I saw this on a website I frequent ...
Let's us fly free:
A few years ago I was flying from Detroit to Charlotte. Prices were
higher than I would have liked, so I checked a couple of other
nearby destinations. Found that a flight to Greensboro (two hours
away by car) was much cheaper, yet somehow still connected through
Charlotte (Detroit -> Charlotte -> Greensboro).

The outstations don't get the traffic that
the hubs do, so they were often advantageously
priced, especially when they were covered by the
federal EAS (essential air services) subsidy -
I don't know if that still obtains, because that
advantage was attacked during all the budget cuts
in the last decades. Charlotte is - or at least
considers itself - a commercial hub and a
destination unto itself; further, US Air had a
pretty tight lock on the airport, so it felt
the ability to hike up o/d prices there. I in
fact never went to Charlotte (but did connect
through) for many years because of this fact,
but now the situation has changed, and fares
are pretty good by comparison, and I've made a
couple of o/d trips there, once to see the
Knights baseball team with some friends, the
cost being only a couple hundred bucks.

So I said screw it, bought a one-way, and carried on my bag, with
plans to abandon the flight in Charlotte.

Hidden-city ticketing, one of those little
secrets that some of us (cough) have done
but now don't any more because we're (cough)
old and it's too inconvenient.

All went well. As I was walking through Charlotte airport, I passed
the Greensboro gate and heard the agent asking for volunteers (the
flight was oversold).

It would have been wiser for him to sneak
around that gate area in case that happened.
I presume he just lucked out and the DTW
plane came into one of the arms of the far
E pier and the GSO flight left either in the
same area or the arm that connects with the
rest of the airport.

So with a heavy heart and Oscar-winning sympathy for the gate
agent's predicament, I agreed to give up my Greensboro ticket for an
extra $200 in vouchers. Then I skated out of the airport feeling as
though I'd beat the unfathomable system for once.

On the other hand, it might not have been a
great idea to volunteer, because the need for
volunteers may have evaporated, and there he
would be at the gate and forced to fly, in
which case faking illness or emergency would
be the only way to get out of trouble.

Anyway, that happened quite a few years ago if
at all. Nowadays, computer tracking of passenger
records is quite a bit more sophisticated.

Vermouth Triple Sec Cocktail
1 oz gin
1 oz dry vermouth
1/2 oz triple sec
2 dashes orange bitters

Looks decent, but the triple sec looks
supernumerary. I might rather have additional
volume of real booze. Maybe 1 1/2 oz gin, 3
dashes bitters?

Adios Eric
cat: booze, blue
servings: 1

1/2 oz vodka
1/2 oz gin
1/2 oz triple sec
1/2 oz blue curacao
1/2 oz sour mix

Shake very well (with ice). Pour over
(fresh) ice and fill glass with soda
water or lemon-lime soda. Also good
frozen without soda (even though it turns
out to be the color of toothpaste ...). :)
OPTIONAL GARNISHING: Serve in sugar-rimmed
bulb glass and gwith a cherry.

http://viminal.me.psu.edu/~nari/html/ctailszero.html
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