Luke would have asked R2D2 where to sit

Southwest Airlines is flying for the everyman. No snobby first class section, no dehumanizing 'assigned' seating, personable flight attendants, $1-cheaper adult beverages than other airlines, and planes with Earl Scheib paint jobs. If you haven't flown the purple and orange, it's important to note that until about a month ago, Southwest gave you boarding passes with nothing more than a single letter on it: A, B, or - you guessed it - C! Those 3 simple designations let you know what boarding group you were with, and gave you the incentive to arrive earlier so you could be first in line in your respective group. You would literally stand or sit in a line, cleverly marked with one of those 3 letters. Once your group was called, you filed onto the aircraft, and chose any seat you wished! Freedom is a beautiful thing.

However, some genius at SWA (probably a marketing executive) decided that this unique, effective system was giving us civilians a little too much leash. (It also apparently provoked several line skirmishes at DTW last Thanksgiving.) Rather than just skip the quirkiness and revert to assigned seating like every other carrier, they decided to subdivide the letter groups into letter-number combinations. So now your boarding pass may say something like "A39". This means that you're the 39th person to board the aircraft, with the A group, but you still get to choose your seat. Instead of getting to the airport earliest to nab the coveted "A1" position, you are now encouraged to check in online earlier. You still have seat-picking freedom, but your spot in line is now binding. I think someone once said the same thing about leather pants.

During my first experience with this new system, I realized that it had somehow turned otherwise normal, intelligent human beings into raving lunatics. Let me lay the crowd control logistics: Southwest gates now have handy letter-number signage on poles, both denoting the line positions, and recommending where your spot in those lines should be. For example, the head of the first line says "A 1-30", and down the line there are supplemental signs suggesting "1-5; 6-10" etc... Your job as passenger is to find your spot, comparing with the other humans around you to make sure you're in the right order. I had ticket A39, so I was in the "A 31-60" line, and someone with A40 was right behind me. For efficiency, they clear the 2 "A" lines first, then magically flip the head-of-line signs to "B" and, voila, the "B"s can assemble! As I waited, I noticed several people with "B" or "C" passes milling about our lines before we boarded, oblivious to the frequent PA announcements and actual SWA staffers helping them out. Actual arguments broke out about what the strange letters and numbers meant. One bold B-er just barged to the gate as the "A"s started moving. Our friendly gate guide politely informed him he had to wait, much to his surprise. Exasperated, he flung his arms in the air and asked if this whole deal could get any more complicated?!

It made me wonder - how does this guy even get to the correct gate in the first place? Which section is his car in at the economy lot? When he was informed his flight left from gate C18, did he stop to ask for directions? Does his head spin when he peers up at the overhead signage, pointing him to any of 5 lettered terminals, each with multiple numbered gates? Was he ever able to remember his wife's 'dimensions' for that special Valentine's gift? How does he choose which B vitamin to buy? What if his future includes games of Bingo or Battleship? WHAT SORT OF CRAZY ALPHA-NUMERIC NIGHTMARE IS HE LIVING IN?

Finally, the "B"s are called and he is ready to find his super special seat. BUT WAIT - each row is still numbered, each seat still lettered! Not to worry, the ever friendly SWA attendant reminds him those are simply relics of a long forgotten system, and he may sit where he pleases. Relieved, he buckles in, takes a deep breath, and gazes in awe at the newest Sharper Image nose hair trimmer in Skymall magazine. Prompted by the safety announcement, he casually pulls out the plane's emergeny instructions from the seat back, only to be slapped in the face with the reality that he is flying in an A-320* aircraft! (queue Psycho screech sound effects).

Look people, air travel is stressful and often exhausting. Take a minute to examine your surroundings, prepare your route, and for all our sakes - fly Delta and SIT WHERE YOU'RE TOLD.

(*Southwest flies only 737s, but that would have killed the gag)

Malihalikaliapuaa'a'aa

It only took me a month to post a Hawaii recap! Here's the short: Kauai is incredibly beautiful. We were very fortunate to stay in a timeshare in Princeville (mahalo, Dr S.!), which is on the north, and best, side of the island. If you ever go to Kauai, you must get the Ultimate Kauai Guidebook: Kauai Revealed, by Wizard Publications. Just call it the "Blue Book" and use it to find activities, remote beaches, hiking trails, and rely on its restaurant ratings. Every place they recommended was right on. My recommendations: find Secret Beach, do a Na Pali boat tour (or helicopter tour, which we did not do), eat at Scotty's Beachside BBQ, snorkel anywhere, eat lots of fresh fish and fruit, and if you happen to need to watch a sporting event but are checked out of your room... go to Kalypso in Hanalei (I watched the UM-MSU game there!)

Instead of trying to summarize everything, we just captioned our photos. Check them out HERE.

Aloha!

So my woman took me to the doctor...

The Michigan - Ohio State game literally made me sick. I happened to be in Foster City, CA with my lovely pals Bradfo and Megs on Saturday, watched the "game", and immediately felt a prickly flu-like pain, fever, and a bit of a sore throat. No biggie right? With just a few hours left with my friends, I stuck it out for a late lunch before driving down to San Jose for the flight home. Sitting in the SJC, I chugged Odwalla (from Half Moon Bay!) and prayed I wouldn't pass out. My head was in a sickly cloud and my body was screaming at me to sleep. I finally made it home to SLC around 10:45 PM MST (via LAS), took some ibuprofin, and passed out. Woke up around 3 AM, t-shirt soaked with sweat and throat swollen and sore.

Thankfully, my attentive and concerned (sick of me whining) girlfriend practically forced me to an urgent care center by Sunday afternoon, where the doctor took all of 3 nanoseconds to declare, "You have strep - who gave it to ya?"

Deftly, I replied, "I don't know, evil throat gnomes from Columbus, OH?" I did not say that, exactly. More like, "Oun no." (I don't know.)

Anyhoo, I'm finally recovered-ish. Only missed 1 day of work due to continued pain, night sweats, and potential contagiousness. The night sweats thing is weird. Sort of an adult bed-wetting, if you think about it. Oh - Brad & Megs - if you get a sore throat, sorry, and go to the doc.

I'm just at lunch right now, trying to work the last day before Thanksgiving. I have some amazing rants brewing about the stupidity of people and my distaste for retail environments, and a great slide show/recap of our Hawaii trip that's long overdue, so I hope to be back soon.

Quickly: My Dad sent me a text message that I thought was amusing enough to share. I don't know if he heard this somewhere, or is just a master of wordplay. Some of you will get this, some won't. Don't worry about it. Upon leaving the UM-OSU game:
"Worst game ever... Need New Carr, Les Miles"

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Musings from the ORD

Oh wow - I'm in a hotel room again, big shock. This time a plush Comfort Inn within range of approaching 747s just outside of O'Hare airport, or ORD as we travellers like to say. Annie and I take unusual pride in our knowledge of 3-letter airport codes and use them frequently to refer to cities, even when the airport has no bearing. LIH baby! It's like text message codes for grownups, LOL.

Work doesn't provide me a laptop yet, so I decided to take Annie's home laptop for this trip to get some work done, and it was the best decision ever. Not only can I get work done, but I can download recent episodes of Rescue Me, write this, and watch Monday Night Football all from the relative Comfort of my Inn. I'm always late to embrace the convenience of certain technologies, but I always really appreciate them once I do.

It seems like I write about sports in just about every blog...well, it ain't changing here. The kids are on a parks & rec soccer team, and I've been able to see several of their games. They're in that 6-8 age group so they either follow the ball around in a confusing mob, or stand in one place because someone told them to play a 'position'. It's fun. I can't sit still during these games. I want to coach them up with my limited knowledge of soccer (2 yrs in H.S., woo-hoo!) but they're not ready for skill-specific coaching yet. I want to encourage them to 'compete' and 'win', but they don't really care yet. And I want to yell at the team parent-coach sometimes because the assigned parent-coach doesn't do any coaching. Parent-coach's strength is in choosing who brings snacks each game. I don't have much of a point to this paragraph yet, so... I should probably coach one of the kids' sports someday.

I miss home and especially my core group of guy friends a lot lately. Fall is the best in Michigan, and I always looked forward to busting out the hoodies and jeans and sweaters, going to tailgates at GVSU and watching the Wolverines every Saturday. I can do most of that stuff here (hoodies are outlawed), but not with the same friends. Fall is the time where we always find more excuses to get together with friends, I think because from childhood through college we're accustomed to a new school year starting and it feels like a sort of reunion. I haven't gone to school in 6 years, but I still get that feeling. Anyway, friends: A shout-out to you, and you know who you are. My inner circle of testosterone-laden, bad joke making, mini-muffin tossing, horrible poker playing buds. The Dudes. You're all fatter, balder, and uglier than last time I saw you, but I still love ya just the same.

I finished reading High Fidelity, and I'll give it 2.5 out of 4. I never could separate the characters from their Hollywood film counterparts. Imagine a quasi-British John Cusack, drifting in and out of accent with sometimes moppy black hair and other times spiky blonde hair and ruddy complexion. It doesn't quite work. I'm reading non-fiction again, Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer. Where religion goes wrong, and how! It's actually not funny, and rather disturbing. Speaking of, I was reminded of the power of religious emotion and selfish extremism when my company was accused of "banning" Christmas by a powerful political action group. Not caring that their claim was false, many of my colleagues and I received hateful emails and voice mails from people around the country claiming to be Christians and patriotic Americans. I don't want to tell the story here, but call or email me and I'll fill you in and send some entertaining links. I also received some understanding and thoughtful emails from others whom I personally know to be Christians - we're not all nutty, arrogant judgers - whew! Either way, it reminded me that as humans, we all fail miserably and frequently, but I have a lot of respect for people who maintain religious faith and do so with class and perception and grace.

How did I get on that topic? Anyway, I'm tired and this laptop is burning my legs through my dungarees. Good night now!

I should write more, too

It's been a while, and so much has changed. I've been to Orlando (via Denver), Salt Lake City (via Memphis, then Denver), Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Denver and Salt Lake City in the past two weeks (...I've been ev-ery-where man, I've been ev-ery-where...). Travelling by plane is the best time to catch up on a growing favorite activity of mine: Reading. Nerd Alert! Joking. All the cool people I know read, and they read more than me, and probably better books than me. In the past few months I've read, and recommend based on x out of 4 stars, the following books: Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (4 stars) - I can't believe this part of American history is not more well known; Skeleton Coast by Clive Cussler with Jack DuBrul (3 stars) - Cussler weaves another tale of shipwrecks, political unrest, unbelievably diabolical plots to cause harm, and the heroes who prevent it; The Meaning of Sports by Michael Mandelbaum (2.5 stars) - recommended by a brilliant sports/political journalist, Gregg Easterbrook (Tuesday Morning QB), this book compares the defining traits of the 3 major American sports - Baseball, Football, and Basketball - to 3 distinct social eras in our history: Agrarian, Industrial Revolution, and post-Industrial Revolution. I gave it 2.5 because I knew a lot of the factoids already, but LOVED the section about baseball's history - that alone makes it worth the read for any baseball fan - and found the comparisons interesting. I'm currently reading High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (incomplete) - easy, fun read but difficult to separate the book's British setting and characters from the Cusack/Hjejle/Black cast of the US movie.

I was travelling for work, doing a marketing presentation to groups of franchisees as part of day-long regional meetings. As small as 4 in our own Salt Lake market, to a group of 50+ in L.A. My portion was about an hour and a half of presenting, discussion, and answering questions. Tiring, frustrating at times, but rewarding. I probably learned more from them than they from me. (Charon - was that an acceptable sentence structure? Sounded weird.) I also ate a lot of cookies and catered lunches, which is one of two reasons my dress pants have been, well, not exactly 'fitting' lately.

Annie and I find it difficult to be separated when we travel for business, which is ironic considering we 'dated' from a distance greater than the entire Central time zone for a couple years. I'm home now for a week, then I leave for a Chicago-St. Paul leg of the same meetings. 3 weeks from now, I'll be in Hawaii for my first time! A much needed vacation that Annie has been diligently planning in my absence thanks to The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook (TBD stars). Time to stop donating money to the local 24-Hour Fitness (the other reason for the tight pants) and start getting in beach shape.

Let's see, what else... Oh - since I last wrote, Michigan got Duck-waxed by Oregon, then rebounded for 4 straight wins. Speaking of 4 straight, I'm the only 4-0 team in my Fantasy Football League. Double Nerd Alert!! Hey guys - remember how I won the league last year and how much of a fluke it was? Check yourselves before you wriggedy-wreck yourselves. Tommy Brady just hit for another TD pass...it's going to be a great Sunday.

And the big news? (drum roll please...)

We bought a new car! Gotcha, suckers. We leased it, actually. I say 'we' only in the sense that I was present for some signatures. Annie did all the work, since it is her need for new, shiny things with satellite radio and 3rd row seating that led to this decision. Nissan Pathfinder - gray, leather, loaded. Bu-bye to the Jetta, hello to extra space for soccer gear and trips to Costco (48-pack of TP? No problem.) Babe - we've finally made it! New TV, furniture, the car, and nearly unmanageable debt. We're so 21st century.