Looks like the preliminary bids are in and I have Christmas and New Year's Eve. It's pretty awesome being a 1st year at my first commercial airline to actually get these holidays off. I did make Christmas Eve and Christmas Day my first priority in my bidding and being #226 out of 462 pilots helped quite a bit. The line that I was awarded was actually my 38th pick so I think that I faired pretty well. Some of my other friends got their first choice and I'm really happy for them.

I got the first two bids for my vacation! My two 1 week vacation periods in 2008 are from 17MAR - 23MAR (Holy Week / Spring Break) / 19MAY - 25MAY (Beginning of USD Summer Vacation). Kind of stinks that I'll be expiring both my vacations in the 1st half of the year, but I'm sure that my schedules next summer will be pretty good.

Flying around lately around the east has been really cold. Every pre flight has me hurting behind the ears because of the wind chill and every place that we flew to today (started out in Nashville, Cincinnati, Columbia SC, Cincinnati then Toronto were all just around freezing temperatures with flurries in Toronto. It's about 35 degrees F with a windchill bringing it down to 25F. I'm glad that I brought my pilot sweater but now I'm just missing some gloves. I met an FO with some neat gloves from REI but the reviews weren't that great online. Anyone know of a pair to check out. It would be great if they were waterproof, wind resistant, etc.

I've become really picky in what I write for phonenews.com and now I'm more resistant to just writing about anything phone related. Stay tune for my next article as I'll be working on one for the next hour or so. CYA!