Southwest Airlines Flight Inventory

When flying Southwest Airlines you often find yourself wondering if the flight will be full or not. It is my understanding that WN CSR's are trained not to disclose this information at the gate. One interesting option is to call 1-866-792-7529, which is used by those flying space-available on southwest flights. It uses a combination of current booked seats and historical data to predict whether the flight will fill up. Not sure if I'll find it useful, but thought it was noteworthy.

Storytelling

I was riding with my mother in her Black Ford Torus along KY 223 heading into town from my parents’ house. She seemed to be particularly absent minded today. As we maneuvered through a set of tight, serial S-curves she had to jerk the car back into her lane to avoid an oncoming car.

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Everyone’s driving irritates me when I pay attention, so I was trying not to. As we rounded another curve and reached the top of a hill we were going to pass my elementary school on the left.


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The road unfolds down the hill to a bridge and then disappears behind trees around yet another curve. Just before the bridge there is an intersection with (don’t ask) KY 223. A silver guard rail lines the far edge of the perpendicular road.


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As we started down the hill the car seemed to accelerate and my mother turned to look at me. I really didn’t hear what she was saying because my eyes were frozen on the scene ahead. Suddenly things began to happen really slowly. The car drifted the left, crossing the oncoming lane and even edging into the shoulder. I couldn’t speak. We were headed for the middle of the section of guard rail to the left of the bridge. “Mom,” came out flat. “Mom?” Time sped up for an instant and we careened into it... and through it. And back to slow motion. I was suddenly weightless. The front of the car began to drift downward more than the back and suddenly I saw the creek below, but it was so far down. “My God in heaven.” I said in stunned disbelief. Or maybe I just thought it to myself. I braced my right hand on the door and my left on the dash as the ground was rushing up to meet us. “Okay, how can I prepare for this? What do I do?” And then suddenly a jerk and then black. I woke up with a physical jerk, vaguely unaware of where I was. The clock, set for 8:00 AM, read 7:37 AM. A dream? Yeah.

[I recently experienced an uptick in my leisure reading. I finished reading Twilight yesterday and I began When You Are Engulfed in Flames today. The experience has reminded me that I use to enjoy storytelling and that was what inspired me to begin blogging in the first place. ]

Street Parking and Street Sweeping

As I mentioned before, I loathe the idea of getting a parking ticket. To that end, I have been trying to familiarize myself with the local street sweeping schedule. I am a map person, for lack of a better description, and so I thought I'd create a visual representation of the data. Enjoy.


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Chicago Skyline

Andy and I did a walk through the section of Lincoln Park near us. I happened to take a picture of downtown from Montrose Harbor.

 

Chicago Pride Parade 2009

A few, mostly poor quality, pictures from Chicago's 2009 Pride Parade.

Pride Parade 2009