mxflyer,
I have just started commuting about 18 months ago. Here are my tips:
If you do have a union (BTW, I could care less if you are or aren't union, if you are approved you are welcome on my jumpseat) you should have a jumpseat committee that can give you the scoop on commuting, for example, they can tell you who you have agreements with. There may or may not be other SLC-ATL commuters where you live, ask around until you find some and see how they do it.
A good website for commuters is
www.nonrev.net It will have a "tools" tab, click on that and it will have city pairs and dates. I use this religiously. It will list direct flights first and then flights that contain stops. Airline websites are another good tool, especially since you can check seats and gauge your chances of making a particular flight. One caveat, I think I have seen airline sites omit flights that are full, which doesn't mean the jumpseat is taken.
Parking. You may or may not be able to get employee parking at SLC. I can not at ATL, so the best I can do is park commercially at a discount, I use Parking Spot. Its about 5 bucks a day. Other options include finding a hotel that has a shuttle to the airport and asking (some might suggest just parking and hopping on, but that could be risky, you could get towed) maybe the driver or a concierge if you could strike a parking deal. Ask if you can pay 40 or 50 bucks a month and ride their shuttle, it will save a bundle over years of commuting. I don't know if SLC has public transport to the airport but you could look into that as well.
Lastly, you are about to embark on a great commuting adventure. I wouldn't encourage it for the faint of heart of those short on patience. When you miss that last flight to SLC and have to either sleep in the crew lounge/terminal/or hotel room (assuming you can afford it), you have to tell yourself, "this too will pass". It is a personal decision that all airline flight crew have to make, for some the answer is "I wouldn't commute, EVER", and that is fine. Some do it for a while and stop, others do it to upgrade until they can hold their base, etc. Others start out at bases and then decide to move and commute. My airline has about 40-50% commuters. In a strange way, though commuting is a pain, it is almost a benefit of the airline lifestyle. Attitude is everything. You get to live where you want. It sounds like you love Salt Lake, great for you. Just understand that you will pay a price and approach it that way. I have, when all is said and done, a fairly easy commute, yet even for me it wears on me; however, when I pull into my driveway coming home from a trip its worth it. I also pay a price in not being able to make as much money, but again, thats ok.
At any rate, I wish you luck. If you have any questions I will try to answer them the best that I can.
ezplt
anic:
Unfortunately, we can't wear shoes like in Matt's avatar. It's against uniform regs, ya know. 
