Gee, I never got around to posting one of these. For those who are interested, I'll keep it brief...

I'm 39 years old and live in the Seattle area, where I'm a creative director for a Web technology firm. My job is basically to come up with interesting and strategically useful ways to apply interactive tools. My biggest recent project was the design of an interactive VIP visitors-center environment for a telecom firm in the New York/New Jersey area, hence numerous SEA-EWR runs and Gold status on Continental.

I'm married with one son, aged five, who in my care has become a well-behaved veteran flyer. He can conceive of no higher excitement than a transatlantic overnight run in a British Airways Economy window seat. I, of course, have him beat: I can conceive of First. Give him a few years.

My first flight was on a QANTAS 707 from Idlewild to London Heathrow; I was not quite two years old. Since then I have logged about one million miles, averaging 80-100k per annum at present.

My most memorable flight came thanks to my prior life as a producer for a network TV news division, before this interactive stuff made life more interesting. I was travelling around Europe "with President Bush" -- more accurately, aboard the White House Press Charter, which was a clapped-out Pan Am 747-100 that followed Air Force One everywhere. No rules aboard the press charter: nobody really buckled up for takeoff or landing, food and drink flew everywhere, and one of the big sports was for two people to skate down the twin aisles during takeoff on seatback emergency cards in their stocking feet. They'd slam into the rear galleys at quite astonishing speed. Anyway, on one trip we shot an approach into Heathrow at dusk, flying west up the Thames toward the setting sun, and I stood between the pilot and first officer the whole way with ATC headphones on my head and a Pan Am glass full of Scotch in my hand. That was fun.

I have never been in a remotely dangerous situation on a commercial flight, I don't think, although I was on a CO 757 last year that was struck by lightning. I did walk away from a Cessna 152 wreck once. We landed in a mud field and totaled the plane, no harm done to us.

I've been signed up for FF programs since 1991 or so. Oh, the years that went by with me tossing the applications aside because "I'll never do anything with miles anyway"! That was before I knew Randy P.! Anyway, I have been elite with AA, NW and CO and now accumulate most of my miles on the OnePass, BA, and DL programs. My traffic patterns shift as I move from one client/geography to another... I like CO best in the States, but I don't know if I'll be able to keep my OnePass Elite tags now that the New Jersey job is over! I like the BA Exec Club USA because I can dump my domestic AA, AS, and HP miles in there, the FirstUSA Platinum Visa is a good product, and the Household Account feature is great -- we have relatives in England and the family vacation awards rack up more quickly that way.

I've never had significant trouble scoring award travel -- managed it on BA at the height of summer, on DL, QQ, AA, NW, UA... you name it. I don't know what the complaining is about. A wee bit of flexibility and there you are. I"m sending my wife off to SYD this spring in F on QF to see relations, courtesy OnePass. I haven't been on QF myself since toilet training, but I understand it's very nice!

My biggest business travel challenge is to remember that despite the mechanicals and the delays and the flaring tempers and the rotten food and the sheer exhaustion of it all, when the wings catch the air and the nose tilts up and the airport terminal gets smaller below you, dammit, it really is magic, even now, isn't it?

[This message has been edited by BearX220 (edited 01-11-2000).]