Thursday, February 15, 2007

Jet Blue...and more

So last night on the news there were a lot of ticked off New Yorkers who took off for a plane in Aruba only to get stuck on the runway for 9 hours at JFK airport.. via JetBlue. Way to go JetBlue Hopefully they'll compensate the "wish I could be on vacation now instead of stuck on this screwed up airline" vacationers. I shouldn't forget to mention that JetBlue also had the worst on time arrival rate in January. Maybe it's just a little resentment from a little mishap I had with JetBlue in the past. Bottom line is they're cheap, and you get what you pay for. Sometimes it's a cheaper flight, other times it's a 9 hour runway delay, sometimes you might show up 1 hr later than scheduled. I was at the Philly airport last week with a lady who lost luggage via JetBlue and it took them over a month to find it. I'm done ranting about JetBlue, just needed to get the monkey off my back.

I recently was out in Indy, for the National Youth Ministry Conference. All together I'd give it a B. It was very helpful in a lot of ways, and it lacked in others.

Also, I just got our church signed up for this sweet bike drive that you should look into if you live in NJ, PA, KS, CT, MA, OR VT. ( I say those states, b/c that's where they operate). The organization is called Pedals For Progress. They collect over 11,000 bicycles annually and give them away to the needy. They mainly go to developing countries in Latin America, Africa, and the Pacific Islands. In these countries the bikes are reconditioned by partner agencies and distributed at low cost to poor working adults. The bikes provide them with reliable transportation for commuting to work, transporting produce to the market, or accessing health care and other services. As most of you are aware, steady employment for the adults in these countries is vital to the development and success for their economy. It cost $28 to collect, process, ship, rebuild and distribute each bicycle. They only ask for a $10.00 donation when you drop off the bike to help towards shipping costs. They also accept working portable sewing machines, and donations of wrenches for their overseas shops. They send you all the flyer's and news releases to put out in the community as well. It's pretty easy to set one up, and you only need about 8 people there the day of the event. It's a pretty sweet organization.

Other sweet news: I'll be back in the Burgh in April with one of my best buds to watch the Pirates on opening day, and in June we bought a block of 12 tickets in Yankee Stadium. A mad throng of peeps will be headed this way to watch the Pirates take on the Yankees. Being that it's the last yr of Yankee Stadium, every game there is kinda a big deal, so they'll be pretty mad when the Buccos come and put a whoopin on em. God Bless