August 22, 2011

Aug 21, 2011 (Monday) - Well, back on the road again after a nice week and a half at home. Got to enjoy my daughter's 7th birthday party and her actual birthday. Got to sit home reserve yesterday and got the lawn mowed. Sitting here at the Columbia Regional Airport since I got approval from our Chief Pilot that if I'm pulled from my LAS trips, travel will MOEX me from STL back to COU. So, 4am the alarm goes off and now I am in the process of jump seating from COU to MEM then on to Vegas. Lots of seats open on this flight, but I may have to sit in the cockpit if the Airbus leaving MEM. It shows overbooked by 4 seats, so there's still a chance I could get a cabin seat. Best to grab either the first flight of the day or the last.
The reason for the change in departing airports was the hotel I was parking at in STL decided to start charging us for parking. I think it was $ 45 a month. That, along with 4 hours of driving gas became too expensive. I now can JS out of COU, free parking and only 30 min drive. Not to mention security is much easier.
On the aircraft now here in Columbia, MO (KCOU). Pinnacle Airlines, CRJ200. Looks like we are going to get out of here. Notice a line of thunderstorms moving in from the North.

MEM-After a smooth one hour flight, arrived here in MEM. Now to catch my LAS connection.

LAS- The flight out of Memphis to Las Vegas. I wasn't able to get a passenger seat in the back because the Delta flight was completely full. I was then given the jump seat. Both pilots were cool. Jay was the Captain and Jon the FO. Both are based in MEM on the Airbus 330. Flight to Vegas was aprox 3.5 hours long. We mostly just read the newspapers. For breakfast we had cereal and yogurt. Upon landing on 25L in Vegas, I checked my voice mail and it was the company wanting me to Tvl out of STL to Oman! Good thing I wasn't available for that call. They had decided to pull Jason T (another Omni FO) out of the hotel to cover the trip. So, here I now sit in my Fairfield hotel room on hotel Reserve.