Ponderings and Musings

I have had a life-changing experience this week. It’s a small thing, but sometimes a very small thing can have a very large impact on one’s life. This change, this modification, has significantly improved my comfort and added a most pronounced spring to my step.

For the first time in 45 years, I have altered the way I lace up my shoes.

If you look closely, you’ll notice that my laces go straight across, instead of the criss-cross method I’ve used since mastering the art of tying my shoes during my first months of kindergarten.

When I learned to tie my shoes, there was something about the bunny going around the tree and jumping through a hoop to make his own hoop. I never understood the logistics of all this imagery, and quite frankly, I was labeled as “possibly development disabled” because I entered kindergarten without being able to tie my shoes. I didn’t color within the lines, either and I also committed the cardinal sin of “jamming” my homework into my book bag. I just think Mrs. Mosher (“no child is any different from any other child”) didn’t know what to do with me since I obviously didn’t fit into her stereotypical expectations. Clearly, I was too fabulous.

I’m digressing.

Once I mastered tying my shoes during those first shaky weeks of kindergarten, I celebrated by watching a girl named Tanya cut off her bangs with the construction paper scissors whilst I ate paste.

Calm down, I’m joking and still digressing. I’m joking about the paste. Tanya did cut her hair and I have no idea why she did that.

Actually, once I mastered tying my shoes I chalked that up to a philosophy that I still obey to this day: “set it and forget it.” The thing is, I like my shoes tied really tight and with that whole criss-cross method that I learned back in 1973, I ended up with pain in the top of my feet that has gotten worse over the years. I’m not cutting off my circulation or anything, because my doctor was overly enthusiastic about the fact that you can take and SEE my pulse in my feet (it’s not gross or anything), but at the end of the day in my dress shoes or my pilot shoes (pictured above), I’ll feel the pain associated with the dent in the top of my foot from my tightly tied shoes.

Enter the Internet. Now, I’m not much of a foot guy (though years ago I did know a guy who loved my boots to the point of really loving my boots) but as I grow older I try to find a sophisticated sense of style and apparently there’s a better way to tie one’s shoes.

In fact, this site features 41 ways to lace up shoes, and after careful analysis, I have settled in on “straight bar” lacing.

My shoes are still tight but I no longer have the high amount of pressure pressing down on the top of my foot. This morning I was able to walk six miles before work and my feet never complained once about my shoes being too tight. They felt very comfortable and very solid.

This makes me a happy man.

So last night I dreamed of several fellow bloggers that I have met over the years. The folks frolicking in my dream are all nice folks and live in various parts of the country, though in my dream we were all partying together in a nondescript, warm locale having a grand old time.

I think this dream was my subconscious telling me that I should continue writing in this blog, because I have met some mighty fine people via this blog over the years.

And to those that were in the dream last night, hello!

Once in a while I’ll take the long way home after a day at the office. This helps me separate the work day from home life and honestly, it’s a pretty drive when I take the long way, even during a long winter such as this one.

The long way home involves driving through a small hamlet called Stone Arabia. This little hamlet is situated along NY Route 10 and is primarily flat farmland to the north of the Mohawk Valley. Many Amish live in the area. The wide open spaces feel very comfortable to me, even with the winter winds whipping across the farmland.

If Earl ever told me that he wanted to live in an old farmhouse again, we’d definitely look for something around this tiny little hamlet. I could find it quite peaceful there.

There are plenty of old, stately farmhouses in the area. I thought this photo captured a great moment at the end of a great day.

I just read the Old Farmer’s Almanac to see what they’re saying about the weather for this year. They’re right on target for this week, back to cold and snow but things look better starting next week. The summer will be hotter than normal and dry. Let’s hope they know what they’re talking about.

One thing that was not in the Almanac was a prediction for the bout of sniffles that I currently have. I met with an FAA Medical Examiner (doctor) last week for my required exam. He was sniffly but said he wasn’t contagious. But now I have the sniffles. There must have been Kryptonite in his equipment.

For a Monday with loads of meetings and a bout of the sniffles, today is still a pretty good day. I don’t know if it was yesterday’s backseat flying, mulling over Trade-A-Plane to see what airplane I would like to buy or the fact that I went to a luau over the weekend that has me in good spirits. But I’m not going to complain.

I even feel inspired to start writing in my blog again. Let’s see if I can get back into the groove.

So yesterday was Monday and it was a crappy mood. After writing yesterday’s blog entry I decided I needed to do something about my crappy mood and I went upstairs and got cleaned up for the day. When I woke up yesterday morning I waited until the last minute to get out of bed, showered quick and then threw some “whatever” clothes on so I could work from home. I think feeling scruffy contributed to my mood yesterday, so at lunch time I cleaned myself up a little more and tried to feel more presentable. This helped my mood a little bit.

What really helped my mood was a message from my flight instructor indicating that a slot was open late yesterday afternoon and that we could so some flight training.

Now that’s more like it!

So what started out as a “meh” day segued into an awesome afternoon, where I enjoyed flying in the calm, clear skies, practiced emergency maneuvers and I did my first practice emergency landing on the runway. It was awesome. The procedures I have been learning are starting to come naturally to me and I’m “feeling” the airplane more as I fly. It is a wonderful feeling.

Today my good mood continues. I’m all cleaned up and though a little sleepy, I’m feeling good. Work is hectic but I’m trying to remain laid back about the whole thing. There’s no sense in getting all worked up about work, especially when it’s a means for funding my passion of aviation.

I am trying really, really, really hard to not let the winter weather get me down. Today is a beautifully sunny day but it’s still cold out. We have a lot of snow. I want to feel warm. I want to enjoy the outdoors. I’m tired of shivering.

It feels like it has been a long winter, though the calendar says we are still a month away from the “official” start of spring. It can’t get here soon enough.

Some have noticed that I haven’t written in the blog for nearly two weeks. There are a couple of reasons for this and to those of you that reached out to make sure that I was OK, have no fear, my life is better than ever.

A while back I commented that I had hoped to do more with my blog, after all, it’s been around for over 12 years and I’ve met some really nifty people as a result of having this blog. But the times have changed and since blogging was around long before the big social networks, I’ve started to wonder how “out loud” I want to live my life. I’ve been pretty open and honest in my musings on this blog thing and lately I haven’t felt the need to be that way. I think I’ve become more accustomed to the controlled atmosphere of the social networks, where I have control of who is seeing what content. With my blog in its current format, I don’t really have that luxury.

I still love to write but I’m feeling the need to write about specific topics these days. This blog has been a catch-all for everything that has gone on in my life since August 2001, and that’s all well and good, I suppose, but again, there’s that privacy issue that I’m started to be conscious of.

Another thing that kind of irked me about my blog is that I received an email from a person who wanted to start contributing to my blog because I haven’t written enough about a certain subject. Years ago I wrote a blog entry about a long-gone discount department store chain and it still ranks quite high when you search for that chain on Google. The comments to that one entry have connected many former employees together and I think that’s wonderful. That being said, I don’t want to devote a blog to discount department store chains, I just don’t have that interest and quite frankly this is my sandbox and the only other person that would ever be allowed to write in this blog is Earl and he’s going to that he would say, “not in your dreams.”

I am thinking about writing about my flight training and my journey to becoming a private pilot. My lessons are going well, yesterday I started the “next chapter”, as it is, with slow flight and turns at a point. I still can’t describe how much I love flying but when I’m in the airplane, all cares, concerns and worries melt away as soon as we lift off the runway. Learning to become a pilot requires focus, discipline and a whole bunch of work, but those elements are effortless for me because, well, I get to fly! I don’t think I want to write about my student pilot journey on this blog, so I haven’t quite figured out how I want to parse that information out yet. There are a lot of pilots that film their flights, edit them to a beautiful presentation and then share them on YouTube and/or their personal webspaces. I’m not ready for the filming part yet, I’d be too distracted, but the writing part, that’s something I think I’ll do.

I mentioned to Earl that I was really considering just shutting down this blog but he urged me to think about it for a while before doing so. So I’m going to leave it here for now and see if the mood strikes me again when the days get longer or something.

In the meanwhile, I’m here, all is well and I’m lucky because I’m a guy that’s learning how to fly.

Photo courtesy of another student that rode along and snapped a photo during my lesson yesterday.

So I haven’t blogged much lately. I haven’t even really read the small number of blogs that I still read, though there are a few I’ll get back to when I’m back on my routine. I have been enjoying vacation immensely and the experience has definitely recharged my batteries. I had to get through some “stuff” in my head. Perhaps it’s a midlife crisis of some sort. I wonder how many of those I will have before I’m an old man. Nevertheless, this vacation had given me a lot of time to think about all sorts of things and the end result is all good. Disney has that effect on me. Being in “the magic” brings a smile to my face.

It all started with a “delete” icon. Killing my original Facebook account was more cathartic than I ever imagined it would be. The “sigh of relief” I have felt from dumping that account was much bigger than I ever anticipated it would be. There is some saying that says something about wheat and chaff but I don’t remember the exact syntax at the moment. I’m focusing on the good stuff and steering away from the extraneous fluff. It’s like beer – why drink the cheap swill when you can invest a bit and savor an amazing taste of experience?

I have also been making significant adjustments to my Google+ circles and the folks I follow on Twitter. These accomplishments have furthered the feelings of renewal in many ways. Google+ has always been my “techy” social media presence, but now I’m steering it toward aviation and other interests. Many of the tech journalists I have followed over the years have turned their social networking presences to little more than a promotional / information regurgitation outlet. Twitter had been a catch all for me. I’m bringing that into focus as well. I want to read opinions. I like the intelligent debates. I like genuine points of view. That is what I seek today.

The vacation isn’t over yet. I don’t go back to work until Tuesday. So I’m going to go back to sitting back, relaxing and enjoying this flight I’m on. The view is awesome, the sky is bright and the horizon is easily seen. I’m not piloting this plane, but I will be behind the yoke soon enough.

Life is good.