Airfare craziness...

I'd love to meet the people who come up with airfares. Of course, there may not actually be people who do this. A psychotic computer may have the job all to itself.

While recently traveling through Allentown's airport (ABE), I noticed a new banner by the escalators announcing the arrival of American Airlines at our airport. ABE is a surprisingly well-served airport that has almost all of the "major" legacy carriers (Delta/Northwest, United, USAirways, Continental) plus some smaller and newer discount airlines (Allegiant, Direct Air, AirTran) and one international carrier (Air Canada). The obvious legacy airline missing is American.

A quick search on the AA.com web site reveled three flights a day between Chicago O'Hare (ORD) and Allentown starting on June 10, 2010. Until now, United has had a lock on that route and it has been pricey. Thinking that competition may bring down the price of this route and allow Kate and me to visit her brother and sister-in-law in Chicago over the summer, I went in search of cheap airfares. No dice -- they are still high at around $400 even though nearly all of the seats are still available. Its seems that they want to fly empty planes for the first couple weeks.

But what if I want to fly through Chicago onto another airport relatively close to Chicago? On a whim I selected Milwaukee (MKE) to check fares. Actually, it was more than a whim since Kate and I would like to see the Kohler factory in Milwaukee some day, so maybe this would be a good opportunity. The fare for the same flights on American Airlines through Chicago and then connecting to Milwaukee is $239.

I'm trying to understand this... I can occupy an airplane seat for an additional 90 minutes during which time the airline will have to spend money on fuel and labor, and will contribute to CO2 emissions and ultimately global warming as they shuttle me from Chicago to Milwaukee, but I will save $160? Is there a secret organization subsidizing the flights to Milwaukee?

Kitchen Update - April 11

The kitchen is 99% complete. We're currently waiting for the pendant lamps that will be installed above the peninsula (two blue holes in the ceiling). The transformation has been amazing. We have been thrilled with our contractors including Kitchens By Design, Bender Electric, Joe Pietkiwicz Plumbing, and Eisenhard's Decorating Center.

You can see the pictures:

Before: very 80's salmon walls, light blue Formica counter tops, beige cabinets with oak trim, Pergo laminate flooring, and fluorescent lighting.




After: deep orange walls, cinnamon spice Zodiaq quartz counter tops, extra-deep maple cabinets to the ceiling, Armstrong laminate flooring, and recessed (dimmable) lighting with low-voltage under-cabinet accent lighting.




The pantry area has also been transformed.

Before: panel bi-fold doors (not seen here) with full-depth shelves and a divider down the front of the pantry.





After: dual custom pantry cabinets with five roll-out drawers each. The center area allows for staging of groceries and a handy place for the drop-down LCD TV.




Finally, the powder room that previously had the same beige cabinetry with the light blue counter top has been transformed to match the kitchen's decor.




After: glass vessel sink, oil rubbed bronze faucet, same cabinet and counter top materials as the kitchen. Not shown here are the new lamp, toilet, and floor, which will be featured on a future blog entry once the grout has been finished and the baseboard tile installed.

Settling into the new homestead

This week marks two months that Kate and I have officially been in Allentown. We're settling into the house nicely.



In recent weeks we have purchased and installed a new dining room lamp that we found at Friedman Electric in Bethlehem. Next up on the electrical "hit list" is installing the stairwell fixture that we had purchased months ago at Kay Lighting in Plymouth Meeting. But before I can do that, I need to buy a ladder since it's the top of a two-story stairwell.



The hot tub is up and running. Kate and I have begun to actually use the hot tub instead of just looking at it and cursing our "Porsche filled with water" (the term used by the hot tub repair guy). We do enjoy using it, but it is showing its age (14 years) and will likely need more "under the hood" repairs over time.

Lulu's First Pug Meet-Up

On Saturday despite the threat of rain, we hopped in the car with Lulu to head to her first pug meet-up in Allentown. There were a total of about a dozen pugs of various ages.

In this photo Lulu looks like the odd-pug-out as she is surrounded by three (less common) black pugs.

Here is the pug version of "social networking":



We managed to avoid the rain until we were on the way back home when it started drizzling.