Ponderings and Musings

Today’s technology affords us many things that we couldn’t do even just 10 years ago. We can see the face of our loved one when we talk on the phone, no matter where we are. The entire knowledge of the world is literally in the palm of our hand with just a few taps on a screen that doesn’t have a keyboard. We can carry thousands of songs in our pocket, easily find out what airplane is flying overhead at any given time and keep tabs on long lost friends and acquaintenances.

As a software developer, I am fortunate in that I not only do what I love to do for a career, I can pretty much do it from anywhere in the world. Last year I worked for a week from Kansas City, Mo. as I accompanied Earl on a business trip. I found coffee houses, shared office spaces and our hotel room all to be a productive work environment. It takes a lot of discipline to remain focused as you’re working on the road, but honestly, I find it easier to concentrate on work when I am surrounded by the din of a retail environment or something of that nature. Oddly, working in a cubicle has a distracting effect on me; last week when I worked with my teammates at the home office, I found cubicle chatter to be distracting. Random noise helps me focus, focused noise distracts me. I guess it’s just the way I’m wired.

Earl has another business trip coming up soon and I’m going to meet him in Memphis, Tenn. for a day or two. I won’t need to take vacation time; I’m taking an evening flight or two to get there and like previous circumstances, I’ll find a space and a place to work. As I mentioned before, I work better in that kind of environment. While I enjoy working at home, it’s not my favorite scenario and there’s a part of me that feels like I’m missing the rest of the world when I eat, sleep and work in the same building. That’s why I’m sitting in a park in the Jeep writing a blog entry right now. I need to get out.

Everytime I work while traveling I learn a little bit more about technology, the world and more importantly, myself. When you stop growing and learning, you stop living. 

And I intend to live every moment out there in the world.

As my dad, my grandfather and I walked through the grounds of Oshkosh for the EAA Annual Convention and Fly-in in 1984, my dad commented to me that it was easy to pick out the male pilots from the non-pilots in the crowd because most pilots tend to be clean shaven. I countered that at the time I knew a couple of pilots that had beards or mustaches. I don’t remember what his reply to my counterargument was but he said something about clean shaven men being disciplined. Our conversation that day kicked off something in my OCD ways and ever since then I’ve always noticed whether a pilot is clean shaven or not. All of the female pilots I have met fit the bill and about 90% of the male pilots have been clean shaven.

On the other hand, I know some bearded men that are damn fine pilots and I am very proud to call them good friends. I have fully established that facial hair has no factor on the depths of aviator talents and skill.

This all being said, I was going through some old blog entries and I noticed that I have been completely clean shaven for a whole year. No mustache, no goatee, no awesome beard, just smooth cheeked and baby-faced since October of last year when a barber wearing puka shells around his neck shaved off my mustache and cleaned up the rest of my face at a barbershop in Kansas City, Missouri.

I don’t think I have been clean shaven this long for as long as I have had the ability to grow facial hair.

For many years I was easily identified by my ginger beard or large mustache that went along with my bald head. Having cool facial hair can kind of be used like currency in the “gay” world; Instagram posts get more likes, blog entries get noticed. There are many that get gaga over an awesome beard or ‘stache and quite frankly, I enjoyed the ginger powers I had to command attention when I had a beard. People noticed when I walked into a room. It was a huge stroke of my ego. I was sort of like a peacock, strutting around with ginger awesomeness. Even when the gray came in strong, I enjoyed my cinnamon and spice prowess sprouting from my chin.

During the past year I have firmly established that I am more than the ginger powers that come along with growing a beard. I have always found the chore of shaving to be fascinating; the concentration required, the idea of holding a sharp blade at your throat. I have noticed that no two men shave the same way, some take quick, short strokes, some try to get through the process as quickly as possible, others grind away at their chin with an electric gizmo while driving into work (that seems dangerous to me).

I have to admit that I have enjoyed the taming of my ginger-fueled ego and vanity with my clean shaven face. I have other reasons to feel cocky, I defy gravity as a pilot after all, but more importantly, I feel comfortable as just another face in the crowd.

I feel like I’m putting more than just my best face forward.

It is officially my favorite time of the year. The temperatures are in a manageable range, sunshine is abundant and there’s a crispness in the air that feels just wonderful. Mother Nature is showing off her colors in all her glory today and I couldn’t help but capture a few photos from the back lawn.  I used my Canon Rebel XS camera in hopes of capturing the depth of the color I see in the leaves. 

It’s such a beautiful sight to keep one focused.

The leaves are just starting to show their colors in the woods along our back lawn. In about three weeks it’ll be peak leaf peeping season. There will be many oohs and aahs, I’m sure.

The air is very still and quiet here today, even though it’s midday and usually there’s a wind blowing during my lunch hour. The leaves are barely moving. The wind chimes ding only once in a very great while. I like the stillness; I’m hoping that Mother Nature maintains this attitude so that I can enjoy a flight after work tonight.

I ran into a friend last night who asked if I was going to become a flight instructor, as I’m am embarking on the next step of my pilot training at the end of the week. Becoming a flight instructor is my retirement plan. I don’t see me ever fully retiring (and basically doing nothing) as I’m not sure my brain could handle that sort of stillness. I might feel differently in 20 years but right now I like to keep busy doing things that I enjoy doing. I find rest and relaxation in keeping my mind occupied.

Oh how I enjoy the sound of a calm late-summer afternoon. I think I’m going to work outside for the rest of the day. It’s too nice to sit in the basement when I don’t have to.

This summer our back lawn has been a social gathering place for various visitors, much more so than in previous years. I don’t know if it’s because we don’t have a resident guard by way of the feline persuasion living with us or what, but every evening we can look outside and see deer, rabbits, turkeys and more. The deer usually come around meal time, whether it be I’m eating lunch during my workday or Earl and I are eating supper. I don’t know if they just have a terrific sense of timing or whether they can smell us grilling and/or cooking, but they like to stop by and see what’s going on.

During one of the last visits from the deer, Mama had two of her kids come along with her. One of them jumped over the creek and into the woods as soon as I stepped foot on the patio, but the other kid and the Mama stayed their ground until I was fairly close to them. Mama then made a noise at me, the kid jumped along the same route as his sibling and then Mama jumped behind the both of them. A quick glance into the woods confirmed that they were just across the creek and looking back through the brush at me.

I enjoy the visits from our neighbors.

I was recently going through some old photos from my childhood and found some pictures from various summers when I was in the late single-digits. I can vividly remember my childhood and can remember many of these photos being taken. Seeing smiling faces in the summertime back in the mid 1970s made me smile again.

One year, I think it was the summer of 1976, the school district offered a daily recreation program at the elementary school. Our family hadn’t moved into the house yet, we were still living in a 10×50 mobile home with an 8×45 addition containing a living room, master bedroom and a laundry room that had room for only the dryer (the washer was in the bathroom in the original trailer). It was a tight space for a family of four, but when the weather was good I would be outside running around, playing on an area called “the path”, which was a dirt path that went down through some maple trees and old grape and other berry vines along the pasture fence. The path was my favorite area to play, it was a road, it was a runway, it was whatever my imagination wanted it to be. And because of its location, my mom could look out the kitchen window and my grandmother could look out any of her back windows and see what I was up to.

However, Mom thought it would be better if my sister and I were away from the trailer and went to recreation at the school, so every morning we were whisked off to the elementary school to see kids that we went to school with. There was a structure to the recreational program, we did gym like stuff on the track and the playground, running and playing ball and whatnot. And then later we’d go inside to the music room (which was the old elementary gymnasium when the school housed all the grades in the district) and do arts and crafts and sing songs and the like.

Looking back on the experience, I can say that I was not amused. I didn’t need the structure, I was getting plenty of exercise playing in the path and jumping the pasture fences and the like and quite frankly I didn’t want to see the kids that I was going to school with when I wasn’t in school. I was a loner. I was quite happy and content with amusing myself without being told how to be amused. Arts and crafts were exceedingly boring to me, I could sing anytime I wanted to and I certainly didn’t want to be riding a school bus in July. But Mom insisted and off to recreation we went. I tolerated it by daydreaming about what I’d do when I got home.

Luckily, recreation didn’t take up the entire summer and by mid August I was back playing on the path and doing my own thing without having to worry about things I found pedestrian: throwing a ball, making popsicle stick trinkets, coloring inside the lines, etc.

It’s no wonder that I rebel at being told what to do.

This evening Earl and I went shopping at Destiny USA in Syracuse. Destiny USA is the sixth largest mall in the United States. There are many of entertainment, shopping and dining options and it’s one of the reasons that we like going there. It’s something to do in Central New York.

I had a couple of gift certificates for “The Art of Shaving“. I enjoy their products very much and though the local boutique does not have the attached barber shop like other locations throughout the country do, they still have a wide variety of items to making my shaving experience enjoyable. I selected a couple of different soaps and I purchased a new DE (double-edged) razor to use; my current razor will be relegated to travel use and when I’m in the mood for something different but not feeling the need to live dangerously by using my straight razor.

My customer experiences at The Art of Shaving have been hit or miss over the years, though the variance of quality has not been limited to this one location. Actually, the folks at the Destiny USA location have been consistently pleasant. Tonight, Christopher was the sales associate that assisted me with my purchase.

As I was checking out, Christopher made some small talk and asked what I was up to this weekend. I responded, “I’ve been flying airplanes all weekend and will probably continue to do so tomorrow.” I was surprised when Christopher mentioned that he grew up flying a Kitfox, a popular homebuilt airplane that is built from a kit. My grandfather built a Kitfox late in life and had a good time flying it. I asked if he had his license, he said that he didn’t because the Kitfox was no longer available; his grandfather had passed while flying the Kitfox. I mentioned that my Dad had been killed in his homebuilt airplane and that while I had always wanted to become a private pilot, it wasn’t until then that I realized that I had to become a private pilot. We continued with a nice conversation about flying and the awesomeness of it as he finished up ringing the sale. We ended the transaction with a handshake. The look on his face went made it evident that he was happy that we went from just making small talk to actually talking about something that he enjoyed. And it all started because he was pleasant and I returned the pleasantries.

And isn’t that what customer service is all about?

I’m not big on hearing someone’s woes; Earl and I have had too many servers tell us how busy they are instead of smiling and looking at the bright side of life. After visiting “The Art of Shaving” we ate one of the many restaurants at Destiny USA and the server told us about moving to Syracuse from Key West to work at that restaurant (Margaritaville) and how she was still receiving from seeing snow for the first time. Again, just a simple conversation that probably started out somewhat scripted but she was pleasant, we were pleasant and it made for a pleasant experience.

If we could all just be a little more pleasant to one another I think that we would have a more pleasant experience here in the U.S. in the 21st century.

And I think that would be something to smile about.

I turned on the television this afternoon during lunch and noticed that “I Love Lucy” was on the local over-the-air retro channel. It was a rerun.

Let’s go back to a simpler time and watch “I Love Lucy”, shall we?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1oDgMNZ0j8

When I was a kid, the Fourth of July was spent at my great Aunt Frances’ house. An old farmhouse, she had a decent sized pond with two rowboats that we’d spend most of the day boating around in. One of the boats had a leak and either me or one of my cousins were designated to bail out the boat with a coffee can while the others cruised around on a three-hour tour.

One year, my two youngest cousins on that side of the family got into a fight (they were still aged in the single digits at the time) and made a big spectacle fighting in the intact boat in the middle of the pond. In a classic Laura/Nellie “Little House on the Prairie” moment, my cousin that became an animal keeper at a zoo shoved the cousin that became a Christian missionary out of the boat and into the pond. The velocity of the screams intensified and I might have suggested that there were snakes in the pond (I think I was 12 or so), which probably didn’t help the situation.

Good times, those family gatherings, good times.

We always had birthday cake at this family reunion. For the longest time I thought we were celebrating Independence Day with a birthday cake, which is kind of nifty if you think about it, but we were having cake to celebrate my great Aunt Rena’s birthday, which was July 4. Curiously, I dreamed about Aunt Rena last night, though she’s been gone for at least 15 years. She taught third grade for seemingly hundreds of years. I always likened her to Aunt Clara from “Bewitched”. She had a nice disposition. I enjoyed her.

Today I enjoy celebrating our country’s birthday but I’m not one to go around screaming “We are number one! We are number one!” because I think that’s too showy. I’ll enjoy a few barbecue items, eat some chips, watch some fireworks and thank our founding fathers for coming up with a great way to build a country.

And as others have mentioned around the Internet, no one wears the red, white and blue as well as Lynda Carter.