I must be trippin'

It's been an interesting week or so.

My car is still inop...but as I type this, Mel is scoring the parts for me and it will hopefully be fixed by tonight. The peice of shit will FINALLY be paid off this coming week, but I'm gonna have to look into the possibility of having to get a new one. We'll see...having HORRIBLE credit isn't going to help me at all. :(

So yeah, non-rev'd all over the place the other day. 25 hours, 5 flights, 16 alcoholic drinks on said flights...a very interesting day. Routing of DFW-BWI-BOS-PHF-ATL-DFW.

I guess I should preface and say that I met a darlin' of an F/A a couple of weeks ago while covering someone's gate for them. She was scheduled to take one of our LAX flights out and I was a total smartass to her when they checked in. She was a smartass right back to me (something I'm inexplicably attracted to) and we kinda joked around about getting a beer when she came back to DFW that night. Well, I wasn't sure if she was joking, so I left her a note with my number for the gate agent to give to her when she returned to Dallas. She called...we hit it off over the course of her off days and the next thing I knew...I was on my way to PHF to hang out with her.

I caught a few snags on my trip. Non-rev travel is almost always space available standby. I was cleared through to Boston from DFW...but I got pulled when I got to BWI. I wasn't going to make the next flight to Boston, either...but I kissed a little butt while I was there and they got me to Boston. My flight from BOS-PHF was wicked delayed due to a fucking monsoon coming through BOS...so I wound up helping the gate agents in Boston with all the delay questions and helped them get a flight boarded. My F/A came in on a flight from PHL that turned around to PHF...so I finally got out of Boston and we were on our way to PHF.

The flight to PHF was possibly the best flight I've ever been on. The flight ahead of us for takeoff was an AerLingus A330...such an awesome takeoff. The clouds were really dark in the bay, but the sun was setting just below the cloudline and that made for a beautiful sunset over the waters. Tack on the hardcore thunderhead off the right wing for most of the flight, the continuous drinks, and the Texas Rangers game on the XM radio...oh yeah, and the cute flight attendant...it was the best flight ever.

We just hung out and had a good time in Virginia...I was catching the 0530 flight through ATL to get home in time for work at 1200 the next day. I got to the airport and they had 2 available seats on the flight. I was the number 3 standby. Grrrr. But, good luck came along in the form of an airstart. The ramp crew there was mostly new guys and airstarts in PHF are few and far between. None of them knew how to do one. I, however, DID. So I told them that I would airstart the plane if they gave me the last seat on the flight. It was a deal.

So, there I was, in my business casual clothes...hooking up an airstart and telling the captain to "spin one"...then running up the jetbridge and jumping in my seat. Good times.

I got back to Dallas at 0901 CST, started working at 0930. I was exhausted at the end of the day. My F/A and I haven't really talked much since then...I guess I scared her off or something. Oh well. She was really cute, though. But, then again...I'm just her layover buddy in Dallas. So I guess I'll hear form her soon enough...or whatever.

I'm on my day off today...I wanna go out tonight...but my car is still dead. Melinda is here working on it as I type this...but it's not being nice. The bolts to the u-joint yoke are tighter than...well...something that's air-fucking-tight. The airtools aren't even budging it. Hopefully it'll be up soon.

Well, back to handing her tools and watching her 5 year old.