Commuting

Back in Milwaukee, after recovering from my headcold (and Michelle's, which she brought back from Texas as usual). One of the things that causes stress for the commuter, and especially the commuting Fedex pilot, is deadheading to start a week of flying. Fedex allows you to go on a commercial carrier from home instead of from your domicile (Memphis, in my case). They will pay up to what it would cost for the same ticket from Memphis. Pilots, being the cheap people we are, usually manage to save the company money by scraping around for cheaper fares, and this is why the company allows us to "deviate" and commute from home instead of having to go to our domicile to start every trip. The caveat is that once you deviate, it's all on you to get to where you gotta be. Doesn't matter what the weather is, if there's an earthquake, tornado, whatever. I missed a trip for the one and only time back when Bailey was born b/c I couldn't get out of Albuquerque...I mean they shut down the airport for a record snow. The trip I was trying to get to Memphis for never even operated, but it still counted as a missed trip for me. If you're not in position by 9 hours prior to showtime for the live leg, you will have to go tap dance in front of the long table. So, in a situation like last night with weather moving into Milwaukee, there is alot of stress of wondering if you'll make it. I did make it, but not without being punished as usual. I'm really coming to dislike RJs. When I got to the gate last night at DFW, they were asking for 5 volunteers to get off the jet b/c weather issues in Milwaukee were forcing the flight to carry more gas (less payload...passengers...available). We loaded and sat at the gate for 30 minutes before they finally closed the door. I ended up next to half of a mother/daughter pair who were separated by several rows. The two seats in front of me were vacant, so I moved up to allow them to sit together. At the last minute, the airline recomputed and decided they could squeeze two more pax on, so I got displaced from the seat I had moved to. I told the daughter I would just take her seat, so I went back to find...my usual 300 pounder already occupying his seat and half of mine. Remember the scoliosis poster? No good deed goes unpunished.