On the Fly

This past Thursday, I flew to Dallas, TX for a semi-work function. I'm part of our local Southwest Airlines Culture Committee in the Omaha station. I'll explain that in a minute. Anyhow, an annual meeting is held at our Headquarters for all station representatives every spring. I've been there for one before but it's been several years. So this year I went again. I've been the treasurer for our CC for approximately 9 or 10 years.

The hotel that we stayed at is the Wyndham Dallas Love Field. It's a beautiful hotel with huge rooms. I didn't have a roommate but I still ended up in a room with 2 queen beds. If you look at the link, go to the photos and get to the pictures of rooms with 2 beds, that's exactly what my room looked like. Marble counters, flat panel TV, refrigerator, microwave, coffee maker, ironing board, double closet, Internet hookup with a comfortable desk and chair. Very fancy! I remember being at the same hotel last time. It's very close to the airport so it was convenient as well. The exterior photo has a SWA plane up near the top......how appropriate!

Thursday night was an evening of fun that was dedicated to each of us as representatives.

The band for our party....The Texas Gypsies

Back in our stations, we are the ones planning the parties, organizing fund raisers, etc. So this night was for each of us! A band was booked to play for the evening. They were an acoustic swing group called The Texas Gypsies. I thought they were very good. Give a listen for yourself. Check out their web site and click on 'listen' in the center of all the tab choices. It brings up a menu with several choices of samples. It's swing music that they play Texas style.

The member in the center of my photo switched instruments; he played the clarinet, the alto saxophone and the trumpet. It was very fun to listen to the upright bass player as well. It added the bass sounds that are so important in swing music.

After our night of fun, food, drink and re-meeting several familiar faces, it was back to the hotel for the night for some well needed rest! I was able to speak to one of my relatives while in Dallas. Remember this wedding from last summer that I attended? Kari and Justin live in the Dallas area. But due to our conflicting activities, we were only able to chat on the phone. It was nice to hear from them!


The Culture Committee's main function is to basically try to give donations to different non-profit organizations. Our main focus is the Ronald McDonald House. But along with helping others, we also raise money for our own holiday parties. The annual meetings give us guidance on how to do things the proper way (legally) and also gives us new ideas on things we can do back in our own stations.

We were served breakfast before our meeting began. Then after the "welcome to Dallas" speech, we were honored to have our company President Gary Kelly, come to our meeting to speak. He is so laid back and genuine. It's fun to hear him. I've personally met him before a couple of times. He stuck around for about an hour. Then he was gone and we were back into our own topics of discussion.

It was a productive day with our meeting adjourning around 2:30 PM, after a couple breaks and lunch as well. We were all going home that afternoon but the weather in Dallas was acting up so many flights were delayed, including mine. Thunderstorms and lightning, wind and rain were all over the state. I arrived home about an hour and ten minutes later than scheduled. Not bad...

SWA Headquarters (on the left) and the main maintenance facility to the right. It faces the runways at Dallas Love Field. This was taken while sitting at the gate waiting to taxi out for take off. HQ is where we were for our meeting. (click on photo to get a better look...)