While some of us (like those of us in Portland OR. whose behavior seems insufferably green and enjoy jamming it down reluctant throats) pat our collective selves on the backs and feel super cool for buying Toyota’s Prius or some other hybrid, in reality they provide dismal mileage by comparison to what is available to the world at large outside the US. The fact that we are (kept) in the dark about this and are laboring under the thought that we are heading in the right and righteous direction is absurd. To wit … I picked up a VW Passat wagon the other day in the UK and it effortlessly returned 55mpg while running at freeway speeds seldom seen here unless accompanied by flashing lights and dark glasses. It as easily burbled around country lanes a Hummer could not hope to fit down. If I had driven it with a little less abandon I might have got a solid 60/65 mpg out of it. While these figures may seem startling and other wordly to you they are becoming mid pack in the world out there as the French, Japanese and others launch ever more modern diesels that sip at the parsimonious rate of 75/80 mpg…while going like stink, all the while without the stink of course !

Don’t try kid yourself that these are toy sized cars for two and a purse, with gutless performance and a plume of smoke out the back. The Passat diesel in question runs and pulls stronger than any car I own or have owned with motors so much larger and grossly more thirsty. It will keep up with or soundly beat 95% of anything on our roads. Don’t kid yourself that these are polluting conveyances as they are not…they run far cleaner than our gasoline powered cars and from within the car itself there is nothing to tell you the motivation is coming from a diesel…other than the stunning mid range torque and acceleration! Not to mention the (comfortable) bulge in your wallet that you still get to sit on.

So why are we messing about with batteries which are clearly a poor answer and pose serious environmental problems in manufacture and disposal? The same goes for ethanol, the emphasis on which will surely lead to environmental degradation by removing far too much bio mass from the landscape, absorbing way too much water and man made nutrients as at the same time providing lousy motive power and upsetting the worlds food supply and pricing structure. Sitting out there still is a fuel source, that while declining could be made to stretch so much further, giving breathing room (literally) for us to develop even better, ever cleaner and longer lasting solutions to an energy source needed for transportation in particular. Why or how can we be proud of a fleet average that struggles from both engineering and political perspectives with 20 odd mpg when the vehicles already exist to triple that number at the very least? Just how blind can we remain as at the same time we pay lip service to our fuel consumption, complain about fuel prices and see sections of the economy suffer badly because of such. Oh and of course, don’t forget there is all that concern about the environment. If our current driving/travelling habits remained the same but consumed just one third as much as present…would that not be a good thing?

I know with certainty that if we put the average Jack or Jill in a showroom to make a choice between a hybrid and a diesel of the VW’s ilk the hybrid would never be asked to the dance. I read that Mercedes and now BMW will add more diesel options for ‘09. That is all well and good, but what about the rest of us mere mortals. Bring them on and let us all enjoy that sure to be $4.00 a gallon gas that  can be pressured to eke out 60mpg. We should be enjoying it right now so as to give us a huge competitive edge that has already been lost by those on the other side of the Atlantic where a gallon of the stuff already costs $10.00 courtesy of the tax and spend crowd.

As for my other recent drives, particularly in California the offerings were brand new, supposedly state of the art, pretty close to the most economical on offer and driving speeds were to say the least mundane and the mileages recorded by all models hovered around the 20mpg mark. None offered any more room for man or beast than the VW and none were as quick or good handling. The comment of “that’s just wrong” from a young teen when  viewing our own recorded 17mpg on the ride home from the airport pretty well sums up where we are. The puzzle is why?

In these same weeks as much maneuvering has been completed off the farms as on. Domestic goddess Martha Stewart once again folds her flower tent, packing it away from where she had it pitched with Proflowers only to be found staking it back out across town on the front lawn of 1-800-flowers. She is not alone in breaking camp these days as the good people at Hallmark apparently are going to use the coming of Spring to disappear from the flower trades in entirety. They will be “pushing up daisies” rather than pushing daisies!

Back in Portland and watching the blossoms get rain thrashed from the trees I think of the five plus hours spent on the bike this past Saturday pedaling around Lompoc, Santa Maria, Santa Ynez and Solvang thinking of what I might say at Monday’s CRAVE conference in Portland. I have the points in mind and my opinion(s) cemented long before 100 miles and the cold beer show up. The lush green hills, still dormant trees and that almost but not quite yet, burst of wildflowers have the Santa Ynez Valley, its vineyards, ranches and old aermotor windmills looking like a poster for a ‘49 Chevy pickup truck in paradise. What is there not to like about this place and today’s tail wind?

The Studio Theatre at The Armory in Portland seems pretty full of people and the stage with its hot lights, three chairs, table and a microphone for the panel plus one for the moderator seem awfully far removed from paradise. My long summoned bravery suddenly quails. Its jacket off, jump onto a stool, take time for a long look at the stacked ranks of audience and show time commences…sort of, as memory and brain are suddenly devoid of all those long cycled and well considered opinions and facts about email marketing, blogging, search engine optimization and the likes. It’s always at that first moment when I need to open my mouth and say something substantive… that it happens. The quaver in my voice, the slightly higher tonality and that awful knowledge of every soul in the place knowing damn well you are scared witless in those sweaty moments between first and second question, when the confidence floods back in. No matter how much I psyche myself up for the opening remarks…the resultant fear is always the same.

The questions are good and the audience is attentive and both my fellow panel member’s lucidity and focus make up for my urge to layer too many facts upon yet more facts. There is too much good stuff to tell of on the far periphery of the questions and unerringly I want to gravitate there. I am given a drop and I return a waterfall or rather a flash flood. Whatever, the deluge must have worked as the ensuing weeks commentaries are reasonably positive barring the one delivered in person by the owner of a local stationers who admonished me to sit more up right because “the slouch” was hardly becoming! Yes Mom, pointer well taken. 

Another day, another “Power Breakfast”. For sure Tom Schmitt, President & CEO Fedex Global Supply Chain did not slouch as he pinned back many an ear in outlining the current moves of a behemoth some 290,000 employees strong into China and its likely future moves to Bangladesh and Brazil. It was his vision and version of “skating to where the puck is going to be”. It is incredible to think the soon to open facility in China is going to be far larger than Memphis. While the massive fleet of aircraft is the visible FedEx poster child it is obvious that the logistics of moving larger cargoes by any means other than aviation is a priority and an urgent one given the rise in oil prices and the unstoppable decline in its production. In conjunction with the emphasis on sustainability and lessening the environmental impact, Schmitt, a 43-year-old dynamo originally from Germany and with educational horsepower from there, the UK and from the USA shows there is much afoot and that there is fascination and payoff in good forward thinking. Talk about being neither a victim nor a slouch   

This means that carefully scheduled V Day flower crops are dragging their feet. Likewise in Ecuador and Colombia there is a surplus of rain and cool weather in the growing regions. It is beginning to appear that excess will be no great problem this year. Taking that in stride I look further east and see that Chicago is storm bound and New York City is its usual frigid self…and Memphis? Well Memphis already had problems with freezing rain twice in the last week. Why do I worry about Memphis? FedEx is why we worry about Memphis in February. Even Phoenix is chilly as evidenced by Super Bowl XL11 having the roof pulled over it! It looks like Florida, of all our major markets, is the only region enjoying good conditions on the run up to V Day.

Apart from a different Manning on the field of play this year’s article might be a carbon copy of last years and all the years before that. Little else should be expected given that Valentine’s Day sits in the worst weather window of the year for the US…continent wide. The most difficult and expensive period for the growers in the northern hemisphere, starved of warmth and sunlight. For freight companies whose aircraft, trucks and couriers battle blizzards, floods and mud slides that give lie to the slogan ” The World On Time”. In the face of this or perhaps in despite of such an “oh woe is us” list we are all focused on growing, shipping and selling a flower (by the hundreds of millions) that would be much happier in most every aspect a few months hence. Miracles, as we all know, do happen so perhaps St Valentine really is THE man with talents other than archer.

I read an article last week from some floral society/organization or other and while the gist of the article stuck, the location of the writer did not so I am not sure if it was generated within the US or from Latin America. Regardless, it made sense as it directed/admonished wholesalers, big box merchandisers and florists to really know their Valentine’s roses, their provenance , their post harvest care, their shipping time lines and passage through the obligatory delays in Customs and Dept of Ag. This is no time for anyone to be casting about for just anything in the open market place…and to be sure there will be more than enough of that. With the weather creating a scarcity of product it is the reputable operators, paying top dollar who will receive the quality roses for successful Valentine’s day deliveries. Those who paid too close to the bone may well go short or face upping the ante to fill orders.

As is the usual and customary Flowerbud modus operandi, we know exactly where the Valentine’s day roses we shall sell, hail from. To the handful of select farms, the truck trips down the volcano to Quito and the aircraft flight numbers into Miami and on into the coolers and packing house. With this in mind this years prices are $129 for 25 Long stems Red and $119 for 25 Long stems assorted colors. REMEMBER this price is INCLUSIVE of the FedEx overnight freight charges and packing. This is no small detail given that it informs you of what no competitor does until you have tediously worked all the way to checkout. As if your time is not money? The marginal uptick in pricing over same time last year reflects the new world order in energy prices and the resultant fuel surcharges that are passed on down the line. If you know your cupid has a sweet tooth we are willing and able to add (for a consideration) a wonderful heart shaped tin of very tasty and decadent milk chocolate truffles from a great company right here in Oregon.

If it has crossed your mind to question the price hike for roses around the V Day holiday… NB. also for Mother’s Day, then let me explain a little. A rose is sold at a relatively set price per stem and that only varies per variety and by stem length. At the major holidays when supply and demand play their vital roles in commerce, a premium is added per centimeter of stem length. Wether this is 1.5, 2 or pick your number of cents per centimeter that premium is predicated by color, quality, and the availability vs demand. Hand in hand of course with a purchasers negotiating skills and a stellar record for prompt payment. This is truly where market forces play out with transparency. Simple math indicates that a $.1.5 premium on a 70CM rose increases the price by $1.05 per stem which leads to a $26.25 increase for a Flowerbud pack of 25 premium quality “Russian” cut roses. This is at the farm level. As the saying goes “every dog has its day” and V Day is where the rose dogs get to eat their fill, making up for those inevitable lean times.

It goes without saying that we assume you know the lady you are sending the roses to. You picked her carefully, considered her every attribute and feel she not only deserves but can handle and appreciate the best you can find and afford. You have taken into consideration her favorite color, her prefered date of delivery and the delivery location. Are you one of those people wishing to make a statement at her place of work or a little more low key and private? Bear in mind she will have to carry the flowers home at some point! Is she a traditional rose woman or might she enjoy one of the many other beautiful and longer lived Valentine’s flowers that we offer? OK, you have it all figured out and you have come up with a lovely and original gift message to include with the flowers. No, I will not help you here. I have enough problems of my own to step in as poet laureat. So come on step up to the plate … or on this day go for the touchdown by returning to the homepage of www.flowerbud.com and purchasing the best roses on the planet for the best woman you have ever known.

Despite all the challenges faced by St. V and the grower/shipper community we are ready and able to go the last mile for you. You had better hurry as right this second I am guessing that Eli Manning, Plaxico Burres and the rest of the NY Giants are well able to shop for the very best (flowerbud naturally). Fingers crossed that Tom Brady will still be in the mood to buy Gisele Bundchen a box of equally lovely Valentine’s flowers (flowerbud naturally). Always remember that you get what you pay for… especially in flowers.

Toes touching the yellow line, passport, permanent resident card, customs declaration neatly and accurately filled out I glance about at fellow travellers with suitably discreet curiosity and not a care in the world much beyond an idle contemplation of why my line always appears to be the slowest of them all and a silent prayer that those now at the booth have been as accurate with their forms as I and we can all move along and get on with the next chapter of a busy day. I am beckoned to approach! Idle contemplation morphs to an immediate and tightly focused understanding, that of having an enemy.

I tender all the documentation to a rudely beckoning hand only to have it brushed aside as the other hand grabs only at the permanent resident card, the rude snatch accompanied by a triumphal grunt, an accusatory glare and then a verbal assault in a loudening timbre and ever more threatening tone. I am stunned speechless as a productive and courteous few days in Cartagena, Colombia are reduced to an instant disgust at what confronts me. A bellicose and rude man who is delighting in getting “in my face”. It is hard to follow the verbal assault and compute the threatening body language. I begin to pick up a thread of my having forged a “green card” and me being an obvious threat to security and immigration.

This card has been in my daily possesion since 1980 and has allowed me ingress/egress conservatively more than a hundred times and into scores of countries and always back home to the US with nary a hiccup. It has been my treasure and was issued and accepted in perpetuity and good faith. At this point I have still not uttered a word as the verbal assault increases and the body language further bullies. I finally make comment that my card is good and immigration had no problem with it on my return from Frankfurt the week prior. I thought, but did not utter that re entry into any place USA was obviously better than this version of Guantanamo that I now faced. Lets face it, Miami may well be more Cuban than Cuba. I sense that all the negative energy on display at my expense is being keenly observed by the many hundreds queing at the booths. Many have come off the same plane as me and as many have been at the same trade show in Colombia and are my industry peers.

Figueroa (Am finally taking note of the name tag) hits his stride now. He has a victim and he is relishing the power that only a small man, empowered by those of similar or lesser stature can have and a chance to demonstrate it against the innocent and defenceless. In so many words he now loudly states that no more am I going to have the freedom to leave and enter the US. I have broken the law (am not sure which) and henceforth my file will have his personal annotation against it that marks me (am not sure what as) but it is clear it will not be as a fine upstanding business owner from Oregon! A prisoner in my own country! I am incredulous and not at all happy. I look straight at this functionary so obviously filled with malice and then as I look around it is readily apparent that I am the only blue eyed, six foot tall, native english speaker in the crowd at this point. It brings to mind an old african saw re when wishing to vent a little spleen and apportion blame for ones own ineptness you look around and find the guy…just like me.

We look right at each other, me (still unable to get a word in edgewise) thinking that while it has been a dreadful experience it is about to pass. Wrong! He now handles my precious card like a poker player contemplating his move. He flips it over, looks me right in the eye and tells me with nothing less than an empowered venom, that he is about to destroy my card and place me in the position of re applying for an I90. His palpable dislike of me is registering in a thousand fleeting thoughts as he takes his ballpoint and deeply scores the back of my card destroying the data held within it. It is one of the most childish actions imaginable. The dread in me right then and there stems from the feeling of being trapped with no ability to quickly visit parents and family elsewhere in the world should something dire occur. I am not going to be of much good to my business and staff either or provide further revenue to airlines for that matter. It is not often I can be made to taste despair… but Figueroa is force feeding it to me now.

Still not getting a word in and really not even knowing what to say at this point I am acutely aware that he is not through flexing his pettiness along with the badge, gun and god like power of his booth. I see his right hand put my documents down and slide beneath a shelf in his booth. Shite !!… I have never witnessed it before but I know exactly what the man has done…he has triggered some form of alarm and my day is about to become exponentialy worse… far worse. From the far reaches of the hall comes help for Figueroa (not that he needs any). It comes with a semi hurried, self important waddle/swagger and with an obesity accentuated by a gunbelt and the assorted tools of power that create “the sag” that would be the envy of all of hip hop. He confers with my tormentor, without my being able to hear clearly and I am marched off down the hall to a sweaty, rank odored room filled with maybe sixty or so people of varied hue and stripe. This is Miami after all and the air conditioning keeps up with neither the heat nor the fear. It stinks of bodies that have too long been held captive in coach seats aboarard aircraft for many hours before landing here. The nasty plastic chairs can undoubtedly transmit a deadly disease to you.

I cast around and find the scarce seat. The obese gunbelt is hovering close to me after having already tossed my papers onto a desk, behind which a half dozen other uniforms sit. What comes next horrifies me far beyond my own immediate situation. A young woman three seats away is attempting a cell phone call…I can only assume to notify someone of her delay or to seek help for whatever predicament faces her. I sure as heck know I want to make a call of my own to allow persons outside the terminal to know that plans have changed. Gunbelt wheels around at the very temerity of this woman and from my vantage point he goes darn near nose to nose with her and begins yelling at her. There is no more apt description for what I see and hear. He is so close and so aggresive I can see the spit flying from the man’s mouth onto the woman. No one does a thing as the cowed woman pockets the phone and all turn away to contemplate their own misery. The silence is loud, the stink of humanity… being treated without any, permeates everything. This is a sorry place.

I am having real trouble registering my position. Carefree life as I know it is turning belly up and my ability to travel, to raise and visit family, to run a business in a global economy is looking tenuous. I have by now heard and seen all I need, to understand that the inmates are now running this assylum. How can I be on this grubby seat, in this filthy room, shoulder to shoulder with lord knows who, and worse…supposedly incommunicado? My life as a criminal has resulted in a half dozen speeding tickets in thirty five years. I have worked for  mostly reputable people. I have provided employment for countless other  very reputable people. I have family, I have friends, I have provided money and employment for those seeking permanent resident status in the US. All these inane thoughts go whipping through my head as I surreptitiously text my predicament to the outside world so those expecting me know that I am at least alive…but may need help. Blackberry one, gunbelt zero. Good thing, as I little relish his willingness to scream spittle in my face.

Time passes slowly in the fetid air. Names are called and various people approach the desk only to retreat back to their plastic chairs. Some people never move! My name is eventually called. I am indeed “known” and “I am who my documents indicate I am “. Well, isn’t that a relief! These guys are regular Sherlocks. I am also informed that my permanent resident card has been defaced (yes it has, by Figueroa) and therefore is void, and yes I must start the I-90 process, and yes its going to cost me money and much time. I sense the man delivering me this depressing news to be a little more human than Fig and Gunbelt so I say that this entire process is wrong, brutalizing and is in violation of all I had come to know. How thoughtless and idiotic of me to finally find my voice now, even when reasonably toned and with comments carefuly couched. The actions and words of a fraternity I do not belong too come into play again and quickly, all in defence of their nastiness and malicious treatment of me. I depart the ever unfinished MIA International feeling like a displaced person. A very upset one! Homeland Security has just removed my own security… having replaced it with a sense of insecurity and great uncertainty. I ask myself if Immigration and Naturalization, now under the guise of Homeland Security is about violating people such as myself, then just who is not being scrutinized that ought to be?

Figueroa, with his hand in the pocket that my tax dollar goes into needs more training in profiling, common courtesy and an appreciation of having a cushy number. Empathy for fellow man and countryman would go a long way also. He does not need to look to me for a pay raise. Gunbelt needs to pass at least a minimal physical fitness test before his health care costs outweigh both himself and his dubious contributions!

With a shiny but short lived (10yrs) I-90 in hand I wonder what happened to the other “miscreants” in the stinking room that day in Miami. The treatment I recieved and witnessed will live in me for ever and for ever will color my perceptions and beliefs. I-90 & Figueroa is not a destination to my liking.

I spend a great deal of time on aircraft, perhaps as many as a couple hundred flights during some years, almost all of them being cross continent or intercontinental. It is very much a case of put up and shut up as I hunker down in a semi stupor for endless hours in coach on a crumb covered seat, breathing stale air and peering out of a miniscule and most likely dirty window. The carpet underfoot is invariably thread bare, the seat cushions are dead, the head rests look fit only for head lice and I make every effort to suppress the pavlovian instinct for a soda and pretzels from some surly employee. All the while with another over-charged and usualy over weight passenger half in my lap and/or engaged in quietly, viciously, elbow wrestling for arm rest space. Such drama within the dull and claustrophobic confines of our geriatric aircraft fleets!

So how wonderful to be aboard a clean, bright and airy aircraft with superb seats, positively huge windows, humane dimensions evident at elbow, knee and head and a refreshing interior of fixtures and fittings guarranteed to make the time spent within, quite pleasurable. All this mind you is on a relatively small aircraft, a “regional jet” as they are termed. This is not the almost unbearable cigar tube confines of Bombardier’s offering. This one seats 70, looks like a ”full size” aircraft in most aspects and can fly substantive routs as demonstrated by this morning’s flight as it leaves Miami for Chicago. Kudos goes to Embraer for what I view as a wonderful machine and in this case to United Airlines for operating it. (hopefully many of them) I arrive Chicago having enjoyed the flight a great deal, the flight characteristics of the short wing is “pleasantly energetic”. The cabin noise is unobtrusive and oh those huge windows… watching the beauty of the rising sun lighting up this slice of the US (and thereby the airiness of the cabin) is tantamount to watching ‘Planet Earth’ as portrayed on a huge flat panel HD TV. Simply put, for the frequent flier, much jaded and all too frequently abused, this aircraft alone can actually recall the pleasure and peace that used to be felt while flying before the term “cattle class” became a part of our lexicon. Too bad the completion of the trip to Portland was once again within the predictably crumby and miserably stale confines of the ubiquitous 757. I can only hope that pilots and accountants like the Embraer 170 and its siblings as much as myself. It is simply that good  (for the pasenger) and surely  deserves to be the top dog in the arena of regional jets. www.embraercommercialjets.com