Dave Sabol

Well, after over an hour delay we finally got of the ground from Philadelphia. Admittedly, it was a lot better than I make it out to be. The only good part about having 5 hours between connecting flights is the fact that you have plenty of time “just in case”. For me, I spent the 4 hour flight doing some preparing for my upcoming meetings and reading. The San Francisco Airport is pretty big, not on the scale of O’Hare or Atlanta, but a lot bigger than my home airport (Lehigh Valley International), and it’s really nice.

Getting through security was a little more intense than I have experienced previously but overall it wasn’t too bad. The biggest difference is the sheer diversity in the International terminal. It’s really a great mix of men and women, young and old, from around the world. I think that is probably the best part of travelling for me, experiencing the diversity and culture. I learn something new on every trip and from the looks of things, I am in store for a great learning experience.

I considered the first leg of my adventure the warm-up for what was in store for me during the San Francisco to Hong Kong leg of the trip. While I did ok, I got a bit restless at the 3 hour mark around the same time I finished reading the first of three books I brought with me. I decided to start off the trip with a book titled Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel. I chose the book for a few reasons. The first is the fact that the authors name is oddly close to my own name. In fact a simple juxtapositon of vowels would create my name. The second is the fact that I needed to get outside of my reading rut. Lately, I have really been focused solely on education, psychology, business and technology and while that is what my career is about, I decided to branch out a bit into something different. Finally, something that I don’t really talk about that much is the fact that I have a bachelors degree in History (and Political Science - I was a dual major) and am a certified Social Studies teacher in Pennsylvania. As such, I taught Geography at the middle school level and it is an area that I really love.

The book was highly rated both on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. It also received rave reviews from the New York Times and Newsweek. Since my reading time is really important to me, knowing that I am getting a good book is pretty important to me. The story was how a tradesman - actually a master carpenter - was able to take on the establishment in the 18th century and figure out a very effective way to determine a ships position in terms of latitude (which was easily solved long before) and longitude. The longitude portion of the equation is where John Harrison was able to create a time-piece that accurately kept time in the harsh and often unpredictable environment of the open ocean. The problem had been attempted to be solved by the likes of Galileo and Sir Issac Newton and Edmund Halley. As the story develops it is a true battle between the competing areas of astronomy and engineering. And in the end, the solution lie in the development of new technology that proved to be reliable, accurate, and extremely user-friendly as compared to the tried and true methods of taking numerous calculations over many hours and then using algorithms and charts to make the determination which only the most seasoned and educated sea captains could do with any degree of accuracy.

I am not doing the story full justice in my brief explanation but it was fascinating. My only complaint is the fact that the book seems to bog down in the middle as many of the early theories of how to solve the problem were tried and ultimately failed. Otherwise, I found the book to be extremely well written and researched despite the fact that the author didn’t cite and footnote (to her own admission) as is common practice with books of a historical nature. It was a perfect travelling companion and just fed into my amazement of how far we have come in a few centuries.

Now, as I am sitting in the International Terminal at Gate G95, tired from my travel, I am looking at the plane that will take me across the Pacific Ocean. I am actually awestruck by the size of the 747. I have flown on some big planes before, but I have never been on a 747 prior to this trip.

While the picture isn’t what I am currently seeing, it is the exact plane that I am flying on. I can’t wait to get inside to see what it’s like. I’m not sure how much I will really enjoy it as I plan to sleep as much as I can during the flight. Although, even as tired as I am, I am not sure that I could possibly sleep the entire 14 hours of the flight. Fortunately for me, I have another two books that I can read so I should have no shortage of things to do during the flight.

Tomorrow is another day and I can’t wait to see what it has in store for me.