Airtales...

I had a few interesting exchanges with some passengers last week.

1) I was standing at the closet behind first class and this passenger was seated in the first row of coach, right behind the closet. Above the first row of coach the overhead bin is full of medical equipment (oxygen, medical kit and AED) and no carry-ons can be stowed there.

Pax: (opening overhead bin) Ah, shit! Stupid medical equipment.

Me: It could save your life someday.

Pax: I doubt it.

Me: Well, we'll still try.

Pax; Don't bother.

Me (inside my head): Ok.

2) On that same flight, different passenger...

Me: What is your seat assignment, sir?

Pax: I'm in the first row of coach, there isn't any place to put my luggage there so I am putting it here. If your're going to get nasty about it, then I'll move it.

Me: Actually, I was asking your seat assignment so I knew what to write on the coat tag when I hang your jacket. Your welcome to leave your bag where you put it.

The passenger had stowed his bag in an overhead bin in first class. I hadn't even noticed, really, other than I thought he was sitting in first class. I suppose his reponse came from being told to do otherwise before, thought he would get away with it again, and didn't like being called on it. I just wanted to hang his jacket, and even though he was in coach, I still hung it. I never heard a, "Thank you."

3) Same day, different flight...

Pax 1: Excuse me, that's my space!

Pax 2: Oh, I'm sorry. I don't have any space in front of me so I thought I'd put it here.

Pax 1: You're welcome to put it there, just don't be moving my bag to do it.

Pax 2: I'm sorry.

Me to Pax 1: Ma'am, we all share the same space. Thank you for your understanding.

Me to Pax 2: You may place your bag there, or I can place it here if you'd like.

Pax 2: Thank you.

Pax 2 was carrying a very, very small cooler, about the size of a fanny pack. She was sitting in that first row of coach where there is no under seat stowage in front of the seat. She was placing the cooler under her seat, which the passenger (Pax 1) behind her thought belonged to her exclusively.

And people wonder why flight attendants are nasty at times. It's because all we deal with are nasty people all day. Honestly, sometimes people just get on in foul moods and take it out on everybody else. That particular day just happened to be loaded with them. Perhaps that was in part because it was a Monday.

The great debate...

The following is from a post to a message board I belong to that talks about the aviation industry. The question, "Are flight attendants under, over or adequately paid?" comes up quite regularly. Some people on the board have grand ideas flight attendants get paid lots to poor Cokes and stay in nice hotels at great locations. There are so many misnomers about flight attendants and the Hollywood glamorized lifestyle they lead that I felt compelled to respond. This is what I wrote:

I think those who are trying to use doctors and the training they go through as a reason why flight attendants are paid what they're paid simply don't get it. There are plenty of jobs out there that require the same amount of intelligence and skill as a flight attendant yet make six figures. Example: loan officers. There is training involved in any job, including working at McDonald's. You can't compare one to the other, but you do need to compare the responsibilities and the knowledge level necessary to fulfill those responsibilities.

I love how some like to think that just because we don't go through emergencies everyday we aren't entitled to more money, or even the money we currently earn. Crash landing and evacuating passengers has never earned a flight crew a bonus or increase in salary. Knowing exactly what to do when the situation arises does. I hope I never have to use my emergency and medical training, but just because I don't use it doesn't make the time it takes to learn it, become proficient in it and prepared to use it any less valuable. The fact that flight attendants can handle any number of responsibilities from hijackings, firefighting and attending heart attack victims makes them very valuable assets, especially if they save a passenger or prevent a plane crash because they were able to put the fire out in the lav. Doctors make their wage because they are trained and prepared to act to save someone's life. Their wage doesn't increase the moment they save their first patient. They are paid for the knowledge they have which allows them save someone's life.

How many doctors can classify a fire, chose the right type of agent to fight the fire and successfully put out the fire? How many lawyers can deliver a baby, save a heart attack victim or stabilize a broken tibia? Flight attendants aren't trained to the level of doctors and lawyers. I don't recall a flight attendant every saying they were. But flight attendants are highly trained, highly skilled professionals who are able to handle numerous threats from safety to fires to mechanical malfunction to stabilizing severely ill or dying passengers. The environment in which they work is isolated, cramped, fast moving and very fluid. They constantly have to be on their toes and ready to put on that lab jacket, turnout or (police) badge at a moments notice. Currently, we are being paid for what we do daily: customer service. We should be getting paid for the ability we have to adapt so quickly to fast changing and increasingly more difficult situations and the training it took to get us there.

Now, as far as hours go, I think more clarification is necessary. I just got into SABRE and pulled up a trip that leaves on Tuesday morning, and it returns Wednesday night. So it's what we call a two-day. The trip is worth 10.15 hours of pay, yet the actual on-duty time is 16.34 hours. The actual time away from home is a little over 37 hours. If you want to compare that to a "normal job," let's. Say I were to go to work for two days, I would likely get paid 16 hours, 8 hours/day. And, I would actually spend 16 hours at work, away from home. For the flight attendant on this trip, they're working the same 16 hours-plus, but are spending 21 more hours away from home and getting paid only 5 hours/day. I'm not complaining about they way our pay is determined (although I do think it could be better), I am simply using this argument to point out that non-flight attendants DO NOT work twice as many hours a month. We work them, and often times more, but are paid for much less. Here's the extreme: the minimum daily pay for a duty day is five hours. We can be actually be on duty for 16 hours, and on-duty means at work, not sitting at home on-call, and still only get paid five hours. So you might think the flight attendant only worked five hours, when in actuality they worked 16. That's a huge disparity.

This notion that flight attendants get great perks, bonuses, benefits and stay in nice hotels is a fantasy conjured up by Hollywood. True, I have flight benefits, but they're not all free, quite contrary. My wife and I rarely have time together to take a vacation, and since she is a teacher and I'm a flight attendant, we can rarely afford to take one. I use my benefits mostly to fly to see my parents, but for ten dollars more I can buy a ticket on Southwest and not worry about the hassle of traveling stand-by. The only bonus I've ever gotten in eight years was a profit sharing check worth $300. Who knows when I can expect another one of those? Nice hotels? I've always enjoyed staying at the Holiday Inn next to the prison in Newark. I think AAA rates it a five-star! Or is that five-bar, as in jail cell bars? I forget. And on top of that, the six or so hours I get to enjoy that Holiday Inn are simply magical.

Hey, I'm not using this thread to complain, only to compare the reality of flight attendant pay to the trumped up conclusions those without adequate understanding of the profession have made. I truly love my job, and am here as an accident as I wanted something fun to do after I left college and waited a year for my wife to get her degree before moving and marrying. I decided to stay not because of my inability to do something else (I'm also a pilot), but because I love the people I work with, I love the challenges my day to day job presents, and best of all, I love that I am not surrounded by four walls and a time-clock that whistles on eight-hour intervals.

Absence equals busy... really.

Since I last wrote, life has been a little hectic, but very fun. I am on reserve this month, meaning I'm on call, and it's generally a month I don't enjoy since it means more time away from home and a lot of time in St. Louis doing nothing. Toward the end of April I was diagnosed with an ear infection that I thought would keep me out about a week. I just returned to work on Saturday. Although it isn't any fun having an ear infection, the time off at home was nice (even though I had nearly a month off last month). I had training yesterday and today in Dallas and am now back in St. Louis.

Last Sunday, Dan, Rene and Rene's mom Micheline came to Vegas for a few days. It was a great time. We got to do a lot of fun things and spend some nice time together. Tuesday night Beth and I joined the three of them at New York New York to see Zumanity, the newest addition to the Cirque du Soleil production line-up. The show was FANTASTIC. Very different from all other Cirque du Soleil shows in that the human body and nudity were the main attractions on display. The best I've come up with to describe it is that the show is beautiful art in its most visceral form. The nudity was not gratuitous and really accentuated the beauty of the human body. Of course, this was all tied in with the typical aerial stunts, amazing dancing and fantastic music Cirque du Soleil has become so popular for. The show, as a whole, was very sensual. It explored the humorous side of our sexual nature, as well as the dark and deeply painful side. I HIGHLY recommend that you go see it. Tickets were $85.

We also spent some time hanging out atop the Eiffel Tower, which I hadn't done before, and also went to the top of the Stratosphere to have a look from over 1,110 feet above the Las Vegas Strip. It was fun hanging out in the cocktail lounge up their looking out over the city. Simply beautiful.

Rene and his mom went back to Reno on Wednesday, and Dan stayed until Thursday to help me out with the backyard. Kanako came over to help, too. Between the three of us, we finally finished the main porch off the back of the house. It has been such a project to clear the dirt, replace it with sand and level the whole thing just to get it ready for brick laying that I ran of the energy and motivation to actually lay the brick. And just as I had suspected, the brick was the easiest part of the whole thing. Now that that's done, I have renewed motivation to complete the rest of the yard.

As I mentioned in my last entry, I am currently on the South Beach Diet. I completed the most strict phase of the diet yesterday, but decided to stay on it until I get home and can move to Phase II on Friday. This will also help to facilitate another pound or two of weight loss. I have lost 9.5 pounds in 14 days, and would love to get a few more off before I go into the slower weight losing Phase II. Overall, through the diet and exercise I hope to be where I want by this time next year. If I can really stick to it, I should have no problem making it their by the end of this year. Motivation is the key.

My mom had LASIK surgery on Thursday and is reporting good results. Although she can now legally drive without glasses, which is amazing for someone whose had a Coke bottle prescription since her teens, the results aren't where they should be when she goes for her check-up this coming Friday. It is possible she could be a candidate for what they call an "enhancement" where they go in and reshape the cornea a little more. She said there has been absolutely no pain and very, very little discomfort, which was over in about a day. Now I can't wait to get mine done. Hopefully before the year is over.

I hope to have a day this week where crew schedule doesn't use me. My roommate Tim and I bought season passes to Six Flags and can't wait to use them. Fortunately, there is a park about 20 minutes from our apartment. I CAN'T wait to get there.

Carb counters...

I have, under direction of my doctor, begun the "South Beach Diet." Now, before you go nuts on me, let me explain. It isn't a fad diet like Atkins or Zone diets. It is truly sensible. The book actually teaches you how to eat the things you like, just in a more healthy and nutritionally beneficial way. It was created by Dr. Agatston, a cardiologist in Miami. It's his patients who actually named the diet the "South Beach Diet." Dr. Agatston and a nutritionist he knew through the hospital he practices at created the diet to help his cardiology patients lower their cholesterol, lose weight and in general improve their cardiovascular health.

I am in Phase One of the diet, which lasts for two weeks. This phase virtually eliminates all carbs so that your body can forget the bad habits it has created. Two weeks is also the amount of time studies show it takes to eliminate cravings. When I say virtually all carbs are removed, that means most, but not all. There is no bread, rice or pasta, not even fruit in this phase, but things like beans, which are high in dietary fiber and therefore carbs are permissible. I completed day four, of fourteen, today.

The diet touts that while on the restrictive first phase, you should lose somewhere between eight and fourteen pounds the first two weeks. This is the reason the Atkins diet is so popular... you lose a lot of weight quickly in the first two weeks. However, remaining virtually carb free for longer can prove to be unhealthy. In the past four days I've lost two pounds.

Here are some interesting things I've learned from the "South Beach Diet" book so far: if you eat a slice of white bread, you are better off to eat a teaspoon of table sugar. There is more sugar in beer than a slice of white bread. The sugar in beer comes from maltose. Natural peanut butter is good, JIF is bad. Only peanut butters where the oil separates from the peanut butter is good. This means it's all natural and hasn't had any bad fats or sugar added to it. Pizza is down, but not out. Opt for the thin-crust variety. Mozzarella is generally made with part skim-milk, making it one of the healthier cheeses out there. The tomatoes in the pizza sauce are rich in lycopene, thought to decrease the risk of cancer. Adding lots of fresh vegetables like bell peppers, mushrooms and onions will make it more filling, and also give you healthy carbs.

Whole wheat bread is not better than white bread. Whole GRAIN is. Generally, whole wheat bread is still made with refined flour. Refining strips the flour of it's beneficial fiber. Fiber helps slow the digestion of carbs, which in turn, slows the body's absorption of the sugar that results from those carbs. This gives you more time to burn it off before it goes unused and turns to fat. Unless you are referring to dairy or meet products, "low fat" is not necessarily better. When something is taken out, it has to be replaced. Generally, when fat is taken out, sugar is added in it's place. Fat is better than sugar. Especially those fats without trans fats, like olive, canola and peanut oils.

The All-American breakfast is in, but not the parts that you think. The bacon and eggs can stay, it's the toast, hashbrowns and orange juice that need to be eliminated. Bacon, when eaten in moderation, can actually provide your body with good cholesterol, as well as bad. Eggs are a fantastic source of natural vitamin E, and can also add good cholesterol. When drinking orange juice, you are taking the good out of the orange. True, oranges are a great source for vitamin C. But when you drink the orange, you are losing out on all the fiber the meat, or pulp, of the orange provides. This fiber helps slow the absorption of the fructose, or fruit sugar, the fruit contains as well. Fresh squeezed is better than what you'll find in a carton. Drinking a class of orange juice will result in your pancreas suddenly producing unhealthy amounts of insulin.

A weekend of entertainment...

Beth, Vivian and I went to see the Las Vegas Academy's performance of the "Laramie Project" on Friday night, only to arrive and find out the show was sold out. I couldn't be more happy for their drama program, but sad for us we were going to miss out. The Las Vegas Academy is a college prep high school here in Vegas that is not a normal school. You actually have to audition to get in and have very high grades. They specialize in theatre and international studies.

A Baptist church in Kansas got wind of the high school putting on the "Laramie Project" and sent a hate letter to the school, saying that everyone involved would go to hell. The "Laramie Project" is about Matthew Shepard, the gay student in Wyoming who was brutally beaten, tied to a post and left to die simply because he was gay. Thanks to that letter and the press is gained, the school had two sold out performances. The letter also called for people to boycott and protest during the performances, and when we were there Friday night, there wasn't a single protester. Take that you self-centered, self-loathing, bible-thumping fuckers! Had to get it out! There is a protest planned for Wednesday as well... we'll see how that one goes. Go get 'em! More info here.

Instead of seeing the play we went and saw the movie "Mean Girls." It was laugh out-loud funny, but what else would you expect from SNL's Tina Fey? I loved the movie, it was good, light-hearted fun. Before the movie there was a preview for the upcoming remake of the "Stepford Wives Club." Nicole Kidman plays one of the wives, although she doesn't think too highly of the snobbish group. Her reaction to the women in the club? "Did you see them? They're like a bunch of deranged flight attendants." Of course, I rolled with that comment. Now I can't wait to see it just to hear that comment again.

Last night Beth and I spent the evening at Vivian's with her aunt, great aunt and mom and dad for a little Mother's Day get together. Simple but fun. It was nice to see everyone.

Tonight I watched the Survivor's All Stars finale. I've not kept up much with the show, but started watching about four episodes ago and of course was roped in. During the final tribal council tonight some members of the jury had some scathing words for the two finalists. It hurt just to hear them, even though they weren't directed at me. I enjoyed the finale and was happy with the winner, Amber.

No rest for the weary...

I have enrolled in and started my summer semester, this time taking my final two core classes, Meteorolgy 1010 and Biology 1010. There was one other to take, PE-S 1300, but to my delight, I found out it is no longer required! Hooray for that. It was some stupid PE class, literally, was worth one credit only but should have been worth three. PE? In college? Give me a break! Hmm... guess they did. It is exciting to know that come fall, I will only have aviation courses left... most of which will directly be related to flying! Now that's my idea of college.

I am also waiting to hear back from my advisor so I can officially declare my major as Aviation Science. When you first enroll, you are placed in the Associate's program, and you have to make it to a certain point before you can be placed in the Bachelor's program. It is important for me to get that done now so I can get an accurate degree audit to know just exactly what I have left, and that way, I can plan an end to the college experience. I am hoping to finish by December 2005, but without that audit, I have no way of knowing.

MIA...

I was having some problems with Blogger publishing to my website, so I've been MIA these past two weeks while it got sorted out. But as promised before, I've kept the images coming to the Photo Blog. That damn thing is addictive. Let's see... where to begin?

The past two weeks have been ultra busy. I finished my school semester on Friday... that was a challenge and a half. The classes weren't hard, just a lot of work. After all, it's college, right? The week before that I worked my ass off, literally. I flew 20 flights in five days. All five days were in a row, and included 13 hours of duty time each day, and 8.5 hours of flying time each day. That was enough for an entire month. I am so thankful that is over... it was tough from the end of the third day. But then, I had the entire month before off, so I won't complain... I'll just hurt.

Some family friends of Beth were in town this weekend. Their son races Porsches with the Porsche Club of America (PCA). They were racing out at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. That was pretty fun to watch, although standing out in the near 100-degree heat was a bit much. The day before Beth and I met up with their daughter, also a close friends of Beth's growing up, for margaritas at Margaritaville on The Strip. It was my first time meeting her and her husband.

It was an eventful weekend, but leisure, too. It's nice to have the weight of school lifted. Yeah!

While in St. Louis my roommate Tim and I got season passes to Six Flags. We should have a blast with that! There is a Six Flags about 20 minutes from our apartment. I hope to also make it to Magic Mountain in SoCal this summer... that's such a great park. A dream of Tim and mine for the summer is to go to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. Cedar Point is THE premier amusement park in the country, with the most, fastest and tallest rollercoasters around.