Southwest Airlines Community

In the past year or so, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading all of everyone's comments, and the dialogue has been great.  Sometimes, specific comments stand out, but at other times, the comments form a stream of consciousness.  No, I am not talking about William Faulkner or James Joyce, but here is a specific example of which I am talking.  If you have been reading the blog for any amount of time, you have probably noticed those catchy slogans with which Ding! boy (aka Joe Friedmann) almost always closes his blogs.  If you haven't noticed, here's a sampling-along with my "scholarly" narrative in parenthesis.  (The first one below is a complete version-I have deleted the "Ding! boy" from most of the rest): No messages to display. Stay tuned for new messages. Ding! boy Joe  (But, there are plenty more messages, see below.) As told to.  (Gee, sounds like a celebrity autobiography to me.) The total due exceeds the available balance. Please insert more money.  (Was this a sign next to a slot machine?) Now caffeine free (Since when did water have caffeine anyway?) Now with real fruit juices (As opposed to unreal juice?) Remove foil before microwaving (Well, duh!) Searching to find out who plants dandelions in my yard... (Rumor has it that this is being done by the grouch down the street from Joe.) I injured my endoplasmic reticulum today!   (Ouch, Ding! boy that must hurt.) A tradition in airplane dining experience for over 35 years!  (Aren't "airplane" and "dining experience" self-canceling phrases?) Blog boy says, "Smithers, get me some more candy corn."  (Egggggselent) The following program is intended for immature audiences only. Viewer indiscretion is ill advised.   (I never want to be ill advised, but I have been called immature before.) I go! You go! We all San Diego!  (So, where in the world is Carmen San Diego?) No postage necessary if mailed in the United States (How about if you mail it in Guam?) We plan-you plant.  (See dandelion reference above) Remove infant before folding stroller.  (So, that's how they work?) ½ block north of the current location (Are you on the east or west side of the road?) Outstanding in the field.  (Is this better than being out sitting in the field during a lightning storm?) And here are my two favorites, which are both references to the funniest movie ever made, Airplane:  Shirley, you can't be serious!  (I told you not to call me Shirley!) The white zone is for the immediate loading and unloading of passengers. There is no stopping in the red zone.  (I'm sorry, Joe, but I didn't hear that because I have a drinking problem.) And finally, Doing the "I'm famous dance" Ding! boy Joe  (After this post, you are famous Joe!) We salute your Fun-LUVing attitude, Ding! boy, and you make our lives a lot brighter with your "off-the-wall" signoffs.  Reading your comments is almost as much fun as reading the old Burma Shave roadside signs from when I was a little bloglett (borrowed from Ding! boy and his dingletts) riding in the car with Blog Dad and Blog Mom.  You've helped make Nuts About Southwest what it is today. ... View more

I know a lot of you share my fascination for new aircraft.  Although it's a bit too big for Southwest, the first 787 is nearing completion.  Click here for some neat photos in Boeing's blog, "Randy's Journals." ... View more

As Southwest Employees, we receive great travel benefits that include unlimited free standby travel anywhere on the Southwest system, but pass travel requires flexibility.  You can always be "bumped" by a revenue Customer (and rightly so), and this means you may not always get where you are going when you had planned.  That's why I jumped when I saw an outrageous DING! special of $99 roundtrip (plus fees and taxes) from Dallas to Philadelphia.  Of course, Philadelphia has so much to offer the visitor, but my wife and I like to go to more offbeat locales away from big cities, so Philly was our jumping off point. As David Evans mentioned in an earlier post, I am a train buff, in addition to being a total airplane geek.  Trains have always fascinated me, and maybe that's because I was born in the railroad town of Clovis, New Mexico.  Well, the state of Pennsylvania is heaven for a train buff like me.  We spent our first night in Lancaster, located in the lush rolling farmland that is the heart of the state's Amish communities.  It is quite common to share the road with one of the many Amish horse-drawn buggies, and the many Amish restaurants, like Good' N Plenty, serve wonderful home cooking, complete with the area's signature shoofly pie.  The Lancaster area also has two premier rail fan destinations in nearby Strasburg.  One is the Strasburg Railroad, which was founded in 1832 and still features daily train rides behind steam-powered locomotives.  The bookstore at the railroad has a huge inventory of railroad-related literature (my Visa card is still hurting). Across the street is the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, which along with the California State Railway Museum in Sacramento, is one of the best in the country.  Its artifacts are displayed with the proper interpretive viewpoint that helps the visitor place railroads in the context of their importance to our nation.  And oh those artifacts!  They include many steam locomotives, a Raymond Loewy-designed GG1 electric locomotive that ran on the electrified portion of the Pennsylvania Railroad between New York and Washington and between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, and a streamlined Pennsylvania E7 passenger diesel locomotive.  Many of the freight and passenger cars are open to the public, along with the locomotives. After we finished in Strasburg, we visited Reading, which is home to the Mid Atlantic Air Museum at the Reading Airport. Although many air museums are larger, Reading has two truly rare airliners from the 1950s.  One is an Eastern Airlines Martin 404, and the other is a turboprop-powered Vickers Viscount in Capital Airlines livery.  The museum also hosts a DC-3 in Navy markings, a World War II TBM Avenger torpedo bomber, and several other gems.  Another feature makes this museum unique is that you can walk right up to (and under) the aircraft. Our next destination was The Tunnel Inn bed and breakfast, which is in the small town of Gallitzin, just outside of Altoona.  Located in the mountains, Altoona is a classic railroad town, and the shops located there built many of the steam locomotives and cars used by the Pennsylvania Railroad.  The Tunnel Inn is in an old building that is just yards away from the Norfolk Southern's busy mainline.  (Norfolk Southern is the current owner of the line, originally built by the Pennsylvania Railroad, which later became part of Penn Central and then Conrail.)  It sits next to a set of tunnels, and a train passes by every 30 minutes on average.  The Inn has an outdoor viewing deck with a fireplace, and at night, there are floodlights that illuminate the tracks.  You can look down upon the engineers in the cabs of their locomotives and almost read the dials in the cab.  Because of the steep grade, manned helper locomotives are used on heavier trains.  The next morning, we visited Horseshoe Curve, a National Historic Landmark, which is located between Gallitzin and Altoona.  As the Pennsylvania Railroad was building west from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, it encountered a wide valley in the mountains outside of Altoona.  It would have been too expensive to bridge the gap, so the engineers who built the line curved the tracks up one side of the valley and out the other.  The National Park Service has a visitor's center and operates a funicular tramway up to the tracks.  Altoona is also home to the Railroaders Memorial Museum, which focuses on the men and women who built and run the nation's railroads. After the Altoona area, we hit the road toward Scranton and the Steamtown National Historic Site.  Steamtown is located in downtown Scranton on the former Lackawanna Railroad land that includes a restored roundhouse and other buildings.  Several of their big steam engines are kept in operating condition, and we saw one being prepared for an excursion the next day.  Several times a day, the park runs a shorter half-hour train ride that is operated either with a diesel or a steam locomotive.  Going to Steamtown is like stepping back in time to the 1940s. All too soon, we had to leave this rail fan's paradise and return to Philadelphia for our DING! flight home to Dallas (I checked in using my BlackBerry the day before our return flight) , but I plan to return to Gallitzin for several days of photographing the iron horses of Horseshoe Curve. ... View more

As you know, the Memorial Day Weekend traditionally marks the beginning of summer, and we have a lot of fun and relaxation on this weekend.  The SWA Blog Team hopes each of you has a great summer, and we will be taking Monday off--look for new posts on Tuesday.  (We will continue to moderate comments all weekend.)  However, during your upcoming celebrations, stop and think about the true meaning of the day, which is to honor those who in uniform who have given what Lincoln called "the last full measure of devotion."  It first began in 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate graves at Arlington Cemetary. No doubt, you know someone in uniform who is serving in harm's way.  For us, that includes our Coworkers, Francisco and his shipmates, relatives, and friends.  We thank them, and we wish for their safe return.  We would LUV to hear your Memorial Day memory or thought. ... View more

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has a brand-new business blog about aviation (Jim, here's another one to monitor), and you can click here for their post about some significant changes in the battle to raise the Pilot retirement age to 65. ... View more