I guess I need to spend more time in Texas... (from dallasnews.com)

Police and firefighters were called to the University of Texas' Jester Hall to free 26 cheerleaders who had crammed themselves into an elevator.

A group of 14- to 17-year-olds attending Texas Cheer Camp in Austin decided to see how many girls they could squeeze into the elevator around 6 p.m. Tuesday, campus police said.

The elevator successfully descended from the fourth floor to the first, but the doors refused to open.

The panicked girls managed to wiggle a few cell phones free to call for help. But it took about 25 minutes before a repairman was able to fix the door, police said.

"It's dangerous actually," said Rhonda Weldon, director of communications for the UT Police Department. "They're lucky that that's all that happened."

One teen fainted and was treated and released from a nearby hospital. Two others were treated at the scene.

"Take the sign seriously," Ms. Weldon said. "There are signs everywhere: No more than 15 people or 3,000 pounds."

Deadspin called cheerleaders from Texas "the Cincinnati Bengals of the high school sports community" :D :o :cool:

Just to clairfy... they are on the OTHER end of the Great State of Ohio. We in Cleveland just have the hapless Browns.

As one sportscaster in Cleveland said recently when discussing Brady Quinn ... "What do we really know about Brady? All we really know is that he looks good without a shirt on." ;)

'Nuf said.

Um, is it just me or are those seats not practically identical (minus the zebra pattern seat covers) to CO's domestic F seats? Seriously, change the gray plastic to navy blue and the tacky striped seat cover to navy blue leather and you've got CO's domestic F seat. Those seats even have the same metal covers on the ends of the armrests (although CO's don't have the ashtrays), and the same storage compartment under the armrest, and the same pull out mini-table that comes out of the armrest to put a drink on.

Our vacation plans for 2009 are starting to take shape. We'd talked about South America, since neither of us has ever been there. I started doing some checking for business/BusinessFirst award travel to the region for spring 2009 and am coming up with decent options. Right now it's looking like we want to spend some time in Peru and do Machu Picchu, as well as hit Chile and Argentina. And a trip out to Easter Island for a couple of days is in the works as well (LAN flies a few SCL-IPC 763 flights every week). So this two week trip could very well add at least three new countries, three or four new airlines, and a handful of new routes to my map.

Yes, but CO places its seats on boring, modern aircraft that are likely to get you to your destination on-time, and in one piece. :rolleyes:

Quite true.

Have you researched what the OneWorld redemption rates are for U.S. or Mexico to IPC on LA? If you know what they are offhand, I would be interested in finding out, as IPC sounds like an intriguing CC Trade opportunity.

Fantastic. Anytime anyone asks why I give up my Friday nights to volunteer for EMS shifts can be referred to this post. ^

In other news, a note to all women out there: if you get in a traffic accident, there will be a 90% chance you will not be wearing underwear that day. And you will be so preoccupied with this fact that you'll fail to realize your tibula is making an appearance :o

In even more other news, I just interviewed a candidate. At the beginning of the interview I offered them water or something to drink and they said "water would be great." So I shuffled off, and got them a glass of water. They then proceeded to take a coffee stirrer (we have a coffee station in the room), put it in the water, and drink the water out of the coffee stirrer during the interview.

I don't care how intelligent you are, you look like a fool drinking water through a coffee stirrer.

Needless to say, this person wasn't intelligent. It took a lot of restraint to not ask them if they were sure they had everything when they were getting up to leave. Notepad, portfolio, business cards, HELMET.

:rolleyes:

Not yet, but it's on my list of things to do. We've been tossing around South America as a trip next spring for months now, but this morning we were both bored at work and I started looking at the award availability on CO/SkyTeam. That's when the Easter Island idea came up. A quick search reveals SCL-IPC running over $700 US per person roundtrip in Y for next April/May, so it's not cheap. But we may just buy those tickets since we can easily redeem miles for the ATL-LIM and EZE-ATL flights we're looking at. We also should be able to get hotels on points in the major cities as well.

Hey, ALCO
 

Not to go too OT (okay, I'm too lazy to switch fourms...) but I love your trip report on IAH-FRA-OSL-SVO etc. Pics are great. I too love LH FC. And the FCT too. I am a big CO fan, but when I did my RTW trip a couple of years ago it was *A all the way. While SQ was definitely the highlight (especially LHR-SIN), the overall LH experience was a reasonably close second - and well above UA, Thai, and BMI.

That being said, please finish! I am really enjoying it to this point.

I have been on the phone for the last 1+ hours trying to book an international reward, and have encountered nothing but total incompetence from the three agents with whom I have spoken (currently on the fourth). It's definitely a record in my experiences with CO.

Hmmm... LA is showing J reward availability x2 for flights into SCL around New Year's. @:-)

I haven't forgotten about it. The next installment will be somewhat time intensive, so I need a few quiet hours to cobble it together. Those have been few and far between lately.

Glad you have enjoyed the report so far.

Is a "tibula" when both of them come out to play? :D

And re: candidate, that's um, awful.