Monthly Archives for December 2007

Darn you, Wisconsin Fog! (Or Why I hate Midwest Airlines)

Matt and I will not be flying Midwest Airlines again. We were supposed to fly from LA or Orlando on Friday, with an hour layover in Milwaukee. We looked forward to a week spent with family in my hometown. On our way from LA to Milwaukee, a dense fog rolled in so we were unable to land there.  We landed in Madison instead and about three hours later boarded a bus from Madison to Milwaukee.  We don’t blame Midwest for the fog but they royally screwed up their response.

Strike one: Midwest didn’t bother to send any of its employees to meet us in Madison. Our only assistance was provided by a woman who’s usual job is working on the runway (probably dealing with baggage).

We were lucky; we got a free hotel room in Milwaukee. Most just got a “Distressed Passenger” rate. We ordered a pizza and tried to make the best of being 2,000 miles away from our destination.

Strike Two: No preparations were made for those who would need hotels. Sure, they’re not legally required to do anything if a flight is canceled due to weather but there was great inconsistency in who was given hotels free versus discounted.

When we woke up Saturday morning, the fog was still around. But we were hopeful and headed over to the airport. Around one Matt checked the flight status board to read “Canceled.” We waited in line for over an hour to get a rescheduled flight.

Strike Three: Despite the fact most flights were canceled, Midwest still checked in people for their flights and provided no means of informing those waiting in line of rescheduling efforts.

We managed to get another free hotel room and a whopping twenty dollars of meal vouchers. We watched lots of bad TV and played online and hoped/prayed the storm rolling through Wisconsin wouldn’t come our way. There was still a Dense Fog Advisory when we went to sleep but by morning the only weather issues were strong winds and a light dusting of snow. We FINALLY made it to Orlando Sunday night, two days later than we’d expected.

They may have discounted prices, larger airplane seats, and provide you warm chocolate chip cookies mid-flight, but their horrible handling of weather-related flight cancellations was simply not acceptable. Next time we’re playing the little extra to fly Jet Blue direct from Long Beach to Fort Lauderdale or Orlando.

FO: Danica

Note: This post isn’t new, so don’t get all excited that I’m finally writing up some long-finished FOs. I’m just moving all of my knitting project details from pages to posts. A few ones like this may pop up every now and then.

Entrelac terrified me. To me, it was something really great knitters like Susan and Skylar did. Not me, a lowly beginner. Then I got bored one afternoon and decided I’d start it, thinking I’d quickly fail and frog it all. Four week later it’s done and I’m really happy with the result. I quickly had to teach myself the best method for picking up stitches on both the right and wrong sides of the fabric. You can actually tell looking at the finished piece which was done first; the really loose borders between color changes are at the beginning. Part of me is tempted to pass this along to someone who will wear it far more often than me but I’m far too proud for that. I’ve already got plans to make another, maybe for a friend.

004: show-off

danica-closeup

All the details are here on Rav.

Why I Frogged

This evening I frogged the progress I’d made on the shawl for my mom. I knew long ago that my decision to use a size 3 needle made no sense for that yarn. Sure, it looked okay but it didn’t look nearly as beautiful as the designer intended. It looked so odd that I’ve received multiple messages on Ravelry about whether I omitted the yarn overs. Yesterday I decided to swatch for it (done by starting the actual pattern and following it until I’d finished the first repeat) and was very happy with the results. This time it’s going to be done correctly, using size 7 needles. Sure, it seems really stupid to frog a project so close to when it needs to be finished but I’m going to be a whole lot happier with the end result. Thankfully I’ve got almost a month to finish it with lots of free knittting time (and I’ve already got five repeats out of eleven done).

And that, my friends, is why I frogged Tuscany. I’ll post photos later of the size 3 versus the size 7 projects.