Life With No Fixed Address

The War of the Roads: Act One

Marlaina — Mon, 13 May 2013 13:06:45 +0000

Sherwood Park, Alberta

We woke up nose-to-nose with another trucker. In Kansas.

This menage a trucker is a daily dirty dance....

Laundry Tips from Truckers

Marlaina — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 17:34:32 +0000

Cochrane, Alberta

I regarded the Willie Nelson-like trucker in the Jubitz laundry room in Portland, Oregon, salt-and-pepper beard, faded jeans and plaid shirt, as a typical driver. Until he thrust his white socks under my nose.

Twists, Turns and Terrors of Small Business Ownership

Marlaina — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 19:15:45 +0000

Garden Grove, California

When it comes to owning a small business, there is often no right answer.

This photo of Mt. Shasta in California was taken last year. We want to see the view again in the Westcoast mirror, behind us.We are “sittin’ and spendin’,” not earning, in Southern California, a condition small business owners try to avoid. Some would say that it’s kind of our own fault....

Bad News Good Timing

Marlaina — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 17:33:00 +0000

Louisville, Kentucky

For an entire year we tried to get to the bottom of a coolant leak.

Finally the bottom found us...

Hong Kong is to New York as New York is to Texas

Marlaina — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 02:56:16 +0000

Hong Kong, China

It took less than 30 minutes, at the dinner hour, to zip through Chek Lap Kok Airport immigration, grab our bags and board the A21 double decker bus (US$4 for the 40 minute trip) to Tsim Sha Tsui. Deplaning 525 passengers from our Emirates Airlines Airbus 380 took longer.

Many things have changed in the almost 25 years since my last visit to Hong Kong. And a few did not, like the Star Ferry. Still a suprisingly peaceful way to cross the harbour, probably because most people are riding the subway.

Hong Kong is built for speed. This city-country that never sleeps is still the King of Capitalism. Scrambling out of the bus before....

Massage, For Health Only

Marlaina — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 03:02:53 +0000

Bangkok, Thailand

Is it just massage? That's the question in Bangkok, where sex is part of its exotic reputation.

“Sometimes the customer not understand because of the area,” says Khun Tui, a successful businesswoman who owns Tarntip Massage and Spa, my local Bangkok massage salon, in the tourist area off Sukhumvit Road.

“We have to explain," she says. "Relax only. Healthy only.”

Bangkok businesswoman Tui celebrates her tenth anniversary in business by opening a new, larger facility on Soi 7/1 off Sukhumvit Road at the NaNa Skytrain station. Her husband Vivit, behind her, was her entrepreneurial inspiration. The available massage products range from Annie’s Massage, near the infamous Soi Cowboy sex district, which advertises soapy, sensual, stimulating and shocking massage to the neighborhood massage clinic and the five-star luxury experience.

Tui launched her business in 2003, named for a river with a beautiful waterfall in Isaan, the northeastern part of Thailand where she was born. In February this year, she expanded to a larger facility across the soi, the Thai word for alleyway.

I have enjoyed massages in about a dozen countries. Since I turned 40, my vacations have revolved around pampering....

Build It and They Will Come

Marlaina — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 02:54:00 +0000

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

If the United Arab Emirates had a slogan it would be: Go Big or Go Home.
Dubai's ski-hill-in-a-mall has a chalet experience. A cozy place, under the concrete sky, to rest from the 20-second, one-turn run.
Money is no obstacle in the United Arab Emirates, a country the size of Maine. To prove it they built a ski hill. Nestled in the desert on the Persian Gulf. In the center of the largest city. Inside Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates, not far from Chanel and Cartier. It’s real snow, on a two-turn mountain, shaped like an L. It has a Quad Chairlift. Whether watching, as I did, or skiing as MacGyver did, it is a mind bending sight.
The locals rent down parkhas and ride the Quad Chair up and down the mountain, photographing the crazy foreigners shushing down the hill on sticks, on snow, in the desert. MacGyver is photographing an Arab woman in an abaya and a shayla, the Gulf style head covering, wearing a long down coat. She is photographing the foreigners sitting in the snow trying to control their sticks, er skis.
And that’s only one of the over-the-top activities....

The Benefits In Richistan

Marlaina — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 13:57:00 +0000

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

We pulled our Ferrari-red, four-door subcompact next to the gleaming, pearl-white McLaren sports car and handed the valet the key. He would park it -- for FREE.

Trembling with anticipation I walked to the Hilton Honors desk at the Dubai Jumeirah Beach Resort. Courtesy of Hilton, because we're Diamonds, we had three nights FREE accommodation at the ritzy beach front property.
Mission Imposter at the Yas Hotel, in Abu Dhabi. The three free nights at the Hilton Dubai Jumeirah Beach Resort allowed us to pay for the Sheikh package that included a one-bedroom suite, full-breakfast, free parking, smoking fast Internet and two tickets to Ferrari World where MacGyver rode the fastest rollercoast in the world.
“Wealth begets wealth,” Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award journalist Hedrick Smith says in his jolting book, Who Stole the American Dream?, which details the systematic and systemic theft of jobs and money from the middle class by the rich and the multinationals over the past 40 years.

I chose this hair puller, a middle class must read, over a bodice ripper, as my first holiday book because we were indulging in the rarified existence of the top five percent...

MacGyver Takes Podium at Ferrari World Grand Prix

Marlaina — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:09:47 +0000

Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Don’t be fooled. Ferrari World’s raison d’etre is for the old boys, not the young ones galloping excitedly between the candy-apple red race cars.

A Ferrari Formula One car on display at Ferrari World, the world's largest indoor amusement park with the world's fastest rollercoaster, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.When I made my future husband list, in the top five criteria was: must not like organized sports. I was thinking hockey, baseball or football, something that can be religiously followed anywhere by all media, TV, newspapers and radio. Not only did MacGyver not watch these sports, he seemed to be a modest participant in the favorite five activities of men, worldwide, that are loathed by women...

January Should Be Love-A-Trucker Month

Marlaina — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 19:07:31 +0000

John F. Kennedy Airport, New York, NY

Not only are we trucking slackers, we are trucking wimps.

Two Arctic-temperature January loads into Canada was enough to remind us that we take a winter holiday for a good reason and that our new drop deck trailer -- more on this in March, but yes, we are taking the final Owner Operator leap -- will be equipped with a rolling, meaning flip-of-a-switch-style tarp system.
Posing as South Park's Kenny's mom, underneath 50 pounds of down padding, in Montreal, the day after New Year's Day. Thank you papa for willing me your Arctic parkha.
Folding frozen tarps is not fun. MacGyver untarped, not tarped, just UNtarped two loads -- loaded in Southern California he untarped in Mirabel, Quebec and loaded in Louisiana, he untarped in Medicine Hat, Alberta -- in sub zero temperatures.

Heading into Quebec our contact at the delivery warned us about the temperatures.

“It’s like the Arctic here,” he said. Montrealers were digging out from under the biggest snow dump in more than 40 years. A strong wind gave us ice cream headaches for just climbing out of the tractor.

Winter driving is hard on everyone and everything. It’s hard on the drivers, the trucks, the freight, the warehouse people at the shippers and the consignees. It is miserable.

It’s a pain to just get out of the truck. In some places, like Minnesota, Montana, Maine and Canada, 50 pounds of down padding is needed to ward off the cold. Feet must be jammed into boots in a too small mud room space, the front seat of the tractor. With two of us in the truck, every square inch is filled with down coats, boots, hats, mitts, barely enough room for us. We must carry extra water and food supplies in case we are stuck in a blizzard. We need more bedding to keep warm, flannelette pajamas, well I need them. We carry extra windshield wiper fluid, Windex, airline de-icer....