own disclosure. I will offer this comment. The FSMDB, under the able leadership of CEO Anna Mendiola, has accomplished much with relatively little funding. This is a classic example of a very good organization challenging itself to get better. I refer to organizations like FSM's Development Bank as "winning team" aiming to be a "championship team." That's their biggest strategic challenge: getting to the next step.

9:17 p.m. Yvonne's Hotel

I met with Anna all this morning and the Board and the management team in the afternoon. I outlined the process and explained my role and theirs. My main point: this is their plan; this is my process. I shared pictures of my handsome family and lovely home. I wanted them to see that, although we come from different places, we share the joy and challenges of being loving spouses, parents, grand-parents and neighbors. We a very long, but very Pacific water link too, be it from our home on Puget Sound or the bay of Gray’s Harbor.

The travel is catching up with me. I have a tasty beef stir fry at the restaurant attached to the hotel. The Seahawks win in overtime. I guess that Super Bowl victory was no fluke. My beloved Mariners drop two in a row in Houston. They are going to break my heart, again. So close with seven games to go; they're running out of gas.

Me too. I'm dozing off as I read this. Time for bed and a much needed and deserved, I hope, rest.

Wednesday, September 24, Kia's Restaurant, Pohnpei

I'm not sure of the origin of this restaurant's name. Only hoping it is their daughter and not the automobile. I've eaten breakfast here twice. Typical Micronesian fare, quite similar to Hawai'ian lunch plates, even at breakfast. The traditional ham, cheese and onion omelet takes on a new twist, with the use of a white cheese, probably Mozzarella. Creative but, in the end, not a good choice... too lumpy, gooey and bland. I stick my neck out today and ask the waitress if I can have cheddar instead. I get the reaction I dread.

Micronesian folk are eager to please, polite to fault and, young people in particular, unsteady with their English. When I request a cheddar substitute a look of terror crosses her face. I'm not sure if it's because cheddar is not a available or whether substitution is forbidden at Kia's. She stammers something and, in her soft-spoken English, the only word I pick out is "onion."

We are now trapped in that most unpleasant moment of foreign travel, when two well-meaning people are looking at each other and neither knows what the other is talking about. This is when humans usually revert to the most primitive of communication tactics: pictures and gestures. While that approach can usually get you to a bathroom or maybe even a margarita, I'm at a loss here. And our mutual discomfort is mounting.

She's a kid, a lovely young Micronesian lady. The look on her face takes me back to my teaching years when, having a tough enough time myself understanding the math in statistics, I was trying to explain the t-test to a class of number-phobic, stressed out adult students attending college at night after a full day of work. If I had announced my belief in the triumph of Satan, they couldn't have looked any more stunned (and probably would have been relieved to be spared the math lesson).

That look not only conveys a sense of fear (omg, what do I do now?) and pleading (how do I get out of this and back to safe ground?) but betrayal (why are you doing this to me?), I attempt a recovery, brushing off the reference to onions altogether. I go after the most visual reference I can find. "Cheese?" I say. "Yellow cheese?" "No mozzarella?" she asks brightly in return.

Both of us are transported immediately to one of the sweetest moments in life: human connection. Though the years, cultures, languages and lifestyles are just about as different as you could make them, we're connected. We smile at each other, touched for a instant by the pure humanity of it all. Isn't this a metaphor for our whole lives, wherever we live? All those failures of spousal, parental, familial, business, neighborly communications momentarily erased by the success of one connected message.

The lesson gained from the successful order of a cheese omelet reminds me of what I need to do every time, be it with Kathleen or my clients here. To look someone straight in the eye and take the responsibility to help them understand. Sure, the other person should listen and be attentive, try to make sense out of what they hear us say. But in the end, it's my job to get the message across and, with the same frantic care that leads to gestures and reliance on the universal language of Spanglish, help others to get to the place we both want to be. A lesson I taught students for years is amply reinforced: try harder to understand than to be understood. Try it; it works!

A few minutes later, my meal arrives. The punchline to make the story complete would be a double heaping of mozzarella. But in a life-affirming moment, I cut into my omelet and watch the American cheese ooze across the plate.

I ask the waitress her name. "Jane," she tells me and adds "you're Lowell?" I'm surprised because Kia's doesn't allow you to charge back to the room. There's no reason for her to know my name except for the fact that the restaurant staff are probably curious about the patrons who come in and out everyday. I tell her my nickname is Duke (no surprise in Pohnpei where folks often carry two names, one Pohnpeian, an Anglo one for use in commerce and public life). We smile and shake hands. A good start to the day.

.....

Day three of planning for the bank. They're doing well and the participation of the Board is a good sign. They are a bright group, the chair, the CEO and four representatives, one from each of FSM's island states: Chu'uk (Truk, the Japanese fleet's safe haven during WW2), Kosrae,

Pohnpei and Yap. A local version of state's rights is playing itself out in this still newly minted nation, but their engagement and commitment to the bank and a national plan of economic development augurs well and guarantees a strong plan.

Boards are critical to the success of organizations, a truth often over-looked in the last few years. Every recent catastrophic business failure from Enron on down can be traced to the ignorance, arrogance or greed of a board. It's all summarized in an inelegant axiom derived from the latter days of the Soviet Union: a rotting fish stinks from its head.

Off to work.

A comment on Micronesian construction, Delvin take note. This is a land where a one story building with rebar poking out the top is called economic development. I'm not sure why, but many places I stay out here are incomplete or oddly finished. My room at Yvonne's provides many examples (Yvonne's should not to be singled out, except for the few posh resorts, what I describe is found everywhere I have been),

Some examples. In the bathroom, the toilet paper holder is designed to be recessed. It has been installed, however, flat against the wall, the part to be recessed jutting out from the wall. Still perfectly functional, although the two back screws bear the full weight. It's just unsightly and odd. More curious, the windows all have the original paper documenting their size, rating and manufacturer attached. These are not new windows. The documents are faded and weathered. A medicine cabinet is hung at a cock-eyed angle. The tread on the stairs outside my room is too high, necessitating slow, careful, shaky, giant steps to ascend. An odd lack of craftsmanship? Laziness? Missing tools? Amateur contractors? Not enough time? Disregard in the face of weather that leads everything to corrode, rot or break down under the pressure of rain, wind, salt air, heat, humidity and direct sun?

A puzzle. One that causes me to consider every electrical outlet warily.

5:09 p.m., Yvonne's Hotel

Ah ha! My wariness was well-grounded (electrical pun intended; somewhere Herb Caen is chuckling). We finished a little early today, so I got back to my hotel just after three. It seemed odd the hallway light was out until, entering my room I discovered all the power was dead. The front desk was abuzz with confused guests checking in. All I could pick up was that one of the island's generators was out and all would be fine by 4. Well, it's well past 4 and still no power. I turn off all electronics off, plug in chargers everywhere In preparation for power's return and ready my pump-action self-charging flashlight. Successful travel is about making adjustments and I am ready. I've been in darkened hotel rooms before; I'm in control of this one.

It is a frustrating end to what has been a busy day. I'm hot and tired. The absence of air-conditioning is making me cranky. My fatigue is justified. The day started early. At 3:45 in the morning my phone rang. It shouldn't have; I have no service or sim card. I surely can't call out. But, mysteriously here comes a call from an even more mysterious area code (408? For a second I mistake it for the time). It is a reporter from the Silicon Valley Business Journal, a good guy I've talked with over the years. He wanted my thoughts on the merger between two commercial real estate giants, Cassidy-Turley and DTZ (always referred to ostentatiously by its

German name, DT Zed). I probably would have been irritated by this early wake up, but come on, it's always flattering to be interviewed, whatever the time. And although he didn't know it, I had to reward Nate's electronic resourcefulness or luck to track me down for the story. We had a good talk and better laugh, but I never got back to sleep.

I got up and met with board in the morning then had a couple of deep and thoughtful interviews with bank stakeholders just after lunch. Tired and hot I lay down my bed and fell sound asleep. I awoke a few minutes ago, stabbed around for my eyeglasses and had my second great surprise of the afternoon: I'd rolled over on them and broken out a lens.

Not to worry, I've got an old pair as back-up, but there's no denying, my broken ones are lighter, clearer and just plain better. All travel is about adjustments... I mean that's why you do it right? To see if you can make it in the world without all the supports found at home. In my carry-on bag is a little box for just these kinds of emergencies, sort of.

I've busted the thin plastic sling that holds the lens in place. Nothing is going to fix that. But I have a teeny roll of clear tape. A pinch here and there and the lens Is in place; the glasses are fixed. Kind of. I resemble nothing more than your high school physics teacher. All I need is a Mr. Rodgers sweater coated with dandruff on the shoulders. Larkin would be too embarrassed to leave the house with me. And, although the lens is clearer than my redundant pair, there are disagreeable fuzzy blobs at noon, three o'clock and seven that could present a problem. Guess I'll get to find out what Pohnpei offers in optometric services tomorrow.

And the power is still out, abundantly felt in the room's ever-increasing temperature. But, wait, the power went back on! Good news, but I'm wary again. I've learned not to trust the power plants out here. A few months ago a brief outage like this on Majuro preceded a 36-hour black out. Thank God the airport had a generator or I'd never have gotten out. I wonder what this had done at Kia's? I was planning to head there for dinner soon. Power outages are havoc for restaurants but... travel is all about adjustments, right?

7:18 p.m., my room at Yvonne’s

Kia's was open and I had a tasty Sashimi set. The tuna out here is is so fresh it practically swims to your table. There is a disappointing fall-out from the power failure. The house's dessert specialty, fried ice cream, is off the menu tonight. I'll be back for that tomorrow for sure.

I spend dinner trying screen out Christine Amanport's interview with the new Iraqi President while I try to edit this post. I am an awful copy editor, way too caught up in my own narrative and prose to catch grammatical errors and mis-spellings. It's embarrassing and though I really tried this time to catch them all, my re-reading of "chapters" one and two turn up more shameful errors.

I apologize. I'm sorry to put you through that. I'll try harder. I think my prose is serviceable, I was trained as a journalist after all. But you shouldn't have to get to the matter of my stuff sving to reconstruct what I was saying. I left that one in to make my point. How the hell are you supposed to know "sving" is trying? How did I even produce that typo? Your patience and forbearance only makes me love you more. I'll work harder, I pomded (oops! promise. Okay, that was a joke),

The end of the day offers up a nightly reward. My son Matt has been extolling a series called the Americans. I downloaded a bunch before I left home and I watch one each night before bed. It follows a husband and wife who live a very normal upper middle class life in suburban DC. During the Reagan years. They run a travel agency, have a couple of cute kids. The only real difference between them and their neighbors? They are Soviet agents planted to spy on the US. In the pilot an FBI agent and his family move in across the street. Our Russian spies are there, of course, to welcome them with cookies and brownies. It's one of those series like the Sopranos (RIP Jimmy G) that gets you looking into a mirror, looking into another mirror starting to root for the bad guys.

To bed, again mea culpa, mea maxima culpa for the typos.

Thursday, September 25, 5:11 p.m., Yvonne's

Glasses fixed, easily. Plan coming together, nicely. The end is in sight, directly.

One day to finish. I need to keep my focus and make sure everything gets nailed down. We're probably a half day behind schedule so we're going to have to pedal hard tomorrow. I can see folks are getting tired and they should be, this is hard work. But we're really close.

Friday, September 26, 6:33 a.m., Yvonne's

Awoke with all sorts of feelings this morning. Surely homesick. Kathleen's my rock and although I take pride in being able to take care of myself out here professionally and personally, every day I am away from her leaves me feeling just a little less, I don't know, connected? Whole? Fulfilled? Every day I look forward to that moment when she smiles. It brightens my day more than the sun. And I miss her touch and the smell of her perfume... her nagging about completing chores, not so much.

I've been a little worried about her on this trip. She's a strong capable woman, more than up to the task of running the household while I'm traveling. For all I know, it's easier with me out of the way. But I know she has a lot on her plate now, so I worry. The vagaries of time zones mean that when we connect, it's almost midnight at home. She sounds, quite naturally, fatigued, and I worry.

I lay here and I feel content. God has given me the opportunity to use my small range of talents to make a difference. That I have been called out to one of the most beautiful and hospitable places on the face of the Earth is nothing less than a blessing. To know that I have something they can use to build their nation, to stand free and self sufficient is really all I could ever ask for. I was born to be a teacher. I'm often asked if I miss it. I find the question odd, because I've never stopped.

For sure I am helping the Development Bank create and implement a plan, but helping them see their potential, to identify their future challenges and to strategize how to best serve their nation and the citizens of FSM is all about learning. Not just the techniques and process of planning, there is some of that, of course, but to see in new ways the essence and elements of the organization they are trying to lead.

My happiest moments here or in the classroom are always when I say something or ask a question and the comment or answer prompts a new, clearer understanding. That cartoon Image of a lightbulb going on overhead is realistic. Something happens in people's eyes when

that moment of insight occurs. To be part of that, to see it happen in a group, especially when there's a lot on the line, is fulfilling beyond belief.

I'm also anxious. We have a lot to accomplish today. We have to stay on track and I will let them down if I leave any detail unfinished. Monday they have a plan to put into action. The time for planning ends today. I am responsible for giving them a plan that's focussed on the right things and detailed enough to get them where they need to go. I won't be here Monday or maybe ever again... the plan, with their commitment and hard work, will have to carry them through.

I'm ready to go to. A week doing this is a long time. I'm ready to wrap it up and move on to the next thing. I'm convinced I am a way-overcompensated sufferer of ADHD. My attention span is easily shortened by any number of distractions. I must have learned as a kid to shut out everything else. And I can do it. It's what Kathleen and I refer to as "entering the hat" from a Stephen Sondheim lyric attempting to describe the painter Seurat's focus. As he paints the hat he enters the world of the hat, often and regrettably to the neglect of other parts of his life. That's why chores don't get done and driving with me can be terrifying.

There's a little melancholy, too. A week of planning like this is an intense process. We're involved in, for me, the most satisfying of human enterprises, building something. I like these people and it is not uncommon, even in a week, to become friends. Hell, that's why most of you are on my mailing list: good friends from Milwaukee or Raleigh or Cleveland, temporary stops for me, but the homes of good friends, some I haven't seen in a long time.

I may never return to Pohnpei. I may never see the folks again. I'll miss them... well, a few of them. Time to move on. And to be honest I'm starting to be distracted by the next thing. A bit of a surprise I've saved for my faithful readers. I'm headed home tomorrow, of course, but not before I make one more stop: Hong Kong.

Enough ruminations. I thought, however, you might find it amusing to get a sense of what it feels like to be me.

I'm hungry... time to visit Kia's.

7:59 a.m. Kia's

Some of you may recall on my last visit, my frustration over Micronesian breakfasts caused me to take circumstances into my own hands (after all, control what you can control, because all travel is about making adjustments, right?)

What follows, I confess, is rank ethnocentrism. I'm just not real fond of Micronesian food, especially the breakfasts. And that's not fair. They take advantage of what's available: fish, rice, spam, a limited range of fresh fruit. They supplement all this homegrown ingredients with expensive imported items: eggs, beef, pork, chicken, fresh milk. And they fry it all. Sincere apologies to my Hawai'an friends... I know you love loco moco, but the haole in me can't even look at it.

You know my affection for the traditional ham, onion and YELLOW cheese omelet found on every menu out here. But I can't eat it everyday. You'll recall from my time spent in Majuro a

few months ago, the invention of a new dish. The french toast sandwich... fried slices of bread separated by layers of grilled ham. Truth be told, this is just a poor man's croque monsieur.

The problem is, you always get four thin slices of white bread toast (challah? C'mon) but only two triangular slices of ham. I end up setting one piece of toast aside... there's not enough ham, leaving a void between slices. I know you're ahead of me on this one... just order a double side of ham. Doesn't work. Now I'm left with an extra piece of ham.

Thanks to my time with my good friends at Golden Corral, I look for a solution and, borrowing a page from Pizza Hut, I invent the "meat-lovers" french toast by adding a side of bacon! Ted, you are free to add this to GC's breakfast menu.

I try it this morning. So, from the bottom up: slice of toast, a slice of ham, toast, two slices of bacon, toast, ham and toast. Symmetry! Harmony! Damned tasty, too. Just as disgusting in its own way as loco moco, but it's my disgusting.

Off to work.

2:55 p.m. Yvonne's

We're done and they've crafted a really good plan. And it's their plan, not mine. I helped them through the process and raised some good focusing questions, but they did the hard analysis, came up with some good answers and made the right choices.

I'd never worked with a development bank before, so I learned a lot. It's an interesting operation: essentially they make business loans to help enterprises succeed, thus growing the economy and creating much needed jobs. At least, that's what they are supposed to so. Quite honestly, much of this plan aims at getting growth and jobs in the FSM more reliably, with greater frequency and bigger impacts.

The closing was as melancholy, just as I'd anticipated. We worked hard and this is important stuff. All of us were feeling the pressure to get it right, working against the deadline of my departure. The sense of camaraderie is real and my process generates a lot of interaction. I intend to draw the best out of everybody, because we need it. By the end of the week folks know much more about each other and have all been through an intense, high energy experience.

It's hard to stop and difficult to say good-bye. Once you become a part of something the bond of belonging is hard to give up. To ease the transition I invited everyone to drop in for a drink at my favorite local bar, the Coco Marina.

As is the custom, I was given some beautiful Pohnpeian handicrafts as gifts. Got paid, too... that's a rare treat.

6:53 p.m. Yvonne's

Power's off, again. Into almost four hours now. 11 hours to sunrise. I've got a couple of flashlights and plenty of time until I fly out tomorrow afternoon. The little back-up battery I bought on my last Pacific trip is beginning to look like a good investment. It's good for probably six hours of cellphone talk or e-book reading. Inconvenient, but ok. Adjustments, right?

Restaurant is closed, so I hoof it downhill to the "marina," a bunch of shoreside docks. The fish-market is here. Tables overseen by young men and women waving switches with plastic bags at one end to keep the flies off the catch of the day. There is just an incredible selection of fish from either side of the reef. Inside, smaller with all sorts of hues; outside, big ones, muscular tuna.

I head to a favorite local spot Coco Marina. I've invited folks from the office to join me, offered to cover the first round. No one shows. I'm not surprised. We had a good turn out for the dinner Tuesday (when despite my sincere and repeated efforts they would not let me pay) and these folks have had plenty of me. I sip my drink alone, sample the local poke (laced with lime, cucumber and onion) and wait 45 minutes just in case someone is operating on "island time,". IT is no fiction.

I head home just before dark wondering at a world in which I can have two rum 'n Cokes and a platter of poke for $17.50.

It's not quite dark, but getting there quickly as it does in the Tropics. I step carefully. Kolonia has sidewalks of sorts. They are four foot long concrete panels laid end to end over a wide a deep channel excavated to handle the run-off from torrential rain. Quite clever, each panel has a handy hole at either end I presume to ease lifting to clear blockages.

Unfortunately these slabs, like many basic things throughout Micronesia are not maintained. Strolling along these concrete boardwalks you will encounter, every so often, one that is missing or broken. Those are easy to walk around, taking care not to get clipped by a car. It's the silent killers that have me worried. You step on one and, immediately, hear a hollow sound and feel the whole thing teeter. They're not properly seated and, I guess, on their way to breaking or going missing.

I risk the cars and stay off the pavings. It's all uphill, humid and hot. From a distance I think I see lights at Yvonne's. As I approach there are only a few lights electrified by a generator big enough to illuminate the lobby and driveway, insufficient to cover the rooms. Burning hot and drenched with sweat, I use my mini-flashlight to find my room.

Here I wait in the darkness.

8:17 p.m.

Power's on! Much longer and you could have carved me and served me up for Thanksgiving dinner.

Makes me wonder. I've been traveling out here for 12 years. Maybe I've been lucky, but I haven't run into these blackouts before. Could it be another sign of careless maintenance? Or growth pushing the systems beyond their limits? Or aging infrastructure? Maybe all three. Not good, whatever the cause.

Saturday, September 27, 6:23 a.m.,Yvonne's

My day started with the hammering of heavy rain on the alley below my window and the occasional grumble of distant thunder. It didn't take much to wake me, I always sleep fitfully on a travel day and the prospect of being in Hong Kong tonight has got my engine running. You know me by now, I'm so excited by travel that for me the prospect of a flight to Boise is a big

deal. But Hong Kong? Just the thought of going there is beyond thrilling. I can't imagine what it will really be like.

Part of my excitement stems from the fact that Hong Kong was one of those places I thought I'd likely never see. It's distance, location and cost along with the fact that there's no real reason to be there seemed to rule it out or put it way down the list. Almost all of my foreign travel has been related to business or some kind of connected spin-off. Pure vacations have usually been domestic or Hawai'ian. There are just a lot of convenient pleasure trips still to take. Hong Kong just didn't figure.

Turns out oligarchy works in my favor this time. The iron rule that concentrates many small businesses into a few large competitors worked to my advantage for once. Before the Continental-United merger, CO-Micronesia handled everything out here. To return home there was only one way, through Honolulu. You could get there through Guam or travel the islands east (Chu'uk to Pohnpei to Kosrae to Majuro to Kwajalein to Hawai'i) the incredible island-hopping, culture-sampling flight, CO #1.

United swallowed Continental and its Micronesian partner. A truly international airline, United's routes home through Guam added the possibility of an Asia connection: initially sending legs through Japan, Narita and Osaka (that's how Kathleen and I ended up in Tokyo last year); this year they opened up a route through Hong Kong. The price differences coming home by way of HNL or NRT or HKG are negligible. And if connections are right, even though you have to fly west to get east, you can almost get home as fast on a trans-Pacific non-stop (this only works for me because United does not have a flight to Seattle from HNL. I always have to detour through San Francisco or LA).

Once I discovered the HKG option I took it. I added a full day lay-over to get a taste, however brief, of the city. I know, the 38 hours I'll be there hardly qualifies me as a "China Hand," but 38 is better than zero. I'm headed there and, believe me, I am pumped!

......

Travel tip: it's time to move on when you no longer notice that the shower never gets warmer than luke. Please let there be steaming hot water in Hong Kong!

I've been feeling kind if guilty and provincial given my ethnocentric squeamishness about Pacific cuisine. I made a bold decision in the middle of the night. I'm going to Kia's and have the loco moco for breakfast. I've got to do it.

8:15 a.m. Kia's

I know I am stealing some comedian's set here, I honestly can't remember whose, but the premise is, just what were people thinking when they concocted certain dishes? If you thought out loud about it, you might stick to something more basic than spaghetti bolognese or escargot.You know exactly where I'm going with this. How? Where? What thinking led someone to say, "hey, let's fry an egg and put it on top of... get this... a bed of sticky white rice, a beef patty and gravy of some indeterminate heritage. I can imagine a bunch of hungry sugar cane plantation workers on Maui dreaming this one up, although the source of all knowledge, Wikipedia, credits a short-order cook in Hilo. Makes no difference, it is the signature dish of restaurants from California to Guam.

It's ok. Not awful by any standard. The beef and egg work fine together as a kind of faux corned beef. I could have done without the gravy and I'm just not a rice guy. If you like rice you'll enjoy this dish, but you better be okay with grease. You could get around greasiness without the gravy, but it would be dry. There's just not enough yoke to lubricate it. I tried a little ketchup, but that's cheating... ketchup will save almost any unappetizing dish. Soy would probably work, too. So, I've done it and I guess I'm better for it. At least I have a better understanding of the Micronesian palate. Note to Ted, this might just work on the west coast.

Time to pack up.

I'm taking the rainy morning and indulging a little bit of my obsessive-compulsiveness. I'm still pissed I lost that set of noise-cancelling earbuds. It was all my fault, having violated one of the most basic rules of travel: everything belongs in its right place and ALWAYS it is returned to its right place upon using. I pulled out the plugs In SFO and didn't put them in their correct external place. Yes, that's correct, everything has three places in the universe: internal, in the bag, external, out of the bag and, in-use. OK, OK, OCD to a high level, but I can find anything in a pitch black space or under the seat-back ahead of me and if I do lose something, it's lost and I lost it. So there.

I reorganize my bags and get stuff in order. On trips like this I always carry a foldable, compact duffle we found in a Honolulu Wal-Mart years ago and it always comes in handy for the last half of a trip. It's stuffed with dirty clothes which, in turn, provide ample protection to the lovely handicrafts I was given yesterday.

Checking progress of my flight from HNL. Looking good. My bags are packed, flight is 5 hours away. I'll eat a light lunch (the loco moco should get me all the way to Hong Kong).

11:36, still at Yvonne's

Watching the rain, counting the hours.

Reading has always been my favorite pastime and since I started traveling heavy duty, good books have preserved my sanity in a lot of airports and on many a flight. Crammed in a middle row on an overheated flight out of Houston to anywhere, I need a good read, a distracting one that will take me as far away as I can get. Just by chance, I discovered an odd little genre, the historical mystery. No need to go into this, I devoted one part of my old newsletter to it... the piece, listing all my favorites can be found on my blog: dukeonline.blogspot.com. Scroll down to the June 17, 2010 post. One quick example of what I'm talking about, the Sano Ichiro series by Laura Joh Rowland: the Shogun's own Most Honorable Inspector of Events, Situations and People set in 16th Century Japan. About as obscure and intriguing as you can get.

These kinds of books got me searching for mysteries situated in the places I was visiting, be it Montreal or Nice or, yes Skipper, even Cleveland. Once I started looking I've come up with tons of them, often aimed more at their local market than any mass trade.

These novels are often spectacular, offering a glimpse of the darker side of a city, extraordinarily educational in passing on some history and local knowledge you just don't get out of guidebooks. Mike and Rachel Zugsmith can attest to this, having taken me to several of the plot-prominent sites from Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series.

This is all lead up to my preparation for Hong Kong. I've read a couple of novels (of course Clavell's Noble House years ago) already. Guess what? They have crime there and hard-bitten detectives. Reading a terrific one right now, Don Winslow's the Trail to Buddha's Mirror. Great, writing, everyone knows how to crackwise in Winslow's world. So good, I had to stop the HK based book and go back to read the first in the series that preceded it. Also working through a novel by the author who inspires my travel-writing, Paul Theroux: Kowloon Tong, a novel of British manners in the days leading up to the transfer of HK's governance to the PRC.

6:28 p.m., Gate 13, Won Pat International Airport, GUM, on board United 179, seat 4A.

Bound for Hong Kong with a first class upgrade. Sweet. Thank you United Airlines!

Sunday, September 28, Renaissance Harbour View, Room 2619

Flight arrived at 9:50. Through immigration, baggage claim, customs in a shot. Hopped on Express Train to Hong Kong, then a quick taxi and, by God, I'm here. Took less than an hour. Lying in bed looking across the harbor to Kowloon. Right now I just can't find the words.

Monday, September 29, 3:11 a.m., Renaissance Harbourview, room 2619

I'll send a longer post in a minute, but wanted reassure anyone who has been following the news of clashes between Hong Kong police and the pro-democracy "Occupy Central" protesters that I am safe. My flight is in 8 hours and at the advice of hotel staff I'm leaving earlier than I would usually.

The Central in the Occupy Central refers to a district on Hong Kong island where many government offices are clustered.. It is just to the west about a mile from the Wan Chai district where this hotel is located. Traffic moves east-west and it would appear protestors are intermittently blocking the arterials, thus to "occupy the Central district."

More later. Just know I'm safe. Lots of stories to tell in next post.

Ciao.

Monday, September 29, 5:16 a.m., Chek Lop Kok airport, Hong Kong

As much as I would have liked to stay to watch another sunrise over Victoria Harbour it made sense to come out here early.

Last night at 6:30 the general manager of the Renaissance sent all guests an email with the somewhat ominous preface, "For your information, Occupy Central, which kicked off on 28th September, there is a protest in Hong Kong. The duration is unknown at this point. Please be alert when making travel arrangement from our hotel to the airport. Thank you very much!"

I had planned to get up early anyway. My beloved Mariners staggered through the last month of the season and, improbably, still have a very slim chance of making the post-season play-offs. They've got to beat the Angels while the A's, who have played even worse than Seattle in September, have to win in Texas to claim the wildcard. First pitch in Seattle is at 4:10 a.m. Hong Kong time so, yes I am one of those stupid sports fans who would rise that early to root the boys on.

I originally planned to leave for the airport at 8:30, plenty of time before my 11 a.m non-stop to SFO. I woke up at 3, saw a couple of emails from folks concerned about my safety and figured, oh hell, let's get out of Dodge. Honestly, I'm ready to come home. This has been a long trip, lots of timezones, all sorts of weather and meals with odd foods at funny times. I'm tired, missing Kathleen and Larkin and ready for some of her home cooking.

Grabbed a cab at 4:25. Police vehicles all over the place, although Wan Chai is expectedly quiet this early in the morning... so much so the bellman has to go out the street and wait 10 minutes to wave down a cab. I guess the Revolution comes in on cat's feet. The driver, a stout Chinese woman, talking on two cellphones mounted above her steering wheel, heads west, towards the airport and Central. She doesn't make it a quarter of a mile before we hit a police roadblock. Not just a cop car. Three or four police buses blocking all lanes of the main thoroughfare I walked down yesterday headed for the Star Ferry. She and a cluster of cops exchange some hand gestures and that causes her to turn around and head east away from the demonstrations. She takes the long way, crossing under the harbor and then swinging west again across Kowloon. There are a bunch a red HK cabs headed the same way, so I'm thinking vehicles from south of the harbor are taking this detour.

Not much open at the airport this early, surely not United whose first flight out is hours away. No problem, I've done this plenty of times before, it's all small adjustments, right? Good news Starbucks is open and, though crowded, I take my vanilla latte, grab an open deuce and start writing to you. The free airport wi-fi is too weak to carry MLB.com's video, but I can listen to the KIRO radio broadcast. The M's jump to a 4-0 lead, but the A's a few innings ahead in Arlington are leading and just a couple of minutes ago, claimed the last remaining wild card spot. Mariner fans rise and give their team a standing O when they learn we've been eliminated. I can't complain. The Ms did much better than anticipated and, for the first time in 13 seasons, stayed in the race to the last day. Less pleasing, however, is the September swoon that left them short of catching the struggling A's. Good new manager and several young players who, you hope, have learned some useful lessons this season.

So today's priorities are straight. I'm at the airport starting the long trip home. The M's season is resolved. On to the next thing which includes a full report on my full day in Hong Kong.There's little I can say about this great city to do it justice. It's big, diverse, sophisticated, sly, beautifully situated and commercial… above all else, this place is about selling and buying things and making money. And everywhere you go people are spending money and there are lots of people presenting all sorts of opportunities to take it from you.

People are not real friendly. Very different from Japan where your comfort is first in everyone,s minds, my interactions here were all guided by function. Everyone is doing a job here and whether you are a sailor manning the gangway at the Star Ferry or a shopkeeper in an upscale crafts store or a maitre d' in a restaurant, it all about the transaction: get it done, get it over, move on.

I have no way of knowing if this is just how tourists, expecially gweilo Americans, are treated, I see laughter and smiles all around me, but none directed towards me. To be fair it could just be me and don't take my comments as evidence of rude treatment... anything but, but the interactions here seem guided by a simple principle, get the job done and, since I am here as a consumer, take the money.

Now I confess, this kind of instant cultural analysis is folly and potentially insulting to my very gracious and welcoming hosts. Don't take any of this commentary to the bank, not even a ceramic porcine one. These are impressions, superficial at best, ethnocentric and uninformed at worst. But I didn't waste my time, I covered a lot of ground and exposed myself to all sorts of Hong Kong stimuli. This is my experience on day in Hong Kong, although it may turn out to be an historic one.

One more opening comment. I love this place and would bring Kathleen back in a finger-snap. It is one of those few places that does not disappoint. Your senses are over-whelmed with wonders and beauty. Inadequate as it is, "wow" is the word I kept falling back upon.

I wake early, just before six. This hasn't happened for a long time, but I awake, look up and don't recognize what I see, in this case a glass wall separating the sleeping area from the bath. For a second I don't know where I am. I roll over and "wham" like a Technicolor, cinemascope long pan in opening of the 1960 Hong Kong flick, the World of Suzy Wong, from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, from 300 feet up Hong Kong harbour is washed in the first rays sunshine over Causeway Bay. What when I went sleep had been a fairyland of lights from skyscrapers piercing the night is a breath-taking panorama of hills, buildings, neighborhoods, docks and shipping of all sorts from small bobbing ferries, all sorts of practical craft, to a gleaming white cruise ship, a city block long, gliding in from the east for it's Hong Kong call. I am transfixed. Oh how I love this, water, ships and vessels of all sorts. Working boats. Reminds most of the banks of the Mississippi in New Orleans: few pleasure craft here, not a 6 a.m., these are boats with a purpose navigated by people for a reason.

I've got to get out. I shower fast, dress and hit the street headed for the famous Star Ferry terminal, about a mile away (I miss the fact that they've added a pier just steps from my hotel, which is attached to the Convention Centre, a fortunate mistake given what happened next). Within blocks I ran into clusters of police in powder blue short-sleeved shirts. In the background, off to the southwest, I could some one's voice and some, not a lot, of crowd noise. I hadn't checked the paper while in Micronesia, but I was pretty sure what this was.

I had been rereading the e-edition of the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong's premier English language newspaper, and have followed with curiosity the rise the Occupy Central movement. OC is a pro-democracy group led by a coalition of politicians and students. Simply put, they are opposed to the HK government's stance on upcoming election believing that self-determination and, ultimately, democratic rights are being ceded to the Peoples Republic of China. A lot of this, which is a bit obscure to an outsider like me, seems to hinge on the PRC’s demands as to who may be listed on a slate of candidates for this election.

I don't know there is any particular relation to the Occupy Wall Street protests of a couple of years ago, but they take part of their name from that movement. Central refers to the district in Hong Kong where the legislative buildings are located. They have had these periodic demonstrations for several months on weekends threatening one day to continue into the work week to shut down the city. But they've always met on holidays or weekends, closing up shop well before the next work day begins. This week there are intimations they are not going to disperse tomorrow, Monday morning... and that has the cops out.

As I approach the ferry terminal on Pier 10 there are fleets of police vehicles, mostly barred buses, scores of them, parked with drivers behind the wheels ready to haul away the protestors.

I've seem this before... 1969, the campus of the University of Washington. The atmosphere is spooky, I head to the ferry.

The green and white fleet of the Star Ferries is probably one of the best known physical landmarks in HK. I don't know how old they are but they have the same cast iron fittings found on San Francisco cable cars. Roughly the same vintage I suspect. They are small, 100-feet long, narrow passenger-only craft and they are in constant motion crossing the harbor from Wan Chai to Tsim Sha Tsui In ten minutes... Constantly. They are alongside the pier just long enough to disembark then load their old and new passengers, plying harbor all day into the night. Looks like three or four are in a steady relay, one laying off until one departs. All for around 35 cents.

The harbor is choppier than I would have expected which makes sense in that it open at either the end, the islands providing shelter along what is really a long wide channel. This used to be an anchorage packed with shipping, but most of that seems to have relocated off to the west where there are forests of gantries for plucking containers.

The many craft here, except for the cruise ships, are relatively small, tugs, other island ferries and the like. A common vessel is a kind of barge with an aft-end pilot house, a large open working deck and a tall tripod supported a boom up front. These "crane boats" for lack of a technical term are everywhere, some moored shoreside employed in construction.

Sailors in 19th Century Royal Navy tunics tie us up and off I go, Kowloon side.

I'm a Type II diabetic and I need to fire up. In a most undecidedly Chinese move I stop by a Starbucks for a muffin and coffee and morning's meds. Money back to Seattle is how I see it. Fortified I set off for my real quest, Dim Sum. Visiting my mother-in-law Ellen in the Sunset District of San Francisco was always a great treat, partly because of the dim sum restaurants I could sample around the corner on Noriega. Talk about diversity, a fading Irish neighborhood claimed by Chinese on a street named for a Mexican... go figure.

I find the real thing and gorge myself. Place is fancier than I want (linen tablecloths and napkins) maybe because the neighborhood is pretty upscale. Three people refer me here, to the Serenade located next to the HK Cultural Centre. Fancy place, beautiful art... terraces and open-spaces where one group practice tai-chi and young woman trains a small class of folks performing a set of stylized moves with swords. People get married here and I stop and watch a small wedding party take their pictures. The bride and groom are Chinese, but she is in a white gown, he in a cutaway. Families are families and the bride's mom scurries about straightening and tucking while the dad beams. A nice moment in the bright morning sun.

I know where I want to go, the jade market in the Yua Ma Shu neighborhood. A long walk and I'm not sure the best way to get there. It's a ways and the $3.00 can ride worth it. What a place! A block wide and long, table after table of jade objects from the sublime to the ridiculous. You want it they have it. Lots of it is probably nephrite, but much of it is hypnotically beautiful. I have a long list. I've been thinking about this for sometime and this is THE place I wanted to come to shop.

I get hooked up with an agent, called "hawkers." She represents several tables and we shuttle between them. It's dark, the whole place is covered with canvas tarpaulin, lighted with bare

bulbs like a Christmas tree lot and suffocatingly hot. The whole experience is dizzying, but great fun. Really fun like no other shopping I've ever done. I tell her something I want, we race to a table laden to the breaking point with items. She reaches down below and pulls out a small scruffy card board box containing an incredible array of what I want. All sorts of variations in size, color and style. "You like?" she asks and stabs a price into a handheld calculator she thrusts at me. "Good discount!" she offers. "Oh, no!" I protest. "I can't afford that, tapping on my offer on the calculator. So it goes, sometimes once, sometimes three or four times as we haggle cheerfully to an agreed upon price.

In the background she is chirping at an older gentleman who scuttles about retrieving and bringing to us an even vaster variety of the items over-flowing the boxes and baskets. Even the containers, some quite nice are, wouldn't you guess it are for sale.

Before that can settle she invites urgently, "Come, come, see this. You like. Big bargain, good quality," she hauls me to another stall. And she shows me incredible. stuff. Some of it I like, some of it I don't. Some I can afford, some I cannot. This is Hong Kong at its heart commercial and really attentive to you as long as you're showing cash. And I'm fine with that. She is giving me quality at a bargain, I've studied up on this beforehand, and I'm terrically satisfied. I'm also pushing my budget.

We repeat this dance a few times until laughing heartily at her earnest resourcefulness and imaginative sales pitches, I clap my hands over my ears. "No more!" I proclaim. "Poor. Out of money." She happily offers me credit, "plastic," but when I won't budge she grudgingly hands me off to her sister to settle up.

I leave exhilarated having had just the experience I wanted and have read about. Later back in my room I search the net to see what comparable items sell for from retail sources or on-line auctions. I've done well, consistently beating the retail.

I followed the route in the taxi and set out to replicate it on the walk back to the Wan Chai ferry. It's noon and it's hot. It's easy to understand where the Brits got the idea for gin and tonic. I could use one, but I trudge on covered in sweat, so much that it is dripping off my face. I walk through a typical street market on Reclamation Street. Incredible fresh produce - fresh melons, good-sized end-of-the-Summer corn, displays of more kinds of mushrooms than I've ever seen gathered. Clothes and linens and school supplies and freshly butchered pork. All a true feast for the eyes.

My shirt drenched through with sweat I stagger onto to the return ferry. The breeze across the bow provides a too-short reprieve from the relentless heat. By the time I climb to top of the quayside stairs I'm looking for a taxi. I find one and we pass even more police buses. Some cops have donned riot garments. Ominous bags surely containing gas masks. Dozens of cops are clustered at every intersection, older ones talking (to each other?) on handsets; the rest are kids, fresh faced, tense and innocent as the students who it turns out, they will coat with CS tear gas and pepper spray in a few hours.

I collapse on the bed my room, but not before I hit the hotel coffee stand. Enquiring if I can get just a plain glass of milk, the clerk and barista confer. In this era of flavored drinks my request is quaint. They pick a price and pour me an ice-cold cup... just about the best I've ever tasted. Nectar.

I nap briefly and check on the home team. They have continued their winning ways. One more win and an A's loss... maybe. Worth holding on to the dream one more day. I'm up, one more quest to undertake.

One of Larkin's friends and her sister were born in China. Before I left I asked their Mom, Barb, for the Chinese sign for their birth years. In the jade market I found little figurines for Larkin, Claire and Evie. The only problem is, while I am sure of Claire's, a dragon, she's the same age as Larkin, I've forgotten Evie's. I guess, wrong of course; immediately discovered upon return. No way I can go back to the market for an exchange.

So I change my shirt (only one left for the flight tomorrow, perfect packing!) and head out in the humidity and heat to find a monkey trinket. I find nothing.

I rest some more back in my room, waiting the arrival of my nephew, Mike Corsini who has lived in Hong Kong for three years now. He's a great guy and we have some things in common: a love for writing and for sports which, magically, turns into love for sports writing. Neither of is do it for a living, sad to say for us and journalism, and I'm not sure he even knows I did this, so I'm excited to surprise him over dinner.

Through no fault of his own, the OC demonstrators have begun to block key arterials on the island, he's late which gives me a chance to recover from my grueling walk from the jade market. We meet up and have dinner at one of his favorite places and we talk about his job and life in HK. He's bright, has lived and traveled all over Asia. Unlike me he does know what he's talking about. Good dinner; great time. We ride the vintage double-decker tram back to Wan Chai. But not before Mike leaves me with an unforgettable Chinese moment.

Mike is a good-looking young man trim as the basketball player-coach he is. We're leaving the hotel for dinner walking across one of the many fly-ways (pedestrian bridge-overpasses) that connect buildings. Mike bumps, literally, into a beautiful young lady wearing a form fitting rust colored dress. She recognizes him, they embrace and she scolds him for not calling her for awhile. He kind of brushes her off and introduces me. She takes my hand, shakes it firmly and doesn't let go, giving me a sultry once over before slowly, sensuously sliding her hand out of mine. With a pout and a plead she lets Mike know how much she has missed him and how she would love to see him at the local dance club where she and her friends are headed. I reassure her he'll be there. I won't keep him.

Back to my room. Flip on the tv. The voiceover is Chinese, the images universal. A hot muggy night, protestors and cops are on-edge and impatient. One shove leads to another.

About this time the hotel manager send all his quests and email. It begins like this: "For your information, Occupy Central, which kicked off on 28th September, there is a protest in Hong Kong. The duration is unknown at this point. Please be alert when making travel arrangement from our hotel to the airport. Thank you very much!"

Food for thought as I drop off to sleep.

All this prompts a memory. In September of 1972 I discovered triangle fares. You could fly somewhere and sometimes at no extra cost divert your return leg to visit an intermediate destination. I had been invited to present a paper at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association to be held in New Orleans. I figured out that we could return to

southern California, where I was teaching at UC Riverside and make a detour through Mexico City.

Except for border excursions, this was my first real trip out of the US. My wife and I left New Orleans and arrived MEX on September 15, the eve of Mexican Independence Day. It's a big holiday. Like Cinco de Mayo without the margaritas. I had booked us into a hotel on the south side of the Zocalo, the huge central square in the middle of the city.

Site of a, now demolished, Aztec pyramid, the Zocalo was the center of Tenochtitlan when Cortez arrived and remains today a national gathering place. The cathedral, built atop and composed of the rubble from the pyramid, dominates one side, the national palace to its left, a mercantile center to its right, federal offices directly across. We were treated to a spectacular sight when we arrived. The taller buildings on two sides of the plaza were festooned with lighted portraits of Mexico's heroes, Juarez and all the rest. Huge four or five-story images illuminated with C-10 Christmas lights.

We went to bed. Sometime in the early morning I awoke. I went to our window overlooking the Zocalo and found the view obscured by fog. Or so it seemed. On closer inspection I realized what I had taken for fog was, in fact, some sort of cloth. Like muslin. I recoiled in confusion. Why had our view been blocked I wondered. How long would this go on? I was paying a lot of money for a room with no view. On top of it, the blacked out room was kind of creepy.

I sorted through my shaving kid until I found the small pocket knife I carried for odd events like this. I crept back to the window, opened it slightly and made a tiny L-shaped cut to provide a hole to peek through.

I dropped the knife and reeled back from the window, breathless from the shock of what I had spied. The Zocalo, am enormous empty space, surely as big as four soccer fields, was completely full of military vehicles, armored personnel carriers in abundance and masses of green-clad troops. There were even horses In cavalry units.

Holy Cats! I realized there had been a freaking Army coup in the middle of the night and the troops had gathered to force the capitulation of the government and the arrest of the President. I awoke my wife and shared our plight. We were prisoners in the hotel. They had covered our windows to hide their revolutionary atrocities.

I struggled for what to do. Nothing came to me, so I dressed and went down to the lobby to get some explanations. Before I could finish expressing my plight to the desk clerk he began to laugh. He pointed to the Zocalo that waited just outside the door and said something about a national holiday.

With care I moved to the main entry. I had a closer view of what I has seen upstairs. Jeeps and wheeled cannon, ambulances and helicopters overhead. The desk clerk joined me and pointed up behind me to the facade of the hotel. Overnight, silently, crews had removed the electric portrait facing our building and replaced it with a huge sheet with a painted slogan. Looking around at other buildings I saw similar transformations. My revolution was nothing more than the beginning of a day long parade and celebration.

By the way, thanks Jay for the tips on the tear gas and your good counsel Gunny Thayer.

2:38 a.m. PDT. It's September 29 all over again. United 839 en route SFO. seat 21D

It's half past 5 in the afternoon in HK. We're up by the Aleutians. I'm not sure what time it is. In my sojourn at the airport I find a monkey trinket for Evie.

News reports say protests are growing and spreading and some workers and schools are striking in support. Government has pulled the police off the streets for now. So they say.

What a day.

Tuesday, September 30, 12:27 p.m., home

Still shaking off the cobwebs from the 7,500 miles it took to get home. I have new respect for those travelers who fly back and forth from the west coast to Australia and Asia. It takes a hearty constitution and a patient soul. A lot more than little adjustments to endure those flights.

I stagger off in SFO where it takes 10 minutes to go through the immigration line, 5 to clear customs and near an HOUR! to get my bags. My luxurious three hour layover disappears as I stare forlornly at the baggage carousel... such a cheery name for a device that could sit alongside a medieval torture chamber in some museum of horrible places. (There's a novel thought. Imagine some of the other displays: any stadium rest room in the fourth quarter of a US football game, your dentist's waiting room, a rain-soaked bus stop in a city's skid road... ugh). My plan to grab a Boudin turkey sandwich and an Irish Coffee at SFO's branch of the Buena Visit is abandoned in favor of a 30-minute slouch while I wait to charge my flat-lined electronics in front of the only remaining open electrical plug I can find in the terminal.

The flight to SEA is blessedly trouble free with no one next to me to interrupt my sleep. Ever-reliable Jay is there to whisk me home. It is fall, overcast and cool... a stunning contrast to where I was 16 hours ago. We talk about the Occupy Central protests. Jay is well-informed, better than I, on this topic. He provides some interesting perspective to think about.

Home. How perfect the end of the Wizard of Oz, "there's no place like home, Aunty 'Em!"

Oh, in case you were concerned. I found Evie's monkey.

......

Thanks to all of you who joined me on the trip. Knowing you are out there and giving me the opportunity to kill some of the lonely time productively is appreciated. Thank you.

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