If you live in one of the 22 states (and yes, American Samoa) voting today, step away from the computer and head to your polling place. My blog will still be here when you get back.

I went first thing this morning, and since we use Inkavote, I don’t have to worry about hanging chads or corruptable electronic voting machines. I just get to enjoy camping out in front of the TV tonight and watching the returns.

For those of you who want Cranky to be a bigger part of your life, you should probably see a shrink. But if that doesn’t work, how about putting Cranky on your chest? Thinking some of the airlines that have received a Cranky Jackass award need more than just a mention in the blog, I went over to Cafe Press and created the t-shirt at left.

Then I started to create more t-shirts, hats, a coffee mug, etc. Eventually, I had a “store” full of gear, and I thought, “hey, somebody may actually want to buy this for some odd reason.” So, I ordered a couple examples to make sure the quality was decent and the images looked good. Sure enough, they do, so now you can head on over and buy Cranky Gear for yourself.

If you’re interested, go to the Cranky Flier Store and you’ll find everything I created over there. If you have ideas of things you’d like to see, let me know and I’ll try to put it together. And if you do buy some gear, take a picture from wherever you are in the world and send it my way.

Thank you to everyone who headed over to Performancing to vote for me. I have now officially been crowned The Best Travel Blog of 2007*!

Why the asterisk, you ask?

Well, the editors over there decided that reader votes aren’t enough. They thought they’d come up with their own winners from the list as well. So I won the reader vote, but the editors voted for Gridskipper. I didn’t even take their runner-up spot - Gadling took that honor.

But hey, who cares what editors think anyway? You guys, my readers, voted for me, and that’s all I care about. Hopefully I can keep writing things that interest you. The good news is that in case I’m unable to fulfill my duties during the upcoming year, it’s very comforting to know that Travel Rants came in second, and they could easily have won this one.

Thanks again for your vote.

I was really hoping to have my monstrous post on Essential Air Service finished today, but it looks like I’m going to need another day. That means I’m postless this morning. Arrrrgh. So, I thought I’d take the time to point out that I received an email over the weekend saying that I’ve been nominated for the Best Travel Blog in the 2007 Performancing Travel Blog Awards.

That means, it’s time to VOTE FOR ME, if you’re so inclined.

It is, of course, a great honor to be recognized. I’m up against some heavyweights in the group for sure. If you’d like to check out the other nominees, here they are with their slogans:

• Gridskipper - The urban travel guide
• Cheapest Destinations - Bargain destinations, vacation values, and international travel adventures
• Gadling - Go there
• Exposed Planet - The world exposed in words and vision
• Travel Rants - No slogan, but you can probably figure out what it’s about from the name

Performancing also lets you vote for write-ins, so go over there and vote for SOMEBODY today. I’ll be back tomorrow with my EAS post.

It didn’t take long for loyal readers to notice that a couple of days ago I made some changes to the comments section. In fact, I had my first feedback within a few hours. I thought it would be a good idea to talk about this in a post so I can get more ideas from you all.

One thing I’ve learned after writing this blog is that I really look forward to reading the comments, good and bad. Even if you roast me for what I say, I still enjoy all the thought (most of) you put into the comments. Disagreement is great, and that’s what makes the blog such a great place for me and hopefully for you as well.

So, I tried to think of ways I could make the comment system work better for everyone. One thing was easy. I just installed a plugin that allows you to sign up to receive an email when followup comments are posted. (You’ll see it right below the comment box.) I know I hate it when I have to keep checking back on comments to see if someone replied. Now you no longer have to worry about that.

The other thing I did was install SezWho. This basically creates a rating system for each commenter. Now you’ll see ratings from 1 to 5 for each person who comments on my blog. If you like the comment, you can vote it up or down to affect the rating for that person in the future. Everyone starts with a 2.5 rating and it goes from there. The ratings also are altered if you comment on another blog that uses SezWho using the same address. So your ratings reputation can follow you around if you want it to (if not, just use a fake email address).

I think the coolest feature here is that if someone sees a comment you write and likes it, they can hover over your profile and see other comments you’ve made on my blog. This will encourage people to discover past posts they may have missed and it will make you the center of it all. All of these things help to build the community on the blog, I think, and I hope you find them valuable.

Of course, the main reason I’m writing this post is because I want your feedback. Do you like the idea of SezWho? If not, please explain why. If so, do you have better ideas about how it could be implemented? What concerns do you have, if any?

Please leave your comments below or email me privately so I can make this blog as interesting as possible for you.

As much as I love writing Cranky every day, it’s time for a break. Actually, it’s a wedding break. First up is a wedding in Canada this weekend and then one in France next weekend (the couple that actually encouraged me to start blogging in the first place). So, I’ll be on the road for the next week and a half and that means I probably won’t be posting much if at all. I’ll try to check in a couple of times while I’m gone, but I can’t guarantee it.

Your usual daily Cranky-ness will return on October 17 or 18. Talk to you then . . .

Those of you who subscribe to the blog via email may have noticed it didn’t come at its regular time yesterday. That’s actually a permanent change thanks to requests from a couple of subscribers.

Previously, I had the email go out in the early morning knowing that you would get all the previous day’s posts in your inbox. But some people expressed an interest in having the email come more quickly after the posts went up. Since I usually put my posts up in the morning, I’ve changed the email go out around noon Pacific Time. That means you’ll get most of my posts within a couple hours of posting.

Any of the rare posts that go up after noon will end up in the next day’s email. If that causes any problems, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

If you’re not subscribing, head on over the right side and sign yourself up for free. You can receive a daily email or you can subscribe to my RSS feed.

I’m heading out of town this morning for a weekend in Colorado. I was hoping to get another post out before I left, but that’s just not going to happen. So, if I get a chance, I’ll post while I’m gone, but most likely you won’t hear from me again until Monday. I’ll have a report on my first trip on Frontier when I return.

I’m off tomorrow for a week of travelling that will include the CASMA conference (come visit if you’re there), a visit to Dodgertown for a Spring Training game, and a wedding.  That means my posts will be somewhat sporadic next week.

I will be posting when I can.  And of course, I’ll have a full trip report when I return.

Welcome to the new home of The Cranky Flier.

For those with RSS feeds or email subscriptions, you may not have even realized things were changing.  Thanks to Feedburner, I was able to change the URL fo your subscriptions without you having to do anything.

So from now on, crankyflier.com is the home of The Cranky Flier.  You’ll see all the old posts and comments have been brought over here so you’ll have no need to go back to the old site.  Take a look around and let me know what you think of the new digs.