Lord Ratner

Can any of the Delta guys comment on the proposed changes to the retirement plan? I hear rumors that it's a wealth transfer from Junior to senior, but rumors aren't usually accurate.

And you're being an idiot. Stop talking. Whatever happened, it looks like crew did well. I hope they made it.

Hard to draw a comparison to a commuter as I'm participating in a rather niche strategy, but I can give an example of something I'm able to do that a commuter could not. When we talk about pay at AA, we have something called PROJ, or credit. It includes hours flown, sick time, vacation time, training hours, time spent deadheading, etc. So when I have a 90 hour month, I am referring to credit, not actual hours flown. Now, short version, we have a contract provision that makes it so a trip must pay an average of 5:15 per day. So no matter how much you work, a two day trip must pay at least 10:30, a three day must pay at least 15:45, so on and so forth. The computer that builds trips does a good job making sure you fly at least those values, so they aren't giving you "free" money. However, when something goes wrong and they have to build a trip to fill uncovered legs (due to sick calls, weather events, broken planes, etc), they ignore the optimization aspect. So as an example, they might need to fill the 22:30 flight from DFW to OKC, which is 45 minutes. There's no way to get back home since that's the last night, so they will fly you back the next day (as a passenger). That's a two day trip, 45 minutes flying and 45 minutes deadheading, or 1:30 of work. But because of the contract, that trip must pay 10:30. I take my schedule every month and trade away the whole thing, down to zero. Then I sit around and wait for sequences like the above (though they are usually more like 2 hours out, overnight, and 2 hours back), and fly those for the month. This way I can get 50% or more of my PROJ/credit to be "soft" time that is contractual, instead of from actually flying. The catch is that I usually get the call for trips like that 3-6 hours before takeoff time, so commuting would preclude me from doing that. I actually fly less than some of our reserve pilots. and get paid more. I also choose the days off I want. I'll have the income figures totaled in March.

Simple math. I'll assume the other woman was equal to that horrible picture of the judge. 1 x Threesome{3,3} > 0 x Threesome{a,b}

Just a friendly update, our most recent vacancy bid just came out and the most Junior Group 2 (737, A32x) Captain slot awarded was hired in May of 2017. And it's not an anomaly, the seniority ranges for the various positions dropped about 1,000 (out of 15,000) across the board. In March I'll put together some info on how much I've made in the first two years with AA, and how much flying it took to get there. I probably work the system harder than most, but the year 3 plan is to make ~$185k while flying fewer than 500 hours actual stick time. Disclaimer: can't pull these numbers off as a commuter.

You're welcome

She must have gotten it from a toilet seat...

The problem is with our social conception of dating. As I said earlier in this thread: "Think about how many people you know. Then think about how many of them are good friends. Then think about how many of those are best friends. The friend you can go on a month long backpacking trip with and not get annoyed with or tired of once. Pretty rare, huh? Now add sexual compatibility to that. If you find your forever-mate after 3 months and a few tinder dates, you'd better be buying lottery tickets too..." Yet despite this incredibly difficult task, conventional wisdom and Hollywood teach us all sorts of things that are contrary to reality such as: - The helpless male who just needed the right woman to see his inner Casanova. - You have to fight for what's important? Why should the most important friendship be fought for when all my other friendships were not? - Going to counseling. If you have kids, go to counseling. If you don't, find someone who likes who you are, and you want to please without the guidance of a third party. - The entire tradition and industry behind weddings. A ceremony where the town walked 300 meters from their home to see a couple 17 year olds get married and give them the basics required to start a family because they literally have nothing. Now it's a parade where you spend a small fortune, you get some appliances you don't need in exchange for feeding mediocre food to the guests who wasted some vacation time to attend an event that, despite being indistinguishable from any other wedding and repeated thousands of times per day, stresses the newlyweds out for a year getting ready for it. It's all a sham. Go on lots of dates. If you don't leave the first date positively captivated by the person, ask yourself why you would choose that specific human to spend five or more decades with. And if you got laid, don't trust your gut.

Trump is a piece of shit. He'll never be 10% of the man Mattis is, nor will he ever know what honor or courage is like Mattis does. But Mattis, like the others, has been wrong on the Middle East, and no amount of personal character will make up for the fact they are fundamentally wrong. In some sort of strange way we have ended up with two camps. The Bush/Generals/McCain camp, where personal conduct is dignified and policy is catastrophic, and the Trump camp, where personal conduct is alarming and shameful, but the policy is somehow pretty solid. Not sure why we can't have both, but you'd have to ask the electorate [emoji2369]

Let's. Hear. The. Story.

I think Gabbard would be a slam dunk. Woman, minority, attractive, and military service. She doesn't appear to have lied to get where she is (Clinton, Warren, Harris), she isn't advocating for the most dangerous political philosophy in human history (Bernie, Warren), she doesn't act like your creepy/drunk Uncle (Biden, Booker), and she's not completely inexperienced with national politics (Buttigeg). But if she's a third party candidate, Trump wins in a landslide.

I agree with you, but decisions made in DC still have an impact. I'm looking 20 or 30 years out. Socialism never looks bad when it's implemented. But after the money runs out, and well after the geniuses who promoted it are gone, it's always a calamity. We have candidates legitimately trying to normalize the concept of wealth confiscation for the common good. Right now, just the billionaires. But do you really think the voting masses will just give up their new entitlements once they run out of billionaires to squeeze?

I think everything is way worse than we thought. If Trump wins, the nation should mourn. America deserves better. If Warren or Sanders win, the nation as we know it could die. I'm flummoxed. Trump has been giving them opportunity after opportunity to beat him next year, and each time they find a way to be more politically and philosophically toxic. And if Trump does win, which I think he might, I'm not sure how Democrats go on. RBG gets replaced by Amy Barrett, another woman loses to the (perceived) ultimate misogynist, and the country continues to fragment. It's ugly

I watched the speech. It was stupid, but exactly the type of stupid I expect from an exploited child. I doubt she even wrote it. What kind of people convince a bunch of kids they are going to die in a decade or two from something that's barely supported by the data? You know these very adults don't actually believe their own BS, because they aren't throwing themselves into the gears to save the world. She rode a boat to get to the speech; the adults all took cars and planes. That's enough to tell you who's a true believer and who's just virtue signaling.

If you want the most polished counter argument to the climate change dogma, look up the Manhattan Contrarian. The amount of manipulation to the data sets is so egregious it brings the entire theory into question. And where the hell did you guys get the idea she sailed across the Atlantic on her own? That didn't make you pause?

She's a child. Blame the adults using her.

Is there anything more basic than a stubborn old man, losing his marbles to old age, alienating his entire family and friends over the chance for some decades-younger tail?

While it may take more mental effort (though even that claim is questionable), there's no way it's more beneficial. I'd bet right now that if I gave one guy ### hours of sim time and one guy the same number of hours chair flying, you'd be safe betting on the Sim. Chair flying is still good, but if you happen to own a simulator, do that.

I don't remember it happening that way, but I was also zero-years-old...

I remember that. He was a bit of a tool, but that was pretty overblown. He screwed himself by showing up to court in jeans, if I remember right.

Yeah, nothing more thrilling than the drive to work. I wake up every morning refreshed and excited to hit the road. Hell, sometimes I leave my wallet at work so I have an excuse to do an extra lap after dinner.

No. Some of us have self control. Avoiding the one-mistake Air Force does not mean all mistakes are forgivable. I was court martialed, found not guilty, punished after the fact, and kicked out for it (thank god!). I'm the last person in the world to be against redemption stories. But if you haven't figured out by 30 that you can't drink and drive, let alone as a leader who has surely given God knows how many briefings and punishments on the subject, you don't get to hit the reset button. I'm not saying to kick the guy out, but leadership should be off the table IF he did it.

Your honest opinion is honestly stupid.

It's pretty great, actually. Pays the same.

Story time