Well, my 2010 European odyssey is underway. Ben and I made it safely out of the US and are currently at London’s Heathrow airport awaiting our flight to Frankfurt.

I’m using the time to work on my presentation for the OpenNMS Users Conference – Europe and hoping I can stay awake for the rest of the day in order to more quickly get on this time.

I saw a news article this weekend concerning the director/actor/writer Kevin Smith. It seems he was bumped from a Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to Burbank because a Southwest employee determined he was too big to qualify to travel in just one seat.

He apparently used his powerful social networking presence to “scorch the earth” with his complaints.

The first thought that went my mind was, dude, I really like your movies and Chasing Amy is a classic, but as a frequent flyer, if you are too big to fit in a seat you should have to buy two tickets. Otherwise, you end up in part of my seat that I paid to use, small as it is.

But the second thought that went through my head, hot on the heels of the first, was, wait a second, Kevin is a big boy and I’ve never seen him in person, but he’s not that big. I’ve sat next to much larger people.

Perhaps the media is, err, making a bigger deal (forgive the pun) of this than is warranted?

I was catching up on my RSS feeds this morning and noticed that Kevin had posted on his blog (which is rare). In it he tells his side of the story, which is quite at odds with the published accounts, where it turns out he was flying standby and Southwest made the decision that they could not accommodate him. For some reason they used his size as the excuse to bump him from the flight.

What is really making him angry is that now he has to carry around this very public stigma of being “Too Fat to Fly”.

Look, as someone who has been overweight much of my life, I can sympathize. One of the reasons I work so hard is to overcome the stereotype that fat people are lazy. If you haven’t lived through it you can’t understand.

Now this doesn’t mean I’m forgiving of having an extra-large person sitting next to me on a flight. It’s not an issue of discrimination, it’s an issue of my rights. I paid for a certain amount of room and I should get to use all of it. If you need more room than the default, buy more.

However, Kevin met all the criteria for flying in one seat, and telling people otherwise is discrimination.

I’m a frequent flyer, and it is amazing how many frequent flyers have my approximate body shape. Stick three of us in the exit row of an MD-80 and, yes, we’re going to be a little cramped. We all fit into the seats but there isn’t always enough shoulder room. That’s just the way modern coach seats are laid out. Since it helps to have “elite” status from frequent flying to get in the exit row in the first place, you can imagine that this occurrence isn’t all that unusual.

But I think Kevin’s treatment is a symptom of a much greater problem in air travel. Somewhere in the last 20 years we’ve gone from honored guests to criminals.

First, there is the demoralizing security process. You might claim that it is for our own safety, but the fact of the matter is that it is security theatre. The process didn’t stop a man in the UK from trying to bring a liquid bomb on board, but it now requires every one of us to have our shampoo bottles scrutinized. A man flying into Detroit tried to set his undies on fire, and now every one of us has the potential to be photographed basically naked, even though it has been demonstrated that it is still possible for a determined person to get a weapon on a plane even with full body scans.

One of the most sane articles on the subject comes from the Salon “Ask the Pilot” column which states in part:

… over the five-year span between 1985 and 1989 we can count at least six high-profile terrorist attacks against commercial planes or airports. In addition … were the horrific bombings of Pan Am 103 and UTA 772, the bombing of an Air India 747 over the North Atlantic that killed 329 people, and the saga of TWA Flight 847.

We’ve been dealing with issues of air terrorism for years now, but why in the world have we gone so crazy insane about it? There are over 50,000 traffic fatalities in the US every year, but we accept that in exchange for the ability to drive at 70 mph. Instead of theatre there are things that can be done to minimize the risk to air travelers without treating them like baggage.

Second, there is the plane flight itself. Gone are complimentary snacks and in some cases complimentary beverages. The planes are cramped and often dirty, as there is no time between flights to clean them properly.

Finally, financial conditions are such that many planes in the air are rather old. I know pilots and understand from them that even old planes that are well maintained are very safe, but I’ve personally experienced problems with the aging American Airlines fleet of MD-80s which results in delays and cancellations as repair parts have to be brought in (the problem being dutifully caught in the pre-flight check).

This subject is on my mind since tomorrow I fly for the first time in 2010. It will be a little less traumatic for me since my elite status gets me upgraded to first class. Even then, I still was nearly molested by an American Airlines flight attendant and have never received an acknowledgement to the letters I wrote complaining about it.

What’s the use of working toward elite status if you don’t want to fly?

Luckily for me, OpenNMS has grown to the point that I don’t have to be on the road so much. We have others who can do what I used to do, and in fact do it better.

Deep down I still view air travel as something magical. I mean, seriously, tomorrow I get on a plane at 9am and I’m in LA by 3pm, local time. There I get to meet up with Gareth, Ilan and the rest of the SCaLE gang, get to attend one of my favorite conferences of the year, and I hear the keynote on Sunday is just awesome.

I get to sit in a chair in the sky.

It’s even more amazing when I travel to another country. Get on a plane, take a nap, and suddenly I’m elsewhere, with a new language to learn, new friends to make and new things to do.

But my experiences and those of Kevin Smith have me checking out Amtrak train schedules, and it is doubtful I’ll be on Southwest any time soon.

I have enough problems without being “too fat to fly”.

I am eagerly awaiting the release of George Clooney’s new movie Up in the Air this Christmas. In it, he plays a man who travels a tremendous amount for his job, and he has become addicted to collecting frequent flyer miles and similar perks. I empathize with a character who feels at home in airports and hotels.

His program of choice is American Airlines AAdvantage, which is also my favorite, but while his character is aiming for 10 million lifetime miles, I only just passed 1 million earlier this year. However, for the first time in my life I managed to make “Executive Platinum” by accruing over 100,000 elite miles in one calendar year.

Even as much as I travel, hitting EXP was difficult. I tend to travel in one or two week chunks, so I’m only on a plane once or twice a week, and it took several trips overseas plus a special program at American in which one could earn double elite miles for me to get there. I am interested to see if I’m treated any differently, as I have zero plans to make EXP again next year, so I hope to enjoy it while I can.

Unlike this year, in 2010 I also hope to avoid being molested by the crew. The following is a letter I sent to American Airlines about an experience I had on a flight from New York back to Raleigh. I never got a reply, so I assume they really don’t care that such things are happening (at least to men), but it didn’t upset me enough to keep me from flying on their airline.

27 July 2009

American Airlines Customer Relations
P.O. Box 619612 MD 2400
DFW Airport, TX 75261-9612

Dear American:

As I have just reached my first million miles in the AAdvantage program, you probably know I am a big fan of American Airlines. In fact, the only two times previously I have used this address to write a letter was for the purpose of singing the praises of flight attendants who went the extra mile to make my journey a pleasant one, and they are one of the reasons I love American.

Unfortunately, this is not one of those letters.

Last night I was on flight 4738 from LGA to RDU in seat 11A. This was an American Eagle flight, and I believe the name of the attendant was Kathy (she didn’t have on a name tag but I believe the pilot referred to her as such).

Due to weather we ended up sitting on the taxiway for a couple of hours. When it came time to take off, the attendant came through the cabin to check seat belts. Since I had been fidgeting for two hours my belt buckle was slightly twisted. She saw this and said, “Sir, your seat belt has to lie flat” and before I could move she reached down and adjusted it.

Now picture this procedure: the fingers of her left hand were inserted between the buckle and my thigh, while the fingers of her right hand went between the belt and my crotch.

Both me and the man across the aisle looked at each other with amazement. As we talked about it later, neither of us had heard of this new FAA regulation that the seatbelt has to be perfectly flat for takeoff.

I don’t believe this violation of personal space was sexual in nature – it struck me as more of an obsessive/compulsive problem – but still, I suffer enough indignity simply going through the security screening process to have to worry about being groped on the plane.

Please don’t think I’m one of those people who complains about the slightest problem. With all of its complexity, I realize that no organization can make air travel perfect. But the behavior of this attendant was thoughtless and somewhat disturbing (you can contact the nice couple in 11B and 11C if you want to verify this story, as they were just as astonished as I was) and I can’t help but think if our genders were reversed you’d have a much larger problem on your hands.

I still love American (I’m on pace to make Executive Platinum this year and this won’t change that) and I understand that there is some difference between American and American Eagle, but as it is your name on the outside of the plane, I figured you should know.

Tarus Paul Balog
Chief Executive Officer
The OpenNMS Group, Inc.

While I have been in Dubai for several days now, only recently have I been able to get out and see some of the city. Fourth quarter for us is usually insane, this year more than others, and to be quite honest for the first two days I was here I did little more than work and sleep.

I didn’t arrive until nearly midnight, and there were at least a thousand people queued up at passport control. Once I got through that I wasn’t able to find the car I was to take to the hotel, which was compounded by the fact that my fancy new iPhone from AT&T was unable to roam internationally (the fix, according to AT&T, is to have it connect to an AT&T tower to “re-register” which is a bit difficult considering there are no such towers available when one is roaming internationally) and my credit card was declined (Citibank said that the initial swipe triggered fraud detection even though I had called them to let them know I was traveling).

(sigh)

I did manage to get everything sorted, but after that my allotted window for sleep was pretty small.

However, after work on Monday I took a cab to the Dubai Mall, the largest shopping mall by area in the world. Now, I have been to many of the world’s temples of consumerism, including Ginza in Tokyo and Orchard Road in Singapore (all with OpenNMS actually) and none can compare with the sheer scale of the Dubai Mall, or of Dubai in general. It is almost as if Disney World and Las Vegas had a love child that drank some mad scientist’s potion and grew to ten times normal size.

Not only is the Mall large, it is spacious, with huge installations including five story waterfalls and a world-class aquarium. I wandered around in awe for quite some time, and managed to get my obligatory McDonalds meal out of the way (I have ordered a Big Mac meal in almost every country I have ever visited).

On the way back to the hotel, I was able to take some quick photos from the cab, including the world’s tallest man-made structure, Burj Dubai:

and a really poor shot of a metro station:

I rarely get an emotional response from modern architecture, but I am totally in love with the design of the Dubai metro stations. They drape over the tracks like some sort of giant golden scarab, and they really stand out. At points on the road you can see two or three of them at a time, and you get the idea that you are looking at the city of the future – something Disney wished for EPCOT or like something out of Total Recall.

Yesterday, my friend Yunus picked me up at the hotel and we actually took a metro train.

The Union station is actually underground, so it is not as impressive as the above ground stations, but it was still cool nonetheless. The metro system has only been in operation since September, and so everything is brand spanking new. The stations are immaculately clean, and it feels like they just took the shrink wrap off of everything.

We took the train to the Mall of the Emirates. Until the opening of the Dubai Mall, it was the largest mall in the world (by area). It is famous for having an indoor ski park called Ski Dubai, recently featured on The Amazing Race.

We had mainly gone there just to ride on the metro, so after a short visit we headed back. Yunus had told me that adoption of the metro system by the locals had been a bit slow, but you wouldn’t have know it by looking:

We then found a more traditional area which included an Iranian restaurant known for its shawarma. I was told that the thing to look for when choosing a shawarma restaurant is a queue outside, waiting.

He wasn’t wrong – the meal was excellent.

In a short while I will board a plane to begin my journey from Chicago to Dubai. It’s about eight hours to London and then another seven to Dubai, so I’ll arrive about 11:30pm local time – on Saturday.

This will be my first trip to the Middle East in 15 years, and I have to say that I’m looking forward to it. I spent the month of October, 1994, in and around Damascus, Syria, and I really enjoyed myself.

Yes, I can make this work

I especially remember the food as being particularly good. I liked the shawarma, best when bought right off the street and served with lots of sauce. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

But my fondest memories are of the people. While I think one can never go wrong underestimating a government’s ability to royally screw things up (my own included), in my travels I’ve found that people around the world are basically the same. They want to be safe and they want to be rewarded for the work they do. They want the opportunity to better themselves and to provide for their families. Especially in technical circles, they like solving problems and things like OpenNMS can help with that. Plus, the fact that OpenNMS is free and open source encourages cooperation, and people know that recognition in open source is based on merit – no matter the color of your skin, the name of your God or the TLD of your e-mail address.

I’ve been pretty lucky in the fact that the Internet has provided me with a way to keep up with people I’ve met over the years, but I’m still missing contact information for some of them. The picture above was taken in Damascus and the man on the left is Ghazwan M. Hawach. My Google-fu has failed me, so just in case Ghazwan gets on the Internet and finds this post – please drop me a note. I’d love to find out what you’ve been up to.

So, outside of the long hours in the air I am eager to be off to Dubai. I’m working for a company called Etisalat, which happens to be the 13th largest wireless communications provider in the world. Although you’ve probably never heard of them, they have more subscribers than Verizon, AT&T or Sprint. I can’t wait to get OpenNMS to rock on their network.

But I also can’t wait to make some new friends and eat some shawarma. The fact that Dubai is much warmer than Chicago doesn’t hurt, either.

So welcome, United Arab Emirates, as our 21st client country.

See you on the other side.

Sorry for the radio silence blog-wise for the last week or so. Things have been crazy around here.

I really enjoyed the conference in Nürmberg, but much more for the company and the food than the content, since it was primarily a Nagios gathering. Not that Nagios is bad, but OpenNMS is different and there wasn’t much I could use in the Nagios-specific talks (although the people who use Nagios remind me a lot of the same people who use our stuff).

After the conference was over, Ronny Trommer and I met up with Klaus Thielking-Riechert. As I mentioned before, Ronny and Klaus, along with Alex, are writing a German language OpenNMS book. They have over 100 pages written already, and I’m eager to see it in print. It’s based on 1.8, so we’ll need to get that out before they can get it printed, but we hope that will be done soon.

That night we went out to eat at an Italian restaurant, of all things.

Klaus, his wife Sabine, me and Ronny

The food was good but the restaurant was chosen because they serve beer from Steinbach Bräu – which was incredibly fresh and good. It’s not pasteurized so it has a very limited distributation and shelf life.

The next day I went back to Rome for the flight home, but not before getting a nice döner kebab on the way to the airport.

The flight back home was uneventful, although long. However, it wasn’t as long as Ben’s recent flight from China. Due to a snowstorm in Beijing he waiting on the ground for 12 hours before the 13 hour flight home. A total of 25 hours in the same airport. That’s insane.

I smell like smoke, so this must be Texas.

I’m in San Antonio this week doing some work for Rackspace Managed Hosting. They were one of my original OpenNMS clients from back in 2002 and they are still going strong, having grown from a small company in the Broadway Bank building downtown to a publicly traded hosting empire.

Today was my first trip to The Castle. Rackspace is continually outgrowing their space and so they decided to end the problem once and for all by buying a nearly one million square foot shopping mall. They are slowly converting it into high tech office space and moving all of their San Antonio staff into the building. The person I’m working with spends half his time there and half his time at the Datapoint location, so today we met at the Castle.

The Castle has another benefit: it is close to a Rudy’s. I’ve been a big fan of Rudy’s BBQ since my first trip to San Antonio, and while the only thing that could have made lunch better would have been a couple of bottles of Shiner, I did manage to pig out on brisket, turkey, ribs and sausage. Oh, don’t forget the creamed corn which probably has more calories per serving than a Snickers bar. Gotta have one’s veggies.

I’m pretty impressed with the new digs. It is much lighter and more open than Datapoint, and the morale seems ever so slightly higher. Plus, there is still some whimsy left over from the old days, like when they gave out a straight jacket for the Employee of the Month.