Since I always seem to be writing about flying, I thought that I’d deliberately throw in one post that has nothing to do with that. I have determined that my life is not complete without a Dreyer’s natural grape fruit bar. Sure, I’ve written about it before, but I now now that I really badly need to have a box of these goodies in the freezer at all times.
It is made of grapes, so it has to be healthy, right?
I can now say that I’ve fully lived through an earthquake. This week a 5.6 magnitude trembler rolled, quite literally, through the house at around 8pm. Furniture moved, things swayed, and dishes clanked. And it was all over in about 30 seconds. I’ve certainly been through earthquakes before, but strangely never at home and not one this big.
Nothing was ruined and only a few items fell out of place. Best of all there wasn’t a sense of real panic or desperation, just a feeling that something was going bonkers and that I should probably find a spot where things won’t fall on my head to ride it out. I certainly want to acquire some safety gear and supplies now, though.
It’s been a month and I’m still pounding out the daily work schedule and trying to sneak in some flying where and when I can. Along the way I’ve slowed down my corporate travel, but that ends this week, as I start hitting the road to see customers wherever they may be. That can only mean less GA flying and a lot more bad airport experiences.
At least I’m still employed, right? I could have ended up like these poor hosers.
It seems that I’ve been on the road constantly, and that I’ve done very little general aviation flying. Upon looking back at my schedule since January, it does appear that most every week and weekend I’m in another city or country, talking to a different customer or partner, eating at a new or similar restaurant and staying at another hotel chain. I certainly have the flight miles (and nagging cough) to prove it.
I also have started lacking in my ability to get to the local airport and fly, and when I do get out to the airport these day my skills aren’t what they used to be. That’s a bummer, as I feel like I’m going backwards in my training, and that really bites. The learning to fly stuff is what helps me keep my head clear of all the work related mumbo-jumbo, but when it isn’t going well its hard to have a good outlet.
Here’s hoping I get some serious downtime in the near future and can get back on the pilot learning curve, pointed upward again.
I’m going to try this new theme for a bit and see how it works for me. Maybe more photo’s will slip into the design if things are easier (and more fluid) with this layout. We’ll see.
I have just about recovered from the ordeal that is getting ready for, staging, shipping, demonstrating, and tearing down a full show load out for CES. I can’t say that I enjoyed it, or that I’d volunteer to do as much work again, but I’m glad its all done.
Severe pain came from the logistics of getting people (namely me) and equipment (some 80+ boxes of it) to and from the show. As the largest single event in Las Vegas, CES is uniquely positioned to stress out every part of the infrastructure needed to travel, house, transport, and sustain a group of nearly 200,000 people for a week. As much as I dislike the driving situation in the Bay Area, I now have to thank Las Vegas and their elegant street construction planning for reminding me of how much fun driving 5 MPH for an hour can be.
I now get to start planning for the next series of events, customer contacts, and traveling. One can only hope that things go smoother the next time around. A little less smoky smell and a lot more sleep per day can’t hurt, either.
After a short 3 days and change in OK, plus a day and a half in Tahoe, I get a short rest in San Jose for the next week. Well, that isn’t really true, as I must now scramble to get all of the work done to make it to CES this coming weekend and all next week. But at least for today it seemed a bit more subdued than usual, or maybe I’m just not sure what to call the time you have outside of work.
What did get me wondering about stuff is the temperature at the house, which is hovering in the 65F area and can’t seem to recover from that range. Perhaps its from a week of having the heater turned off, but the poor thermostat just can’t seem to catch up to the temperature/time settings as they arrive on schedule. In the meantime I’ll be wearing my fleece, thank you very much.
On the heavily annoying side of things are drivers who clearly don’t understand where they are or what they are doing, thus preventing me from making to or from any location in my usual speed and grace (which is to say I provide neither). I’m not sure, but it seems that during the holidays people must fly to the Bay Area and drive around like lost, drunken lemmings just to spite me.
Finally I am spanked again for not having all of my end of the year memberships done. I went to the R/C field to fly today and my membership in that club wasn’t completed, so I was sidelined. I come home to find my AAA membership expired, and I’m sure all of my magazine and professional organization memberships have lapsed as well. Can’t any of these things be setup on auto-pay?
I had the opportunity this past Thursday to go out to a real, honest to goodness race track and do some laps with the C6. This is the first time either I or the car has seen a track, so it was a lot of new-ness all around.
The track was Thunderhill and it was truly in the middle of nowhere, nearly 3 hours away (by my driving) from home. The track was full of twists, turns, and straight-aways and provided more proof that I have a much more powerful car than I am a capable driver. It was humbling to see so many cars blasting around the track at speeds far greater than I could hope to acheive in one short day.
It was a good experience and I should probably go again, but I think I’ll need some professional instruction first. This time was interesting, but with help I’ll bet I could to a lot more. I certainly now know that my car can do more.
I had the occasion last night and this morning to have completely lost my wallet. This led to several panicked phone calls (sorry Steve and Paul) and a lot of tearing up the house. In the end, I cancelled all my credit cards, my ATM card, and lost my Social Security card, requiring calls to replace them all.
I rarely lose things of such great value, but this time around I just sucked. Moments after I put the call in on all these items I found my wallet, wedged into a small opening between the passenger seat and the rail it slides on near the carpet in the car. This sucked, as I then had to go to the bank and watch them laugh at me for having the card they cancelled, then getting issued a new one while they cut up the old one.
I really do have to remember to put everything back in the right place when I’m done travelling, lest this incident become more commonplace and a lot more nerve wracking in the future.
On stop 2 of my long work trip I managed to get seriously lost driving from Amsterdam to Eindhoven in the Netherlands. This seems to be a pattern with me and going places for work stuff these days: get off the plane, get in a rental car, drive around lost for hours.
In this case the rental car was a super crappy Mercedes A class mini-econo-box with a stick shift and a top speed of 130kph. I did eventually make it to my hotel around midnight for a meeting the next morning at 9am. But I proceeded to get lost searching for the next hotel in Amsterdam, so it seems that my navigation skills are sadly lacking. Ditto on reading Norse road signs.
