After about 2 weeks without posting as I wanted to make this my 1000th post, I am back.

So it was time to head on to college at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, about 1 hour southwest of BHM. My parents would be taking a roundtrip on AA, while I decided to go with a new airline for me and a new airport and give CO and IAH a try. I would be flying COS-IAH-BHM and it was my first time on an ERJ 145.

January 08, 2006
COS-IAH 2333
Early Morning Departure
(I do not have my log with me, but I¡¯ll post the departure/arrival time, gates and runways later)
Seat: 4C

I woke up around 3am for the 6:30AM departure; we left the house around 4:30am so I told my dad to stop at the gas station to buy some Gatorade. By 5am we were at the airport, which was completely empty. I made my way to the CO check-in desk and waited like 5 minutes for someone to show up, even though they had been open for 20 minutes. I used the self-check in machines with much ease and to my surprise I got a HP boarding pass, it did not even have one of those magnetic stripes on the back. Apparently HP/CO/NW desk which are next to each other are all managed by the same people. One of my bags marked 54Lbs (the limit was 50) I pleaded to the lady to spare me 4 pounds but the refused, so I had to open my luggage in the middle of the terminal take some stuff out of that bag and stick it in my Adidas duffel bag which I ultimately had to check in as well. I have a feeling the scale was rigged, I weighed the bag back at home and it said 48Lbs. I should have just placed both my luggage and the bag together in the scale that way they would have added up to about 70 some Lbs.

I went back to my parents and helped then check-in with the AA kiosk, they have done a major improvement on those machines. It used to be unless you had a correct credit card with your exact name on it; it would not pull up your reservation. Now you can look up reservation by Record locator and such. After it was all set and done we headed over to security, which was a breeze.


Here is a shot of COS before security, downstairs is the baggage claim, and upstairs are the check-in counters


COS after security.

As we were waiting for our flight to board on gate 1, HP was boarding next to us and something happened. The lady came over the loud speaker and called for passengers to board HP flight to PHX about 10 minutes before departure (5:50am)¡¦she said it was going to be a very light flight so she decided to just call everyone to board. I think she made probably one more last call, the flight was seriously empty. At about 6:00 am the door closed and the jet way was retracted. So a lady about 30-40ish, who I had seen before outside while I was checking-in came to the gate and demanded to get on the plane. The agent told her the door was closed, sorry. And the lady protested by saying she was just next door at a gift shop store and that she did not even heard it when she made the call. Ok so it¡¯s true the agent did not really make too many calls to get everyone on board, but if you know your flight leaves at 6am, and you show up at the gate around 6:05 and expect to be let in. Anyways I believe she was booked on a later flight, we¡¯ll I believe she deserves that for dropping the F* bomb on the agent.

Around 6:15am we boarded our flight, and I took my window seat as 4A


CO ERJ145 ready for IAH

Flight left on time, and we made out way to the runway¡¦nothing eventful happened yet as it was very early in the morning.


Rocky Mountain Sunrise¡¦although the Rocky Mountains are on the other side


Our In-flight meal consisted of a granola bar and some Cookies, I opted for some Apple Juice and was offered the whole can¡¦..Apple Juice comes in a can? Since when?..Also a copy of the book I started to read

Overall the flight was very smooth and the FA was as attentive as possible¡¦..but here is where the medical emergencies occur:

Next to me on 4B was a young lady in her 20¡¯s I¡¯d say who looked like she had just woken up from about a 2 hours sleep and looked really hung over, in summary she needed to spend some time to herself. She sat down next to me and completely crashed into a deep sleep. When we reached altitude she pulled down the tray table and rested her head on it. About halfway through the flight the FA came over the speaker and asked if anyone knew First Aid or had some Medical Background. The girl next to me sprang up and raised her hand; I believe some other girl in the back said she was also a nurse. We¡¯ll the emergencies turned out to be some guy who was just feeling light headed and dizzy nothing to extreme. The girl came back to her seat and crashed down for some more sleep. About 30 minutes later (already began our decent into IAH) I noticed she was kind of waking up and tried to lock the tray table but apparently was too sleepy and couldn¡¯t so she lowered the table and returned to sleep (she looked like someone who was really drugged up). So a little later she got up and started walking to the front of the cabin (I am not sure why as the lavatories where in the back) and 1 row in front of our she completely collapsed. The nurse from the previous emergency ran to the front of the cabin and helped her get up and was brought some water and sat her in seat 1A. When we landed at IAH we were surrounded by Paramedics at the gate and the guy and the gal were let off the aircraft first.

Something to note was that someone who was sitting in seat 1A when we boarded was told to move to another seat as that one was for the FA. When the first incident occurred and the FA had to go all the way to the middle of the cabin, this African American guy, about 30 some who was built came to the front and stood in the aisle next to sit 1A until the flight attendant came back. He sat in seat 1A until the second emergency where he had to go back to his original seat. I kind of wondered if this guy was an air marshal or something. Why would he stand in the middle of the aisle kind of blocking the way in case anyone tried to get to the front of the cabin?


Here a shot of Houston, you can see IAH in the distance






Landing at IAH on the north side of the terminal. And we made out way all the way around to the gates on terminal B that were on the south side


CO ERJland


Fire truck approaching our gate


Paramedics at the gate

We disembarked at one side of Terminal B and I realized I had to make my way to the other side for my flight to BHM


The long passage to the center of Terminal B. Then I had to take another one like it to one of its gate areas


I got to my gate. Sat down on the chairs and noticed the batteries in my camera were running low. So I busted out the battery charger and charged them for the next hour or so while I waited for my flight. Right next to our gate was a flight to Guadalajara, Mexico that was supposed to board at the same time as ours.

CO2060
IAH-BHM
10AM ish departure (Again I¡¯ll get details later)
I decided to use to bathrooms before we were called for boarding and almost puked as I entered them. They are the most disgusting bathrooms ever. It was very similar to the bathrooms on a gas station on an old road back in Venezuela, probably the most disgusting bathroom I have seen in the USA.

We were called to boarding on time and I took my seat on 4A, it was a little cramped but then again the aircraft is very small.


I had a very nice view to the cockpit from my seat


View from our gate before departure


A B737 facing us


The road that goes the terminal


We were parked all the way on the north side of the terminal and had to make our way to the south side of the airport to the runways. Waste of Fuel if you ask me.

The flight went by very smooth with a little turbulence on our descent¡¦btw it looked like we were hitting some rough winds when we were landing cause you could feel the back of the airplane moving to one side.

I used the lavatory before we began our descent and it was loud, and I mean loud¡¦.if anyone is traveling back there¡¦.you¡¯d probably want to spend some money on noise cancellation head phone or buy some ear plugs¡¦or probably change to another flight that has seats in the front. I was back there for about 10 minutes and just got a horrible headache. I cannot believe how people can seat back there

Anyways I got some shots from the back as well as some of our descent into BHM






We got to the gate and had to wait like 5 minutes because a CO ERJ was still in it, I guess it was running late. And it looked like my parents flight from DFW had already gotten there too.
When everyone had gotten off I approached the FA and captain and asked if I could have the aircraft reg number, at first the FA did not want to but I explained to her that it was for my own log that I keep on flights that I take and what not.

I got out and made my way to baggage claim and met up with my parents who had already picked up their bags. Baggage claim was rather a mess; a flight from WN from HOU had landed about the same time. So they use the farthest 2 carrousels out of the 4 in BHM. So in the screen it said flight from Houston. Here is where my A.net knowledge kicked in; even though everyone in our flight went to that carrousel I knew our bags would be coming out another one since there is a difference between WN Houston and CO Houston. On the other side of the baggage area a belt started moving and the first bag that came out read a CO tag, BINGO. My bags came out amongst the first one, and I noticed a really old man who were just about 2 rows behind was having some trouble looking for his bag. He was accompanied by his son and his son¡¯s wife, probably, so I approached him and offered my help to look for his bag (my parents were in line at hertz so I was in no hurry) I asked him what it looked like or if he could recognize them, his answer ¡°It¡¯s a black one¡±¡¦he could have said it was rectangular looking and that would have helped just as much. Knowing that the flight numbers always show up the tag as well as the name I asked, he told me his name and that he was coming just from IAH. His wife spotted the first one and I spotted the second one.

I went to the Hertz counter and the lady told me they had offered my dad a free upgrade for a bigger car (we had a full size reservation 3 days for about $70 and were offered a small SUV) when I looked at the bill it rang up fro $200, I was like WHAT??? Wait a second I have a print out of a reservation I made that says it¡¯ll be around $70. We¡¯ll she said if you use the car for over 2 hours it is counted as one day, plus she added like $110 on insurance and all this extra stuff we did not need. When my parents returned back on Sunday they told me they ended up paying around $90¡¦.we used a coupon number from one for those AA.com emails I get that took of like $40

Overall it was a nice flight, and I would probably fly CO again¡¦.they looked good. Although I don¡¯t think I¡¯d ever sit in the back of one those ERJ planes or any planes with engines on the back

On my 1,000 post: it has been probably the best $30 or so I ever spent, I got my money¡¯s worth and more. This is a great website and hope many more to come¡¦Thanks to all who make part of this community