Look what came in the mail!  Thank you, Woodchucks!

Those who have read Carousel Tides will recollect a shout-out to Woodchucks' Revenge on the acknowledgements page, for a song called "Voices in the Hills," which was part of the inspiration for the trenvay.

The Woodchucks do blues, old folk, new folk, cowboy songs, and anything else that takes their fancy, and you haven't discovered them yet, you should give them a listen.

Here's their website.

And here's the website of their producer, featuring sample songs from a wide range of artists.

Have fun!

It rained today. Still is raining. Well, it did stop for about an hour, but mostly it’s been raining all day. Girlie had to play soccer in it and frankly it was cold. In the 40s. But we really need the moisture. We’re in a drought and this will help all the fields and the feed for animals. Not to mention we’ve already had fires here. Didn’t do my walking though. Slugged out. More soccer tomorrow and possibly Iron Man 3.

Working on something that isn’t coming together very well. It’s very shiny though. So I keep stirring it to see what will turn up. Trouble is, I have to break outside my own expectations for a particular place. Normal behavior in this place doesn’t apply, nor do typical motivations, or typical laws. It’s upside down in a lot of ways, for a good reason, but I keep falling into traditional mental patterns and I have to get out of that. If only it were that easy.

All the purple has vanished from my hair and I need to put it in again. I’ll try to work on it this weekend.

Doing some research for my current WIP. Not sure if I’m getting anywhere. I’d like to go visit the location.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

American Airlines is looking to speed boarding times on its airplanes by offering advanced boarding to people who don't want to stick roller bags in the overhead compartment.

The basic idea is that folks with just an underseat laptop bag or purse can shuffle in quickly and sit down, and then everyone else will get on and start wrangling bags into the compartments. That way, in theory, you won't have as many people stuck waiting in the aisle while others are fussing with the compartment doors.

It makes sense, but it underscores the extent to which airlines are tying themselves in knots with different priorities.

...

It seems to me that managers need to step back, take a deep breath, and decide what their overall objective with the boarding scheme is. Do they want it to be as efficient as possible, or do they want to degrade average efficiency in order to optimally serve their high-volume elite customers?

The airline said that it will let passengers check a carry-on bag at the gate at no charge. That means savvy travelers will be able to move up in the boarding order and avoid checked-bag fees — $25 for the first bag, $35 for a second on flights within the U.S. — although they'll have to retrieve their bag at baggage claim after they land.

...

Chris Lopinto, president of ExpertFlyer.com, said the key could be American's offer to check bags at the gate for free. It won't appeal to business travelers on a schedule, who don't dare check a bag — ever.

"But that loophole would be great for people who don't care about checking a bag or have a lot of people in their party," Lopinto said. "If you're a family of four and American is going to gate-check your bags, that can save you $100 (versus checking the bags) and you can board earlier."

Jami Counter of travel website TripAdvisor said American's free gate-checking offer was so attractive that it could reduce the amount American makes from checked-baggage fees.

"Why would you ever pay a baggage fee if you can gate-check your bag for free?" he said. "That's a loophole you could drive a truck through. I see that being tightened."

Counter said passengers might swamp gate agents with requests to check their bag for free. "Now their two-minute savings just turned into a 15-minute delay," he said.