Chris Calabrese – My Blog

I recently flew round trip from Las Vegas to Tokyo. I chose American Airlines because they had the lowest fare. I had a bit of trepidation because I’d never flown American internationally (and only a few times domestically, none of which I can remember). However, despite a couple of delays the travel was an overall positive experience.

I liked flying American because:

• Flying a single airline meant not having to deal with transferring baggage at Los Angeles. On the return flight I did have to claim my baggage in Los Angeles because I had to go through customs; however, there was a “recheck” kiosk just outside customs minimizing the hassle.
• In Los Angeles, American’s domestic and international flights leave from the same terminal. This meant I didn’t have to hike over to the Tom Bradley International Terminal. In fact, it was only about a 5 minute walk from one gate to the other.
• American uses Boeing 777s. I prefer these over 747s for a couple of reasons: 1) They are smaller, which means less time deplaning. 2) Each seat has its own video screen, and you can individually select what movie you want to watch.
• I was treated well by American’s employees.

The only glitches were a couple of delays. On my outbound leg from Los Angeles to Tokyo, the plane had an avionics problem which took 1.5 hours to fix. On my return leg from Los Angeles to Las Vegas there had been a sick passenger and the carpet in the aircraft needed to be steam cleaned. To American’s credit, rather than make us wait an inordinate amount of time they put us on a different aircraft. However, it still took about an hour to make the switch. I consider both of these glitches bad luck and not the fault of American Airlines.

Overall it was a very positive experience, and I saved about $250 over my first-choice airline, Japan Airlines. Next time American will be my first-choice airline.

When I was young we used bar soap. It was time-consuming to use—let’s face it, it’s just plain boring—but at least you felt like you were getting your hands clean.

Then liquid soap came out. I have never been a fan of liquid soap. It’s slimy and runny and it just doesn’t feel like it’s doing anything. It feels like I’m washing my hands with egg whites. It’s really not that much quicker than using bar soap, and you can’t bathe with it, so what’s the point?

Not long ago I discovered some fancy hotels and restaurants were using foam soap. It’s something like shaving lather, but much less dense. I immediately fell in love with the foam soap. It’s light and fluffy and disperses easily over your hands. It gives the same feeling of clean as bar soap, but it’s pre-lathered so you save time. What’s not to love?

I thought foam soap was something reserved for swanky establishments and not available to commoners like me (you know like how you can never get meat in the supermarket that’s as good as the kind you get in a nice restaurant?). Then when I was in Japan last year I discovered you could buy foam soap in any supermarket! And several different brands no less. This further confirmed to me what I always knew: that Japan is ahead of the USA in technology that consumers can actually get their hands on.

I don’t have anything else to say, I just like foam soap.