It's just odd as I think this will be the first Thanksgiving "home" (I will be across the street) in years, actually maybe a decade. This is totally an odd feeling. I guess in a way we've come a long way. Although my life has not been perfect especially in 3+ years, I guess I do have a lot to be thankful for this year.

Well for once I have a descent job at my age & I most likely will be working until the end of the year. Yes, a part of me wishes that I was furloughed so I could hang with the trust fund kids & wealthy old people in Sarasota, but I'm working Overtime & making nice extra money to boot. That is a paramount difference between me and the 66% of the people in the working poor underclass. Just think of the people in the cross fire between Black Friday shoppers and the unfortunate souls who work at Wal Mart.

I enjoy every minute I can when I'm down there. I guess from 2-3 years ago when I was flying down there every month on AirTran in business class (I miss this experience SO MUCH :`-/ ) I remember vividly the conversations with people 10-15 years older than me reminiscing about their days in the SRQ coming to an end as one parent passed away & then the surviving parent just can't keep it up any longer or sold the place & is going into assisted living, ect. You can have some amazing conversations with single serving friends flying into and out of that airport.

So when I'm down there for hopefully more than a week (most likely using my own vacation time) I'll savor the beach, tourist bars, my parents church, stores and overall culture (good & bad) to the best of my ability. I'll have to make sure I do everything and not pass on things like I did last year. A shining example of this would be going to a Tampa Bay Lightning game last year as we have no clue on how long it will be until we see Hockey again.

hmm only 5 entries for the year, I guess that's the trend these days with the ever changing social media scene. What's how now these days? My guess is Tumblr & Reddit as facebook is mostly a wasteland or product placement.

Anyway I'm writing this down Linwood at my friend's place, it kind of feels a bit cool to be posting here on the home street. Lately I've been spending half my time here and the other half back home in Ytown.

I saw Kevin Smith at UB Center for the Arts last week and I got semi inspired to do something creative. He recommends starting a podcast but my 5 year old iMac is kind of lame at the moment plus I'm not sure if I have the hardware to do it. Plus I pretty stopped vlogging back in March when i got mad at the privacy changes at a giant company. Losing my charger for my camera didn't help matters either, so all I had was my iphone.

In a way I do have a semi interesting life, but this year since I've been working now it looks like 12 months straight my trips aren't as frequent as they have been in the past. What makes me happy is someone I follow in twitter who goes to U of F & seems to go to every big EDM event across the country. She's a wealthy princess form the part of Florida where my parents live & at least now I get to see how some people have perceived me on facebook with my concert excursions.

My weekend has consisted of me working overtime doing nothing, reading Mike Doughty's memoir book & now watching Dr Drew. I'm just making a note to myself to be a bit more creative, to go to an electronic dance music event & hopefully travel just to use some of the extra money that I'm earning.

BTW the Catfish show in MTV seems pretty cool & it may suck me in.

So this is how the guy was like in person?

Not to knock on NYC or NYC People, but it's just not my thing or place to hang. Yes it's the center of so many things, but for my personal taste I prefer civility of the people of Mid-America and the South. I wrote this Sunday as I was flying back to Buffalo and these are my thoughts at the time as I was feeling and living it.

So in my travels To and from here I flew AirTran quite a bit. The reason why is that their schedule was great, they flew into Sarasota ( my parents are too old & they hate having to drive to Tampa), Business class was very reasonable to upgrade to and the people that you would fly with were descent folk. This is huge when compared to flying JetBlue to LGA Laguardia. That airline at its core had former Southwest employees which features the "cattle call" when announcing the boarding. So throw that in with entitled Neurotic metro NYC people with Money and you have a shitstorm as us Canadians say. Also with LGA the food options are not the most enthralling (I like southern fair that I can't get back up North.) Plus the bar prices are even more outrageous than other airports (which is scary) Also your drinking buddies while more entertaining than most are not the most friendly. I've had some of the most fun traveling bonding moments in Atlanta with strangers at $5 a draught, great seafood from Phillips and also had he opportunity to run into people that went to Niagara University my alma mater as well.

To me flying into LGA is traumatic and not part of a vacation but an aggregation. Let's face it, sometimes when you're on the plane it's like you're almost there at your destination. For example of you're flying to Vegas everyone is talking about where they're staying, what they play & what shows they plan on attending.

I don't want to be surrounded by loud self important people aggressively bumping into me. I sat next to this old Guy of Dutch descent, he looked working class with his old shoes and may have looked like he was a farmer. Well on his hip he had an iPhone 4s and in his attaché an iPad. Yes he brought his own meal and drinks on he plane, but he had a business to run and money to save for one his forklifts needed repair. Did I mention he was pleasant & did not make noise or bump into me once? Those little things mean the world to me more than price. I would pay more to fly AirTran over JetBlue when laid over side to side.

AirTran took great care of me. When Business class was sold out hey got me an isle seat for $20 with said gentleman from Ohio. Plus that came with zone 1 boarding & attentive flight attendants. But this airline is slowly falling into the air cattle category as one of the first things SouthWest did was do away with XM Radio as I guess those few "extra pounds" of weight was too much for them. I guess that is why I'm blogging this now on an app for my iPhone as WiFi is n longer free as well.

I am going to miss being treated like gold as the market for someone caught in between no frills economy and affordable luxury no longer has a viable option. I don't have hundreds of thousands of miles to gain status on a legacy carrier to Sarasota as I never traveled for decades for any industry or job. The folks that were up in the air for Years working to accumulate the wealth to afford to retire to Sarasota will squeeze me out every time and there are more of them than seats available. There are folks that must have felt slighted as their life savings of miles have dwindles post retirement and they have to sit back in coach.

With fuel prices and consolidation I wonder if I will ever enjoy the level of service that I enjoyed with AirTran to the SRQ? Will someone please step up And serve my market or is that I am the abominally and am not economically viable in the current configuration of the airline industry? Just do a search for "Business Class" on Kayak and see what comes up, only AirTran and with them slowly bent phased out what will happen to the in between market segment like myself that is willing to pay extra but not 4 figures for a comfortable airline seat to great destinations?