Holy Crap! Super Cheap Flights to PHX!

Southwest Airlines Deal

Book today or tomorrow (July 7 or July 8) for flights this fall (between September 9 and November 18) with Southwest Airlines, and you’re going to get a steal of a deal! Not all airports or dates have the deals they advertise, but most weekdays have options like La Guardia (NYC) to Phoenix for $90 and Florida to Phoenix for $90.

So here’s the deal.

There is a TON of stuff happening in Phoenix this fall, just before the end of that travel window. I HIGHLY recommend booking a flight to Phoenix around Nov 6 (Friday) thru Nov 15 (Sunday). There are several awesome events scheduled during that week (such as PodCampAZ 3 and AZ Entrepreneurship), and a few more are tentatively going to squeeze in (Like BIL Conference. There are also the usual weekly & monthly things happening that week: Creative Connect, Social Media Club Phoenix, Epic Tweet-Ups: #pfn, #evfn, etc., and more.

Not only will it be a prime time to hang out with the Phoenix tech community, the weather is amazing in Phoenix during November.

Remember, that deal with Southwest Airlines ends July 8!

A 5,000+ Mile Jump

On October 15th, 2006, while a small group of amateur photographers were hiking at Papago Park in Phoenix, Arizona, something strange happened. A guy jumped. Well, actually, another guy jumped first, then his wife, and then the jumper jumped. At the time, he wasn’t the jumper. In fact, he very rarely jumped and nobody had ever remarked that his jumping was any different than anyone else’s.

The Original Shaler Jump
A guy jumps

The strange thing which happened that afternoon was the jumper’s jump. It didn’t end when his feet returned to the ground. In fact, the jump didn’t even end in Phoenix.

At the time, nothing seemed special about the jump. The preview screen on the camera showed what appeared to be a well-captured photo of a good jump. Nothing spectacular. Just a good jump. The hike resumed.

Throughout the following months, the group met up at other locations around Phoenix. When the opportunity arose, the photographers enjoyed taking other jumping photos. The jumper, who was still not known as such, happily obliged.

At a conference in November of 2007, the jump that left the ground over a year earlier started to turn into something. The jumper was introduced to someone he had never met by someone he had never met as, “the guy that jumps.” The jump had somehow preceded the jumper.

20081214-4661
Jumpers jump the jumper’s jump in NH

Fast forward another thirteen months to December of 2008.

A group of people in New Hampshire who had never been in direct contact with the jumper scheduled a local photography meet-up. The theme of the meet-up was to jump. More specifically, it was to emulate the jumper’s 2006 jump and those that followed.

How the jump traveled over 2,000 miles to the Northeast United States on its own is a testament to the strange power of the Internet.

Amazingly, the jump didn’t stop there.

The jump that left the ground in 2006 was seen again in 2009 on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Some 5,000 miles away, a German Flickr and Twitter user visiting Lake Garda in Italy decided to jump the jumper’s jump.

trying a shalerjump @ lake garda
“trying a shalerjump @ lake garda” by vanse1980 on Flickr

That, to me, is a leap of unimaginable scale. One that started innocently enough during a hike in Phoenix, Arizona.