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I booked a flight to Portland on Southwest Airlines. My flight is in May and I got my tickets at the beginning of February. I watch the Southwest DING! program (it sits on your taskbar and alerts you to undersold flights) and I saw that my travel dates to Portland had come up.

My friend Andrew told me he didn’t have any problems exchanging a ticket to he could book it on DING, so I tried it out.

I called, Yolanda picked up immediately, she took my confirmation number and credited my account. I hung up to the phone two minutes after I picked it up and I’m a slow dialer!

Now, in contrast to Southwest, I’ve spent a fair amount of time on the phone with Dell Support lately and I wish my experiences with them were this good.

I entered a chili contest that was a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. Some have asked for the recipe, so here it is:

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 pounds lean ground chuck (I used chili meat, which is ground coarser. Ask your butcher.)
  
• 1 pound lean ground pork sausage
  
• 1 cup finely chopped onion
• 4 cloves garlic — finely chopped
• 12 oz beer
• 8 ounces tomato sauce
• 1 cup water
• 3 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 tablespoons ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons beef-flavor instant bouillon
• 2 teaspoons oregano leaves
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

Thickener:

• 1 teaspoon flour
• 1 teaspoon cornmeal
• 1 tablespoon warm water

Directions

In large saucepan or Dutch oven, brown half the meat; pour off fat. Remove meat. Brown remaining meat; pour off all fat except 2 Tbsps. Add onion, garlic; cook and stir until tender. Add meat and remaining ingredients except flour, cornmeal and warm water. Mix well. Bring to boil; reduce heat and simmer covered 2 hours.

Stir together flour and cornmeal; add warm water. Mix well. Stir into chili mixture. Cook covered 20 minutes longer. Serve hot.

Liberties

I cooked this all day at the office in a crockpot on low. I added a teaspoon of brown sugar. I only used half the chili powder. I used minced onion and garlic. I had three pounds of beef and some extra tomato sauce and water because it was going to be cooking all day.

Hope this works for you!

I won a chili competition this week.

This oven mitt was a prize, along with a crock pot and some hot sauces.