Our Dumb Blog

The United States has 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s prisoners. This is an excellent article.

One of these days I’ll stop dreaming about work. It happens eventually.

I keep waking up and saying to myself, “Stop it! You’re not actually getting anything done!” Of course, with dreams, it’s all a little off, like I have to send off foreclosure notices in the proper way at the proper time, and apparently by karaoke. Or messenger balloon.

Last night I finally started dreaming about an old abandoned windmill along the Santa Fe Trail that NASA had augmented and was available for camping in.

Some researchers believe that dreams are our brains’ way of categorizing the information we gathered during the day. Maybe I won’t stop having these dreams until I know my job inside and out.

I hope it happens soon. I keep waking up feeling even more exhausted than when I went to bed. I’ve also had a week-long headache.

This morning I awoke surprised to find my jaw aching but without a migraine (usually the jaw ache triggers one). Also odd was that my jaw only hurt on my right side. I felt it and realized by lymph node was very swollen and was really tender to the touch.

It isn’t nearly as tender now. Maybe I’m fighting swine flu.

Maybe I’ll figure out what I’ve got tonight in my dreams.

In other news, when Berck finally gets laid off, he should qualify for three months of unemployment benefits. So we should be able to survive for a while.

I just got an e-mail from my employer that states they are furloughing another 250 pilots by January 2010. This would most certainly include me, though it’ll probably take them several months to get to me because of the amount of retraining that they’ll need to do.

The e-mail states they’ve done everything possible to reduce the number of pilots that they need to furlough, but this is obviously a load of crap. They state that they didn’t get enough response to their voluntarily time off without pay program, but I know MANY pilots who put in for that program and were denied. They could also spread the amount of flying around far better than they’re currently doing, but they claim they don’t want to do that because “it would cause the pilot group to complain.” Obviously, but we’re not going to complain about losing our jobs?

What a load of crap. With something insane like 10,000 airline pilots currently out of work, chances of my being able to find a job flying anything anywhere are not good.

I also have COMPLETELY FREE buddy passes available on Mesa flights only. And only Mesa flights operated as U.S. Airways. Which means flights to podunk towns from PHX and a few from CLT. You can look on the Mesa site at our route map, but it’s really old, and the only things the buddy passes are good for are the red lines. If you’re thinking about a flight to a podunk place out of CLT or PHX and want to know if Mesa does it, just punch it into U.S. Airways like you’re buying a ticket and it’ll tell you who the flight is operated by. If it says Mesa, you can ride for free if there’s an empty seat. If it says anything else (like PSA) you can’t.

The buddy passes are no longer good on United Express Mesa flights or Freedom flights.

(And, Sarah, I checked: Mesa does not go into Mobile, only PSA)

Before you get excited: don’t. I’m hesitant to even mention this for fear of a billion requests where I have to explain to each of you, individually, that this isn’t a good deal.

Here’s some sample fares:

PHX – ORD: $45.50
DEN – HNL: $115.59
IAD-KOA via LAX: $176.00
IAD – FRA (roundtrip): $370.40
*one-way unless otherwise indicated, including current applicable taxes

It’s per-mile. They’re available first-come, first-serve. They don’t fly to Mobile. Or Pensacola. They closest they get to Mobile is either New Orleans or Atlanta. They do fly to Seattle. And Denver. And Colorado Springs. And, you know, Casper, WY and Montrose, CO.

The United route map is available on the united website.

I do still have U.S. Airways buddy passes available, but I’m hesitant to give them out because they’re so stupidly overpriced, and all their planes seem packed. You could generally buy a guaranteed seat for about the same prices

A sample price:

MOB-SEA roundtrip (through CLT) is $196.40.
PHX-LGW roundtrip is $538.67

So, yeah, if you want overpriced standby travel on United or US Airways, let me know, and I’ll figure out if it’s possible. Standby means that you only get to go if there’s a seat available. So you’re probably better off buying a ticket. Or driving. Or swimming.

But if you’ve found out that U.S. Airways or United goes where you want to go, and compared the rough idea of the pricees to what a real ticket would cost and are still interested, send me an e-mail and I’ll look up the specific prices for you.