I was just being bored and was thinking that I have too many SWU's to use for myself this year. Anyways, instead of just giving them away or trading them, I decided that I would like to hold a little competition here and give one away.
Anyways, the to enter the competition, anyone can submit to me at [email protected] either an essay, a diatribe or a personal narative of at least 1,000 words about why you like flying so much. You can write about anything related to this topic, such as what flying does for you and how you feel it has enchanced your life, etc.
You will need to submit this by email to me by February 24th, and the winner will be decided by myself and announced here on March 1st. I will post the winning piece and all the other submissions here at that time.
The winner will receive 1 SWU or 1 HK49, which will also be mailed out on that date.
I know we have a ton of great writers, seeing the quality of the posts here. Hope this will be fun for all of us!
Terence

[This message has been edited by tfung (edited 02-19-2001).]

I have a SWU to offer to anyone who will do my SHR project

Hmmm, suspiciously doesn't sound like the tfung I know Are you trying to get someone to do your homework? LOL <G>

*HighFlyah*

------------------
"To Fly High, Fly and STAY *UNITED* - that's the only way to do it."

hoemwork is due on 24th

And speaking of expiring systemwides on 3/31... I suggest that anyone attending the Catman Do in March in NYC bring any expiring certs that you have. Since you won't be able to use them by that time, you might as well give them away. (And NO...I'm not flying during that period...but somebody will). Don't orphan those Systemwides. Give them to a flyertalker at the Catman Do.

Regards and see you all in NY.
By the way, all Brooklyn tour attendees please send SW as payment for the Brooklyn tour van rental.

Dan

If it is homework, is that considered bartering?

Nope, I had an english assignment that was a essay on a hobby, and I chose to write it on flying... handed in already, but I'm curious as to what other people would say on the topic.

hehehe... I hope I don't have class on the 24th.. it's a saturday..

Actually, I am using my last 3 SWU for DFW-LAX flights next month.. I was going to wait and see if I can fly interationally.. but they are good as the North American Upgrades.. so here I go!

Wish it was longer, but hey, it still works

Well, I guess this competition really didn't get as much support as I wanted it to. Only got 2 submissions, and only 1 of them met the requirements... so I guess it's quite obvious who won... Both were great though... Email has been sent out to the winner already... and below I've posted the 2 submissions. Congrats!

Why I like flying - Roberta D'Alois

I actually don't like flying. it scares me. I obsess about all the things that could go wrong - what if this pilot finished LAST In his class? What if his wife just left him? What if the head mechanic took a day off and his replacement today isn't as familiar with the aircraft and misses something big??

And what will it be like if we DO Crash? WIll I turn to my husband and say "honey, I really only loved only you?" Or. "honey I forgot to feed the cats" and that'll be my last words on earth?

The service doesn't help. As I'm not a IK or 2K or any kind of K, I sit in the middle of the plane and they're always out of the chicken when they get to me. The flight attendants don't seem happy to see me. And they don't smile when I do - in greeting or in passing - and they never replace my broken headset even when I ask nicely.


But I like to GO places - I love arriving, seeing new cities, experiencing weather patterns I don't get to in SunnyCalifornia. I've ridden dog sleds, parasailed, ridden in a chopper over the NaPali Coast, and met people from all over the world who are still my friends today. And I' ve had the chance to comfort ill friends and family, see my newborn niece, hold my mother's hand when she was hospitalized, and take my brother to a Broadway play which he had never done.

So I put up with the sweaty palms, the vague nausea, the airplane lasagna and scratchy sounding movies. I am who I am partly because of al the places I've been and I wouldn't trade my life for anyone's. I've conquered some big-time fears and I feel proud.

Born To Fly
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I was born in a travel loving family. My father owns his own business in the San Francisco Bay Area, and often travel for sales calls, conventions, product reviews, etc. Since he deals a lot with international partners and suppliers, he occassionally receives invitations from prospective vendors to take his entire family travelling to their countries with free accomodations included. Such countries has included Japan, Taiwan,
Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. Therefore when I was younger (and unfortunately too young to understand the concept of frequent flier program), I was able to log a few thousand miles almost every summer. Alas all I was left with were souvenirs from whichever country I visited and boarding pass stubs to show my friends when school was back in session. Not a single mile recorded, since my father had never signed me up for frequent flier programs. Of course, he did not have a specific allegiance
to a single airline.

As time goes by, we have travelled to exotic places I had never heard of, places I would never have thought about going. Being a small child, I was simply in for the ride, very much pleased with the notion of getting out
of the house for a few days. I had always been fascinated about flying, wanting to become a pilot one day, and had started reading books about commercial aircrafts and learned the names of each aircraft components. I dreamt about taking a Boeing 747-200 (which at that time was THE state of
the art) for a ride, imagining the roar of all four engines during takeoff and the loud thump of the gears when they hit the ground on landing. I took a tour of a cockpit and asked a lot of questions to the pilot, to the
dismay of my father as I was getting too chatty.

Soon, I was ready to travel alone. My first solo trip was to Hunterdon County in New Jersey to stay with a friend of my mother for one month during summer break. This was during my junior year in high school. I have
read quite a bit more about travel, excited about being away from my parents and planned to take advantage of every single minute I spent in a different state. I remembered flying on Delta non-stop from San Francisco
to Newark, which was a relatively pleasant flight, given the fact I was in the middle seat for a good 4-5 hours. I remembered a business traveller next to me opened up his notepad and started writing what looked like a peculiar calculation. As a math enthusiast, I asked him what it was and he said he was recording the number of miles he would get from the flight and how much he needed to accrue before having enough to fly his wife and two kids to Europe. For a good one hour or so, I received my first lesson of what frequent flier programs are all about and how useful they can be.

When I finally went to college, my father had stopped asking us to go on all these trips with him. While I missed travelling with them (nothing beats an all expense paid trip with parents!) I realized I had to start venturing on my own. I remembered spending some time in the local library reading up on travel journals and getting information about airlines and their frequent flier programs. Delta was the first I called, back before
they launched the Skymiles program. United was the second airline I contacted. I was excited about receiving my own flashy frequent flier cards, just like the business traveller showed me on my way to Jersey (I
can't remember whether he was a Silver or Gold).

During my sophomore year, I went through some tough times. I lost my part time job and my parents were not very giving financially due to tough times they experienced themselves. For a good 2 years, I had to give up air travelling altogether due to cost and had to do it the long way: driving. I had to forget about my newly found love for frequent flier
miles. I vowed to come back to it when time and money permits. Fortunately I did not have to wait long as I got my job back and started saving hard for these dream travel plans I have made. My first girlfriend was going to
school in North Dakota. I remembered it as an opportunity for me to see that part of the country and to actually start accruing miles into my Mileage Plus account! Fortunately she did not have to stay there very long, as her parents decided to move her to upstate New York. I was getting worried about paying the $600 airfare to see her during breaks. At
the same time, my parents who approved of our relationship were able to help out with the airfares to and from Albany, NY, which was surprisingly a lot cheaper than flying to and from Fargo, ND. Needless to say, the
relationship finally crumbled due to long absence and lack of communication. I continued on to finish my senior year and graduate.

My first job out of college was as an Associate Consultant for a Canadian-based System Integration firm. I knew that I wanted to do some travelling for work, but had a hard time getting into the Big Five consulting firms, which I had thought would provide me with the most opportunity to travel to places I have never been. Of course as a junior guy, I did not have the say as to where or when I want to travel to and it all depends on where the resources are needed. Thanks to my mentor, I finally landed my first "gig", my first business travel! While
Tallahassee, FL does not sound like such an elegant place, I gratefully took it. Using my knowledge on airlines and where their hubs are around the country, I decided that Delta was the most viable option. Soon, I was
logging miles from San Francisco to Atlanta, to Tallahassee and back, every single week for the next 3 months. I was almost instantly a Silver member, but then I still travel the hard way and did not have a clue on how to get myself on the front of the plane. This was until I saw my supervisor sitting happily in First while I was in the middle seat of the dreaded 767. That was when he taught me "the game" we all know and swears by: The Game of Upgrade. He taught me how to get on the waiting list, how to "smooch" the gate agent and how I should wait in the gate area instead of rushing towards the plane when boarding is called. Remember, there were
no tools available back then to check for available upgrade seats on the Web; all of our bookings were done over the phone through the company travel agency.

The travelling with the company continued on to many "exciting" places. Omaha NE, Jackson MS, Mobile, AL, White Plains NY, and finally, Denver, CO. I knew United owns the new Denver International Airport and that flying Delta would be inefficient, since a stop has to be made in Salt Lake City. For the first time in a few years, my United Mileage Plus account was being well-fed again. A co-worker was nice enough to hand me a couple of 500-mile upgrade coupons he couldn't use, and I took the opportunity to experience my first ever UnitedFirst seat from Oakland to Denver. That was when I got a chance to really compare the service on Delta and United. Given the comparable luxury I experienced in both
airlines, I began to learn the system a bit more, using my knowledge on plane sizes and schedule to approximate my upgrading chance even on dirt cheap weekend getaway tickets. That was, of course, until Delta announced
they would stop upgrading dirt cheap tickets a couple of years later.

By that time, I was already hooked on flying. I looked for excuses to fly, even though it's to Los Angeles, which is easily driving distance from San Francisco. I looked for excuses to fly to places where Delta or United flew to and I came to know the route maps by heart. Because of Delta new
stringent upgrade policy, I decided to part ways with them and went exclusively with United. My first Premier experience with United was after a trip to Singapore by myself to visit a cousin who had moved there for a job. That was also my first experience upgrading with miles I had accrued from my commute to Denver. Looking at how easy it was to log 16,888 miles (I even know the exact number of miles!) plus a few thousand miles in Premier bonus, I simply could not resist requalifying years after years, seeking for the extra perks of sitting on a nicer and comfier chair in the sky. For the next few years I continued to make the minimum qualification, looking for excuses to fly to Singapore, or to Denver to visit a few friends I had made during my 5 month assignment.

In 1998 I decided to make yet another life decision. I decided to quit my job, wanting a bit more excitement in my professional career and joined a start up software firm. I knew I wouldn't be travelling as much as I used
to and assumed that all the hard earned miles would be defunct as soon as I stop flying for awhile. Since then I had tried taking long weekends or long vacations to various places throughout the country and having fun
playing "the game" along the way. While I know I would never become a pilot due to bad eyesight and other medical problems, this is the closest I will ever be to fly.

many thanks for the competition tfung - and also sincere thanks to the two contributors - it was/is interested reading for me.

I myself would only 'dare' to write/post stories (and trip-reports) in swiss german - sorry.

Hey Rudi,
should have told you.. I can read and speak german... hehe.. maybe not swiss german, but they're similar anyways.. =P
Terence