The greatest tour I ever had was at the Smokejumper base in remote WA. At any time when they're open, you're allowed to drop in for a tour and whoever is there that day is obliged to give you one. Even in the height of fire season.

We got to see them pack parachutes, repair gear, coordinate parcel drops - everything. Our guide was a 3 year jumper veteran on summer break from his masters degree in linguistics. It was incredible.

Any org that's proud of what they do should aspire to have public tours.

It's crazy how even something which feels mediocre so much of the time - fast-food coffee, a budget airline - requires an enormous amount of human effort to pull off reliably.

(And yes, you can dislike Southwest as a corporation and still think things like flight attendant training and plane simulators are cool. Come on folks.)

Anyone know what that is?

Perhaps an escape rope for the pilots?

EDIT: Yup, here it is in action: https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/7389569

Highly recommend reading Hard Landing by Thomas Petzinger for a little more background on SWA rough and tumble startup story with Herb K.

My guess is all airline NOCs operate 24/7 as flights happen around the clock. Also planes typically don't have much downtime as that loses money so everything has to be a continuous operation.

Cool looking at the pictures of the dashboards. It's nutty to think how much has to be tracked when doing airplane maintenance.

I am not sure that's a "sadly". I used to fly a lot and talk to flight crews. Aviation is a ton of crazy schedules and nights away from home (I assume this is well known)

From a family perspective it's bad enough if dads missing from the house for days at a time, much more catastrophic if mom's not around like that.

(A child's relationship with mom vs. dad is very different. Kids need their mom in a very different way that we can't just paper over)

We software people are spoiled with our keyboards and Red Bull :p

In first grade, we took a field trip to Chet's factory. It was so interesting to see how they made tamales in quantity–and they sent us each home with a free tamale.

Another Oregon treat is Tillamook cheese. My family went on one of their tours. They still offer tours today, but you are in a glassed-in area on the second floor overlooking the line. Back then, we got to walk right up to the vats of cheese curd. They trusted us (and instructed us!) to not poke our fingers in.

Much more recently, a friend who works at La Terra Fina in Union City, California took me on a private tour of their manufacturing plant. You may have seen LTF's quiches and dips at stores like Safeway and Costco, and private label versions at other stores.

I think they were making the Artichoke-Jalapeño dip that day. What struck me was the contrast between the first part of the production line and the rest. They start with huge blocks of cream cheese, industrial size cans of artichokes and jalapeños, and dump them into a giant mixer by hand.

Once a batch is mixed and gets a taste test, the rest of the line is high speed and highly automated. Plastic tubs come through and get the dip squirted into them, the plastic seal and top goes on, and then a labeling machine attaches each label.

Pro tip: If you like their dips, try them warm. My friend had not actually done this, so I asked Claude for a recipe:

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One time a friend served some La Terra Fina dip warm at a party. I'd only had it cold before, and it was a revelation. I forgot to ask for his recipe, but I believe he warmed it in the oven for a while and then under the broiler for a bit to lightly brown the top. What would be a good temperature and time for the first step, assuming a typical shallow casserole pan?

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La Terra Fina dips warm up beautifully — the cream cheese base gets silky and the flavors meld in a way cold just can't match.

For a shallow casserole dish, I'd suggest:

Oven step: 325°F for about 20–25 minutes. Low and slow is the move here — you want it heated through without the dairy breaking or getting grainy. A shallow dish speeds things up compared to a deep one, so check at 20 minutes. You're looking for it to be bubbling gently around the edges.

Broiler step: 2–4 minutes on high, watching closely. The top should get lightly golden with a few darker spots — that slight caramelization on the cheese and any onion bits is where the magic happens. Don't walk away during this part.

A few notes:

• Pull it from the fridge 15–20 minutes before baking if you can, so it's not stone cold going in

• The spinach artichoke and artichoke jalapeño varieties both do particularly well warm

• Serving with something sturdy (crostini, pita chips, thick tortilla chips) beats thin crackers when it's hot and scoopable

The broiler browning is really what elevates it — that textural contrast between the creamy interior and the slightly crispy top is what probably made it feel like a revelation.