Back To Training...

"I'm leaving on a jet plane,
don't know when I'll be back again..."

I don't know if any of you are fans of that TV show Airline (the reality show about Southwest, I think it's on TBS), but those opening words to its theme song were running through my head as I took my seat on their 6:50 to Denver this morning and started typing this post on my phone.

The flight was mostly empty (40 pax on a plane with room for 130!) and the flight crew was really friendly to me. I've never traveled on SWA before, so it was interesting to compare my observations against the popular image of them being a much friendlier airline than most. I think they've earned that rep for a reason; the cabin crew was really friendly (as an aside, I have to give props to United here, because their cabin crew was also so top-notch on my trip home on Friday night), when I ran into the FO at the entrance to the plane and asked him if I could go forward to speak to the captain (whose permission I have to obtain to ride on his ship), he not only eagerly said "yeah, go right ahead!," he also told me that the Captain's name was Mike! To top it all off, I have to say that I've never seen any other airline put a rocking chair at each of their gates. So yeah, I was pretty impressed with Southwest.


Right now, I'm sitting in a food court area of the Denver airport waiting for my sim partner to arrive on her flight from Milwaukee. When she gets here, we're going to go meet up with someone from the Sim facility who'll drive us up to Greely. Because I got in so late last night from Lafayette and had to get up so early for my flight, I decided not to cut into my 2 hours of sleep any further by eating before I left, so I just finished an EggMcMuffin meal. I have to say, it was pretty good, but I've realized that when I make them at home they turn out a lot better (though I've yet to make as tasty a hashbrown).

You know, like I was telling Rebecca last night when she called as I was driving back to Chicago, going home is really a two-edged sword (in this context, I'm referring to Purdue as home). On the one hand, it's awesome to be able to go back, surprise everyone (especially when you show up somewhere you really aren't expected, like on Earhart E6 or in someone's pantry), and spend a couple of days with them, but on the other hand, it makes being away a lot harder. After a while of being away, you kind of get used to not seeing everyone (that's not to say you stop missing them, in fact, you actually miss them more and more over time, but you adjust to not seeing them), but then when you actually see them it makes saying goodbye and mustering up the resolve to actually get in the carand drive about impossible.

After many hours of not typing anything, I'm now in Greeley on the way back to the Thai houses after picking up supplies at WalMart. The houses are pretty nice, but they don't have wifi, so if I want to use the net I have to use the old public computer in the living room or tether the lappy to my phone (works, but it's slow), so even if I somehow have time away from my studying to be online, I'll likely not be on AIM. I got a short nap in this afternoon, so I'm mostly functional, but I've gotten virtually no studying done and it's going to be hard to stay awake while working on that tonight.

Ok, that's enough for today. I'll try to attach a picture of the house to this post so you can see what it looks like (I'd post more pictures, especially from my time at Purdue, but I'm typing this out on my phone and don't foresee the time to do that in the near-term future. Goodnight from Greeley, I miss you guys!