Ponderings and Musings

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.

Having a little more free time to relax and recover yesterday and today, I found myself drifting deep into the early years of my blog. It struck me that my blog will turn 14 years old this summer, with the first entry in what I was calling “my journal” was from August 2001. My first blog entry talked about flying with my Dad in his homebuilt Acro-Sport II for the very first time. The last sentence of the entry, “I imagine I’ll be a private pilot someday.” seemed to be quite accurate.

Reading through the millions of words I have written over the years made me once again miss when I would take the time to sit down and write a blog entry, whether it was a creative missive, a small observation or my attempt of conveying my opinion on any given topic, versus the habit of belching out something witty in 140 characters or less on Twitter or blasting my own horn on Facebook. Over the years many blogs have come and gone and quite frankly, I miss them a lot.  I used to track everyone’s blogs via Google Reader but Google decided that they couldn’t monetize that information stream so they killed that application. I have a couple of other applications that I use instead (Feedly, TT Reader) but the experience isn’t the same. I don’t think the degradation in experience is entirely because of Google Reader’s disappearance; people are just in too much of a hurry to sit down and write a blog entry. So many blogs end like many sitcoms, no final, wrap-up episode, it just ends on a typical note.

I figure if my blog can survive the MySpace era, it can continue to exist in the Twitter and Facebook era. Unlike 90% of the blogs out there which talk about important subjects and have opinion and conjection spun into a representation of the truth, my blog has always been a creative outlet. It’s the precursor to the selfie (and I’d like to think much less obnoxious). It gives insight to my life and the way I think in a more complete manner. Usually I think before I write. I’m not trying to entertain, I’m just trying to be myself here. 

Looking back at the entries I wrote in 2005, when I had the same surgical procedure that I’m recovering from right now, it’s amazing to see how much things have changed and yet stayed the same. The world is in turmoil, I’m obsessed with gadgets and I’m still trying to lose weight. On the last point, with all the weight I’ve lost in my adult years I should be about the weight of a bedsheet by now. Have you ever tried to put skinny jeans on a bedsheet? Not a pretty picture. So what’s changed? I’ve grown a little more conservative in my expectations of the general public and I’m definitely not as salacious as I used to be. I’ve told Earl that once I have the hardware from the surgery removed, I’ll probably be much more randy than I’ve been over the past year or so. He said he’ll prepare for the event and then he smiled.

I don’t think I’ll write about that, though.

With everyone’s reliance on texts and tweets and status updates, I wonder what the world will be like in a decade or two after the “abbreviated communication” crowd grows older. It could be that my blog will still be around, looking as ancient as the penmanship on the Declaration of Independence.

Hopefully it’ll still make people smile.

We are currently on a flight from Atlanta to Vancouver. This is our second attempt at flying to Vancouver today, about n hour into the first flight we had to return to Atlanta. The flight attendant in the back jump seat either didn’t put her seat belt on or did it improperly and slid out of the seat on take off.  Word is she broke two ribs. She had struggled through the safety briefing, using cue cards to recite the narrative. 

During the first flight another flight attendant asked for our patience because they were down one FA and the beverage service would be delayed. About 30 minutes later we were headed back to Atlanta. I didn’t think being down a flight attendant would fly that well. 

I noticed that during this crisis the flight attendants didn’t stick to procedure, there was no check of seat backs, tray tables or seat belts prior to landing. This irked me, because the flight attendants were acting on behalf of the captain and if I was captain of an airliner I would want to know that all my passengers were safe. 

We got back to the gate, the paramedics came on board and escorted the injured flight attendant off. Delta decided the pilots needed to stay behind as well, so a new flight crew, a new flight attendant and some more fuel was added and off we went.

The flight attendants again did not check for seat belts, tray tables or seat backs in their upright position.  There were at least four violations within my eyesight. The flight attendants walked back and forth several times like they were checking but they were just going through the motions.

If I’m ever just going through the motions as a pilot, please keep me on the ground. 

I didn’t say anything to the procedure violators or the flight attendants because I didn’t want to create a scene because I don’t want to get booted off the airplane, but I did contact Delta via Twitter and their app and shared my feelings with them.  I don’t know if it will make a difference but at least I did my part. 

Things happen, I get that, but what makes the friendly skies so safe is that you always stick to rules, procedures and protocols. That’s how pilots handle airplanes so well in emergencies.  Stick to what you know.

It’s a shame that the flight attendants on this flight forgot that. 

I recently saw a friend that I haven’t seen in a couple of years. We were very happy to see each other as it had been much too long. As we shared hugs and conversation, he mentioned the fact that I am clean shaven. It’s not a look that he is used to on me. I gave him my standard answer when asked about the absence of my beard these days, “most pilots don’t have facial hair.” This was something that my Dad mentioned to me over 30 years ago during my first trip to Oshkosh, Wisconsin. I know many of pilots with a beard or mustache, but I don’t feel comfortable amongst their number.

It’s not the first time that I’ve heard a comment about being clean-shaven. Back in the day I was known for my huge fireman’s mustache.

I thought about growing a mustache again but I’m not really feeling it right now. I love the attention that I get when people compliment the mustache but I’m not looking for attention these days. Getting that attention pushes me into a prideful mindset. I’m content with who I am and how I look these days. In the past it’s been rare for me to be able to say that.

I feel good. I think I look good. I’m a happy man.

Anyone that’s had any sort of awareness of the 21st century has probably noticed that technology has permeated the life of everyone in some sort of a modern society. I sometimes wonder how my grandmothers would have enjoyed the likes of Skype and such but they moved on back in the days of AOL floppy disks so I never had the chance to see how their interactions with the Internet would have been. I think my city grandma still had a rotary phone in the kitchen, now that I think about it.

I’m digressing.

With technology everywhere, it’s easy to see that people are now becoming dependent on technology. It’s not uncommon to see a driver behind the wheel of a car in the dark without their lights on because the whizz-bangy doo-dads didn’t turn the lights on for them. This drives me crazy for many reasons, including the fact that it’s a safety hazard for the rest of us. Is it necessary to use technology to automatically turn the headlamps on? Shouldn’t the responsibility fall on the shoulder of the driver, not the computer?

There was recently an article in the LA Times that suggests getting rid of automatic flushing systems in toilets to could save California millions of gallons of water. I know that back in the day when these automatically flushing toilets came about that we were told it was better for the environment because the toilet could control how often it was being flushed. I don’t know about anyone else’s experience, but every time I use a public toilet that has the automatic flusher, it flushes two or three times as I move around in the stall trying to get my pants back up. If it was a manual system, like in the “good ol’ days”, I would have flushed the toilet once and that would have been it. If we figure three gallons of water per flush, that one incident would have saved six gallons of water right there.

Who’s idea was it to automate toilets, anyway? Have we become so lazy as a society that we need someone to flush our toilets for us? Have we become unable to use our foot to push down the flusher (because god forbid we use our hands.)?

Sharing information and having the world at your fingertips at all times in pretty nifty in many ways. But when people are more focused on their phones than on the world around them, who is benefitting from the advancement of technology? The user? The viewer? The ad companies?

I’m all for technological advancements, even in my middle aged years where I’m probably a little crankier than I used to be. But those advancements need a purpose. We should have a reason for implementing technology, not just throwing an electronic doo-dad in every thing we use and do because we can.

I like to think of Earl and me as a “power couple”. We both have pretty intense careers; Earl’s is a little more high pressure than mine, but in recent years my career has really started to move in a positive direction and I am very happy with that.

It is because we work hard during that week that we are able to play hard on the weekend. Traveling isn’t an easier affair for us; I carry two computers, one or two iPads, my iPhone and possibly my work phone (I usually use my iPhone for both work and personal business) and Earl carries his personal iPad and his work iPad. There have been many occasions where Earl has taken care of conference calls along the side of the road in places like Des Moines, Iowa or at the entrance gate to Animal Kingdom. Last week I spent two hours along the New York State Thruway in a snow/sleet/rain storm fixing a server issue using my iPad, my work computer and a smattering of profanity. I know others that do the same thing; a very good friend of mine writes applications using his laptop whilst sitting at a resort hotel swimming pool.

The only time that I’m really disconnected from the world is when I’m flying an airplane, and even then I’m not disconnected; I can still get phone calls and text messages, I just wisely choose to ignore them.

I am living the life I had always dreamed about and it’s because of a lot luck, some crazy twists and turns along my path and a lot of hard work. When you put your mind to it, one can accomplish anything.