Tag Archives: Southwest Airlines

Birmingham, AL

Monday, May 21, 2012	Friday, May 25, 2012
Southwest Flight #1856 / #1153	Southwest Flight #50 / #163
04:45 PM Los Angeles, CA (LAX) to	02:00 PM Birmingham, AL (BHM) to
06:00 PM Arrive in Phoenix, AZ (PHX)	03:20 PM Arrive in St. Louis, MO (STL)
07:15 PM Change in Phoenix, AZ (PHX)	04:20 PM Change in St. Louis, MO (STL)
12:25 AM Birmingham, AL (BHM)	06:35 PM Los Angeles, CA (LAX)

I’m an early bird… for the most part. I like to go to bed early and I like to wake up (relatively) early. The early bird concept usually applies to traveling too. I like to get out of the house early and arrive at my destination as early as possible. But, for the first time in a long time I decided to take a late afternoon Monday flight to a client on the East coast. Birmingham isn’t necessarily East coast, but it’s close enough. I wasn’t a big fan of the idea when I made the reservation and I’m less of a fan now. The original reason for reserving a late flight was due to cost, which was almost 50% more to leave earlier in the day or on Sunday.

Before I get to the reasons for not being a fan of late flights, there were some positives from leaving later. First of all, it allowed me to push off packing until the day of the flight, which made it easier to enjoy the weekend rather than losing a day to do laundry and pack. It also allowed me to work a little during the morning hours, finishing up a few tasks and cleaning my inbox. This was somewhat of a bonus since I rarely work after I arrive at a client following a long travel day. I even managed to wake up earlier than usual on Monday morning and mosey on over to the local Starbucks for a coffee and breakfast, sitting outside the store for a good 15 minutes to relax.

So why am I not a fan of later flights? Because they arrive at the final destination very late! This goes against my early to bed early to rise mantra. I was originally scheduled to arrive in Birmingham at 12:35 AM. The flight was delayed over an hour prior to the first leg of the flight, then changed to depart on-time by the time I landed in Phoenix, then delayed again because the replacement plane didn’t arrive from the hanger as scheduled. The flight finally arrived in Birmingham about 35 minutes late. By the time I got back to the hotel it was almost 2 AM, which gave me just under 5 hours of time to sleep. I don’t function very well with little sleep, especially when there’s a change in time zone involved, two hours in this case between Los Angeles and Birminham. To a lot of people 5 hours might seem like plenty of sleep, but anything less than 7 hours just isn’t enough for me. I was surprisingly functional and productive that Tuesday. However, for some reason, Wednesday turned out to be the tougher day.

There’s a small side story from the flight itself from Phoenix to Birmingham. The flight was practically empty. There were whole rows of empty seats. I got lucky, sitting in a window seat towards the front of the plane, no one decided to pull up in the aisle seat. However, just across the aisle, there were two men sitting in the aisle / window seats when someone came along requesting to sit in the middle seat. Seriously!!! I’m baffled neither of the two guys already sitting didn’t say anything. Sadly, my comfort comes first, I would have said no or moved the first chance I got.

Anyway, after an uneventful week in Birmingham, I’m back in Southern California now and have no plans to travel for business until mid-July. I do have a planned vacation away from work for the week of June 18th, but haven’t actually made any plans to do anything that week. Only time will tell what I’ll do, but I’m going to enjoy the lack of travel as long as I can.

Southwest 1582 / 2545

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Tuesday, January 3 – Flight 1582
Depart Los Angeles (LAX) at 09:10 AM
Arrive in Sacramento (SMF) at 10:30 AM

Friday, January 6 – Flight 2545
Depart Sacramento (SMF) at 06:50 PM
Arrive in Los Angeles (LAX) at 08:10 PM

Lost in the shuffle this past week between updating the blog with the 2011 Year in Review and 2012 Goals was the fact that I traveled to Sacramento, California. This was a follow-up business trip for a project I started during August 2011. The usual suspects were in place as I flew with Southwest, rented a car through National Car Rental, and stayed at the Fairfield Inn by Marriott. All of those were the same as the trips that occurred in August. However, there was one big change to how it all happened. With all the travel last year I was able to gather enough points to get status with Southwest and National. As a Southwest “A-List” member I’m guaranteed priority check-in, allowing me to board with the first group and get the best available seat. No more having to check-in 24 hours in advance to get the best boarding number. I was also able to use a special baggage check line allowing me to cut the whole line of other people looking to check-in. The perks don’t stop there. I was also allowed to use the priority security lane access, allowing me to again cut the whole line of people going through security. If you’ve read any of my posts about dealing with Southwest on a Monday morning at LAX, you’ll understand how big a deal that is. The perks of traveling also made its way to the renting a car. I’m now an Emerald Club Executive member with National, allowing me to rent the mid-size car and get an automatic upgrade to a full size car. This week I had the pleasure of driving a Dodge Charger. I thought it would be fun to drive a fun/fast car for once, which is about as far from a Jeep Wrangler as you can get. And it was a nice ride. The hardest part was figuring out how to open the gas tank.

A small piece of advice for people that don’t know or don’t rent cars often. Have you ever rolled up to a gas station, parked, the figured out the tank is on the other side of the car? Well, I learned last year that the answer is right in front of you. Located in the middle of the gas gauge is a picture of the tank and an arrow pointing either left or right. The arrow is pointing to the side of the car the gas tank is located. And you thought there was nothing to learn on my blog!

My next travel for business isn’t scheduled until mid-February, so I have another small break from the travel life… assuming I don’t take a much needed vacation at some point in between.

2011 Year in Review – Travelling Man

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The is the 2^nd of my multi-post review of 2011. The 1^st part of the review included details about how I did against exercise goals I set at the beginning of the year. The last part of the review, which will be posted tomorrow, will include some details on how the blog did during 2011.

At the beginning of the year I knew there was going to be a good amount of travel this year, most of it for business purposes. As the first few months went by I started thinking this could be a record year, of which I think it was. However, I have no data to back it up at this point. You’ll just have to believe me.

Using my travel itineraries and a tool provided by webflyer.com I counted the number of days I spent on the road (106) and the total miles flown (45,674). The numbers were kept a little lower at the end of the year by working remotely on a few projects. Cities I visited included:

Baltimore, MD
Birmingham, AL
Canton (via Cleveland), OH
Denver, CO
Indianapolis, IN
Las Vegas, NV
Nashville, TN
Oakland, CA
Sacramento, CA
Salt Lake City, UT

As part of all this travel I was able to get some “status” with Southwest Airlines and National Car Rental, along with picking up a good amount of hotel points with Marriott and Holiday Inn (Priority Club). However, the extensive travel took a toll on me mentally and physically, so I’m hoping the numbers will come back down to a more reasonable level during 2012.

Southwest Flight #1028 and #854

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November 7, 2011
Flight #1028
Depart LOS ANGELES INTL (LAX) at 09:20 AM
Arrive in OAKLAND CA (OAK) at 10:35 AM

November 11, 2011
Flight #854
Depart OAKLAND CA (OAK) at 5:25 PM
Arrive in LOS ANGELES INTL (LAX) at 6:40 PM

If all goes according to plan (or as I hope) this past week will be the last time I fly until early January. That leaves a whole 7 weeks to enjoy waking up in the same bed every day. It’s hard to explain if you’ve never had to deal with extensive business or personal travel before, but it’s takes it’s toll on the mind/body.

There isn’t much about the airports and flights to discuss from this past week. Both LAX and OAK airports were relatively quiet, resulting in relatively quick dealings with baggage check and security. If you are an internet hound, Oakland is a good airport to fly out of as they have free wifi in the terminals. It’s a nice bonus if you have time to spare or your flight is delayed. The flights to and from Oakland were also quick, at just over an hour, resulting in a less tired feeling after the flight than after cross country flights.

As for Oakland, I’m not sure if it was just these past 2 weeks or normal everyday occurrences, but there seemed to be a lot of violence during the past 2 weeks. During the first week, on Wednesday, November 2, the Occupy Oakland movement caused the clients building to be locked down at around 2 PM. The violence didn’t occur until later that night and very early morning the following morning, but we still left the client prior to 2 PM. Then this past week, I believe it was on Wednesday again, my boss called as we were leaving downtown a little after 5 PM to notify us there was a shooting near the Occupy Oakland site, which was only about 4 blocks from the client’s building. From what I understand the shooting had nothing to do with the Occupy movement. Either way, we were already in the car on our way back to the hotel. There were no plans to hang around downtown Oakland for dinner, but we would have changed those plans if we did.

Here’s hoping this is the last travel post for the year.

Southwest Airlines #251 and #247

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October 31, 2011
Flight #251
Depart LOS ANGELES INTL (LAX) at 08:15 AM
Arrive in OAKLAND CA (OAK) at 09:30 AM

November 4, 2011
Flight #247
Depart OAKLAND CA (OAK) at 5:30 PM
Arrive in LOS ANGELES INTL (LAX) at 6:50 PM

Week 1 of 2 in Oakland has come and gone. Getting an update to the blog is a little tougher when the flight lasts less than an hour. Taking out the first 15 and last 15 minutes when electronics are not supposed to be used, there’s less than 30 minutes available during the flight to get anything done. As a result of that and a little nap I took on the plane, I missed the usual travel update on Monday, but am getting an early start today from the terminal here in Oakland.

I’ll start with an update from the first flight from LA to Oakland on Monday morning. Expecting the usual hectic Monday morning at Terminal 1, I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of any lines. I was in the terminal and through security within 15 minutes. The whole process, along with such a short flight, made for a relatively productive day.

It felt somewhat surreal this week in Oakland. So many of my trips require long flights and crossing time zones. There was none of that this week. No adjusting sleep times to get on track and, best of all, no problems sleeping. It was a pleasure and makes the thought of next week’s travel less mentally draining.

Oakland airport today was very much like my experience on Monday morning. The line to check bags and security were short, to the point I got to the gate with over an hour and a half time to putz around.

Overall, it’s been a pleasant week. Assuming the flight home is on time and smooth, this might be the first trip in a relatively long time with no hiccups. No complaints… and let’s hope I didn’t just speak too soon. Hope everyone has an enjoyable weekend.

Adventures in Traveling Part 333

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Greetings again from Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Every once in a while enough happens on my travel day that it warrants a blog post… today was one of those days. As usual, the night before traveling I had trouble staying asleep, waking up a few times to look at the clock to make sure I didn’t miss the flight. Apparently my brain doesn’t trust alarms whatsoever.

The day started with a taxi ride to LAX at about 7 AM this morning. The taxi driver was talkative right from the start. Lucky for him I was awake and cognizant of the conversation. I’m not sure that was a good thing though. Somehow the conversation of cars turned to the difference between living in SoCal in the 80′s and today, which then led to the difference between dating in the 80′s and today. For the most part, I wasn’t adding to the conversation, the cabby was just yapping away… and this is where things got strange. According to the cabby, back in the early 80′s it was about free love. Today, it’s simpler and cheaper to just order a hooker instead of dating women. Yes, he said this outright. Charlie Harper would be proud.

And now for the not so fun adventure in traveling from today. I’m a big fan of Southwest. I fly Southwest often mostly because they have shorter flights and don’t charge baggage fees. The price you pay to buy the tickets is all you have to worry about, the way it should be. Today they hit a low for idiocy. Usually during take-off and landing I’ll put my headphones on (ear buds) because they drown out some of the engine noise. To make sure we’re on the same page, the ear buds are in my ears, but the headphones are not actually connected to anything. You know, because we’re supposed to turn off all electronics. To make sure I can get my point across, I hold the headphone pin in my hand to show it to the stewardess. Well today, during landing, I was told to take the headphones off. I showed the headphone pin to the stewardess and was still told to take them off. On top of that, I was told that, unless they’re noise cancelling headphones, they can’t be warn during take off and landing. So let me get this straight, I’m allowed to use battery operated headphones, but not basic headphones?! Can someone please explain this idiotic comment to me? Is this really a rule for flying? I mean, I’ve done this before without any problems, was this just a stewardess with ass up her stick? In the end, I didn’t cause much of a fuss, didn’t think getting arrested on a business trip would be a good idea.

Ok, enough of that. Some of you may know that I’m not very educated in the art of movies. I watch them on occasion, but not very often. To make my point, back in August I watched The Godfather, from beginning to end, for the first time. I had seen bits and pieces here and there on tv, but not the whole movie all at once. Yeah, I’m not a movie buff. With the purchase of an iPad and plenty of travel time, I’ve started watching some movies during travel. Today, when I wasn’t being told to remove my headphones, I watched the first 007 movie, Doctor No, for the first time. It was a little old school (obviously), but still a good movie, I liked it.

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