Southwest Airlines Community

The Dallas Morning News recently started an aviation blog (welcome to the blogosphere), and I thought you might be interested in reading this recent post.  In addition to the 727s mentioned, we also flew a single 727 in 1978 that was leased from Braniff as part of a law suit settlement.  The lease period was to have been two years, but we returned the aircraft early.  The Airways Classics that I did on Southwest last year has an interview with Captain Mark Clayton who flew our 727s. The Morning News post also mentions the Lockheed Electras that Air Southwest (our original name) intended to operate, and here is the proposed livery:    ... View more

This just in--Nuts About Southwest blogger, Shelley Logan, has been selected as one of the Executive Office's two recipients of this year's President's Award.  The Awards are given to representatives in each department who are outstanding examples of Living the Southwest Way.  That sure describes Shelley!  Congratulations. ... View more

Part of the stuff that I had to move to my new office (see post below)  was the photo of the first Concorde on which I was lucky enough to fly in 1983.  (I made a second trip in June 2003, a couple of months before it was pulled from service.)  If you are an aviation geek like me, you might be interested in this web site about the most amazing airliner ever built. ... View more

Because our President, Colleen Barrett, is a big fan of Spencer Johnson's book Who Moved My Cheese, anytime we shuffle folks and offices, it's called "cheese moving."  Well, my cheese recently got moved--more specifically, my office, and it was painful.  I'm talking physical pain here folks, not mental pain because I LUV my new work group, and I still get to work with my old group-the best of both worlds. However, I am a certifiable packrat.  No way around it.  It pains me to throw things away, which in some respects is probably a good thing.  I am hoping to finance my retirement with the transportation memorabilia I have been collecting for over 40 years-not to mention all my childhood baseball cards.  However, I filled up one of those big giant plastic roll-around garbage cans with unused/unneeded files that I had kept in the thought that I would need them again.  Most of those pieces of paper remained undisturbed in their resting spots for almost a decade.  So, it was time to do some spring cleaning.  Of course, as I threw each piece of paper away, I kept thinking:  "I sure hope I don't need that in the future."  Okay, I guess that I am a file wimp. It wasn't the culling of my file cabinets that really disturbed me; it was having to move all my stuff.  I had about 60-70 pictures on the wall of my old office, and after I moved, I "only" have 52 displayed.  Taking the pictures down was no problem, even schlepping them down the hall to my new office wasn't too bad, but thanks to my Coworker, Jon Shubert, hanging them was.  You see, Jon is the one who oversees all the pictures in our building's hallways, and he conducts these "PhD" (Picture hanging Dude/Dudette) classes on the proper way to hang a picture.  Under Jon's method, you don't just hang a picture within a grouping, you intercalate (look it up) the location by using several "patented" tricks.  As a result, between the removing, schlepping, and intercalating, it took all day to move and rehang my pictures, not to mention boxing and moving my now-decimated files.  Since I am not getting any younger, I was one tired (old) puppy by the end of the day. So, here I am in my new home, with my walls looking nifty and with part of my furniture.  I'm still waiting on the file cabinet (I promise I won't let it get out of control again), bookcase, and chairs--I borrowed one in the meantime, and a lot of my stuff remains in boxes.  However, it is home, and I hope I don't see any more cheese that needs moving for awhile! ... View more

As a followup to Shelley's post below, here is a link to a Dallas Morning News story about another group of Southwest Employees giving back to the community.. ... View more