Monthly Archives: October 2008

Random Facts for Oct

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More random facts about me:

  1. Coworkers and family members often assume that I know more about computers than I really do. I try to set the bar low, but it doesn’t work.
  2. My senior year classmates voted me Most Likely to Win the Nobel Peace Prize.
  3. Also during senior year, I competed in a prom fundraiser called the Ugly Man Pageant as “Adrianna Box”. The pageant consisted of evening gown, talent, and Q&A competitions. They wisely chose to skip the swimsuit competition. My talent was singing “Young Hearts Run Free” from Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet film, complete with dance moves. I wore a little blue dress. Unfortunately I didn’t win. Top prize went to a state champion wrestler who wore a backless leopard-print leotard.
  4. I continued Trick-or-Treating through high school. One year my friend and I went as Beavis and Butt-Head. Obviously I was Butt-head.
  5. Oct 23 is my 30th birthday. My dad was 30 when I was born. Assuming we live long enough and Brenden graduates, I will be at least 48 when he finishes high school.
  6. I have gone skinny-dipping. It was fun.
  7. My musical taste is extremely eclectic. My CD collection includes Metallica, Acappella, Kenny G, Sarah McLachlan, U2, Kenny Rogers, Mozart, Josh Groban, and Pink Floyd.
  8. Over my lifetime, I have kissed a total of 6 different girls.
  9. When I see people throw cigarette butts out their car windows, I am tempted to pick them up and throw them back in. So far I have resisted.
  10. I attended President Clinton’s second inauguration in January 1997 through a great program called Presidential Classroom . I had voted for Bob Dole, but it was still a great experience.

Southwest Posts a Loss…and a Profit

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You might have read some confusing news about Southwest’s earnings report today. Depending on which article you read, the headline might say we posted a loss or that we posted a profit. Both are correct in their own way. From an accounting perspective, we technically posted a loss due to a one-time charge of $247 million related to our fuel hedging. In a nutshell, we have a group of contracts to buy oil at certain prices on a variety of future dates. We carry that portfolio of contracts on our books as an asset. Each quarter the value of that portfolio goes up and down with the current price of oil, and our income statement has to reflect that change. This is known as mark-to-market accounting. In the 2nd quarter, since oil rose so much, we reported a huge gain because our hedging portfolio became more valuable. In the 3rd quarter, oil dropped sharply, so we recorded a hefty charge.

From actually operating the airline, we posted a small profit thanks to the benefits of our settled fuel hedges. Unfortunately, the charge from our future hedges’ drop in value was more than the profit we made from flying customers and cargo around, so we posted a loss for the quarter. Clear as mud? The New York Times posted a helpful article on the topic that might explain it better.

I know many of you aren’t that interested in SWA’s accounting practices. But there’s a lot of confusion out there regarding our hedging program, so I wanted to clarify it a bit.

Save Yourself from Drunk Emailing

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Apparently Google Mail has a feature that tries to prevent users from drunk emailing, which (for those of you who don’t do that sort of thing) is similar to drunk dialing (calling people while drunk and saying things you’ll regret later but maybe not remember). Google’s service kicks on during the late night hours and forces you to perform arithmetic before sending an email. Presumably if you’re too drunk to send a legitimate email, you’re also too drunk to do the math correctly. I thought this was both hilarious and potentially very helpful for some folks. A reporter for Time decided to test this new feature and wrote a very funny account of her experiment.

Posted in Fun

The End Approaches…

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Wednesday night McCain and Obama debated for the third and final time before the election. I thought this was the most entertaining of the three. The moderator did an excellent job of asking tough questions and then forcing the candidates to answer them instead of dancing around like they normally do. By now most voters have made up their minds. Election Day is November 4, less than 3 weeks away. Early voting in Texas starts Monday, Oct 20. Obviously I want my candidate to win, but either way, I’ll be glad when it’s over.

Something frustrates me about this election: because of our two-party political system and the archaic electoral college, a handful of states really matter for each presidential election only. CNN has a great website that shows how each state lines up based on the current polls. The Republicans could run Mickey Mouse for President, and Texas and Utah would vote red, sending ALL of their electoral votes to Mickey regardless of the popular vote in those states. The Democrats could run Homer Simpson, and New York and California will vote blue, sending ALL their electoral votes to Homer. All but a few states use the winner-take-all approach, which makes campaigning in, or even worrying about the concerns of, the out-of-reach states a waste of time and money once the primaries are through. I have never read a good justification for either of these terrible systems. However, since the current lawmakers benefit from the two-party system and possibly from the electoral college as well, I doubt either system will change any time soon.

Hello, I’m a Mac

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For much of my life, I have viewed Mac users as a fringe group – slightly militant, extremely loyal, possibly weird. They loved their weird little computers even though they were a tiny minority in a world dominated by Gates & Company. Although I used Macs in school a bit, my home computer was always a PC. I was used to them. Software was easy to find. New PCs were easy to find and offered a huge, ever-changing variety of features. Sure, they didn’t always behave correctly, and they had various annoying little quirks, but I could usually figure out how to make them comply.

Over the last year or two, I’ve begun to question my loyalty to PCs. Mac popularity is growing. More and more of my friends use and adore Macs. I now own stock in Apple. My home PC has some minor issues that shouldn’t exist, and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of Word. I hear bad rumors about Vista.

It’s time to make the switch – not only to a Mac, but to a Mac notebook that I can carry with me to work, on vacation, into my living room, to church, to the coffee shop, or nearly any other place I want to carry it. After months of speculation and rumor, Apple finally released a new line of notebook computers on Tuesday. Thanks to my October birthday and my generous family, I have some extra cash set aside for this purpose. I think I know which model I want, but I’m going to wait a few days and play with them at the Apple Store first. I hope to see you there!

Posted in Fun

New Gig Update

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Sunday morning I wrapped my first three official days as a trainer at work. My trainee was a great guy who came from AirTran’s dispatch office. He knows his stuff, has a good attitude, and is eager to learn, all of which make my job much easier. He seems like an excellent addition to our office.

The training experience reminded me of my early days in the office, which seem like such a long time ago even though less than 4 years have passed. I was much less confident than my trainee since I had never dispatched before. I was terrified when the phone rang and I had to answer it. I pored over my airport notes and diagrams and NOTAMs and forecasts, afraid that I would miss something. Despite my fear, it was so exciting to be working a real desk with real flights after working so hard to get there. It’s both a bit scary and very satisfying to become the guy on the other side, trying to help out the next class of dispatchers, teach them as much as possible, and give them confidence that they can use our software and policies to handle any situation that might arise.