Up Up & Moving Away!

Well everyone, that time has come. The time has come to move my blog off WordPress.com and host it, myself.

Hosting this blog on my own allows me to control part of the monetary costs of keeping this blog up and running and gives me a little more creative freedom. WordPress.com charges me $15 a year for the domain name, but gives me no flexibility to use subdomains, change the email server settings, etc.. and then, charges me $10 a year to edit the colors and styles of the WordPress theme used on my blog, but doesn’t allow me to import any theme I’d like and only lets me use the ones they’ve already uploaded.

So, I’m moving! I’ve already got the new blog up and running but I’m waiting for the transfer of UpUpAndAGay.com to be complete. Please continue to visit the blog through that website address, because that’s NOT changing. Once the transfer of the domain to my new server is complete, you’ll automatically be viewing my new self-hosted blog. Though my domain is staying the same, for some of you my feed may not be and I want to make sure you’re moving with me. Please update or subscribe to my RSS feed by visiting http://feeds.feedburner.com/upupandagay. Some of you already subscribe to my feed through this location (and if you do, thats great! leave everything the same!), and some of you follow me through WordPress.com’s feed which will be changing. If you subscribe to the blog via email, that’s great too! Click the link above, and you can confirm that you’re receiving your emails from the right location.

I predict that the domain transfer will be complete on February 17th, but that is out of my hands and subject to change. I’m hoping this will be a seamless transition on your end and not cause any downtime for my blog!

Thanks Everyone!

Pushing the Button

You like to push our button. I know you do. You do it all the time. You push it for a drink, something to eat, to ask a question, to hand us your trash, and when somethings wrong. You push it when you want us to tell the parent sitting in front of you to ask their child to calm down and when you want us to wake up your neighbor so you can use the restroom.

Lately, I’m noticing the strangest requests coming from people via the button, and some requests that make me want to scream. First off, realize that when you ring the call button, nose goes. No one really wants to go get it. We’re all sitting in the back or the front, we hear the ding.. someone leans over to check the ACP (area call panel) which shows us who hit the button. We then all look at each, figure our if we’ve already had an interaction with you – then, based on whether or not it was a good or bad interaction we try to decide who goes. As the most junior person walks down the aisle (just kidding!) we’re all peeking out to see whats going to happen.

The request that makes me the most upset is when I’m asked a question that I just gave the answer to over the P.A. It becomes obvious to us, even though we already know, that you’re not listening to us. So we answer your question and go on our way. In about 2 minutes, someone else will ring the button, and ask the same question. We become a never-ending broken record of information, which could be avoided if everyone just paid attention the first time.

Then there are those requests that we just can’t do. We can’t ask the person behind you to put their shoes on, or the person in front of you to bring their seat upright because you feel cramped and we especially can’t stop the baby from crying. Nothing is worse than having to talk to the parent of a child that is being too loud especially if you know they’re trying to calm the baby down. I refuse to.

I have a question. When you hit the button, you expect one of us to come by and ask whats going on, right? Becauselately, almost all of the call buttons I’ve been answering either no one knows who rang the button, everyone is watching a movie with their earphones in and pays no attention to me what so ever, or they just say “sorry it was an accident.” For your information, you can turn off the call button by hitting it again. I find so rude though when I go up to a passenger whose wearing earphones and rang the call button. I ask them if everything is okay, and they yell “WHAT?” – so I ask again.. “can I get you anything?” and they say “I can’t hear you.” People take OFF your headphones when you’re having a conversation with someone, especially someone you asked to speak to.

Also, like I mentioned on The Crew Lounge, don’t ring your call button during taxi, takeoff or landing unless its a dire emergency. Ringing it during the critical phases of flight for a fork for the food you brought in the terminal, something to eat or even to question our flight departure/arrival time is unacceptable. During those phases of flight we are there for your safety, positioned by the doors and readily accessible to assist in a medical emergency, and for no other purpose.

I love answering the call buttons for “what lake is that down there?” – my answer is always “Lake Las Vegas.” Even though we might be over Kansas, no one ever questions it.

Oh yeah, and don’t ring your call button to hand me a half eaten apple or a dirty diaper. Get up and throw those out yourself. Ew.

Live from the Line: LAX it is!

Well, my wish came true! I’m here on Los Angeles and I’m supposed to deadhead to Washington DC tomorrow morning. I, personally, don’t think that’s going to happen. I can’t believe how much snow their expecting and how much they’ve had already. The weather this year has been crazy! California has been flooded, Phoenix learned what rain is, and the east coast redefined the word “winter.”

DC is expecting over a foot of snow tonight into tomorrow, and my flight is supposed to depart at 7am. I wish they’d just release me and let me go home. But at the same time, today provides for some much needed catchup time with my friend Jenn, who I’m flying with and my friend Aimee, who just landed here in LA from…DC. She was lucky, she was the first and only flight out!

Well.. I’ll keep you updated.. this trip is full of surprises.

Live from the Line: It’s all up in the Air

So I’m in Seattle right now and was supposed to work to Los Angeles and then onto Washington DC tomorrow. But, that’s not happening anymore.

Thanks to the storm on the left, my schedule is up in the air, literally. My LAX DC flight is canceled so now I’m waiting for a re-assignment.

Who knows where I can end up.. I’m hoping to just work to LA, layover, then deadhead to DC to pick up the rest of my trip. Let’s hope that happens. Less work + same pay = Happy FA

Worst Airline Ad Ever

Okay, so I saw this ad on TheFlyingPinto blog and I had to post it myself. Maybe they should have reversed the position of the airline logo and make the plane point upwards? ha!