Uh-oh!

Earlier this week I had dinner with a business associate.  Knowing my passion for flying, he mentioned to me that he had been taking flying lessons and was really enjoying it.  Note to friends: if you don’t want to spend an entire evening talking about flying, it is best not to bring it up when I’m around.  Flying has truly been one of the great passions of my life and one that I sorely miss.

Midway through my initial training, I had an experience that taught me a lot about myself and has given me confidence that extends into many areas of my life.

One of the fundamentals of early flying lessons is learning how to handle stalls.  Prior to beginning flying lessons, I naively thought a stall had something to do with a loss of power.  I quickly learned that stalls can be done at any power setting.  In fact, the pucker factor increases directly with the throttle setting.  The simplest stall is brought about by simply pulling back on the stick (or yoke) with enough pressure that the aircraft continues to lose airspeed until the wings no longer generate enough lift and the aluminum cylinder you are riding in abruptly shifts from gliding to plummeting earthward.  With full power in, your angle of flight is crazily nose-high just before the stall.  Think of the anticipation on a roller coaster as you chug up a steep ascent, followed almost instantly by freefall – except with full power in, you are accelerating far faster than freefall.  Plus, there is a bit of a transition on the roller coaster.  A stall is quite abrupt.

Flight instructors are a sadistic bunch though, and basic stalls just aren’t enough.  No, you have to practice stalling first with ten degrees of bank and then up to twenty.  Talk about disorienting.  But it gets better, because like anything carving an arc across the sky or ground, the parts towards the inside of the turn are moving slower than parts on the outside.  In flying near stall speeds, this requires copious use of opposing rudder to coerce the inside wing into balance with the outside wing.  Not enough rudder?  An interesting thing happens called a spin.  The inside wing abruptly stalls, but the outside wing happily flies on.  At this point, the plane will begin a very rapid spiral towards the ground and the disorientation for the inexperienced is intense to say the least.

Well, on one of my first solo flights, I decided I should practice a bunch of stalls.  The first ten or so went well, but the last one was a full throttle, twenty degree bank to the left. I got complacent with the rudder and in an instant, things turned to fecal matter.  As the horizon spun crazily around I turned the yoke as hard as I could the opposite direction of the spin, but nothing happened, so I tried full yoke the other way. Zilch.  Unfortunately, this was the moment it occurred to me that I had no idea how to recover from a spin. Now there was a bizarre sound growing louder by the second.  I suddenly realized I still had full power in, and my speed was so high I was starting to sound like a WWII dive bomber.  Ok, throttle to idle!

I was pushing, pulling, twisting flight controls in every combination I could think of but was now falling out of the sky with my airspeed rapidly approaching the red zone where wings start to fall off.  The feeling of panic was intense, but I remember thinking “Ok, I’ve got to figure this out in the next few seconds.”

I actually, calmed myself enough to analyze the situation and realized the rudder might still work.  So I jumped on that thought and held the right  rudder pedal firmly to the floor. I could now feel the spin slowing, yes definitely it was slowing.  Within a few seconds, I was out of the spin and flying level, airspeed bleeding back down towards the green.  A quick check of the altimeter showed I had fallen over a half mile before recovering. Sobering thought: the recommended minimum altitude for this maneuver is 1500 ft above terra firma.  

The point of this story wasn’t just to ramble on about flying as I love to do, but explain the realization I had that day.  The realization was that even in an utterly disoriented, panicked state with only seconds to react, I became intensely focused and was able to think clearly and analyze my situation.  Frankly, I expected less of myself. Not in a bad way really, but in day to day life I am not always a quick thinker, especially when I am disoriented or startled.  My guess is that most humans have the same innate ability, but don’t oft get the opportunity to discover this about themselves.  

What Goes Up…

A recent encounter with a chipper young lady who has had a less than ideal upbringing has left me thinking about the ups and downs that life brings.  For decades now, I have held the belief that to experience true joy in life we must first experience real pain. 

I spent much of my childhood in the barren flat expanse of central Texas.  Once a year my parents packed up the Dodge and drove us up the Pacific Northwest.  Dad always made sure the route include lots of time in the mountains of Colorado, Wyoming, and Idaho as we made our way up to the family farm in Tieton, Washington.  I can’t begin to explain the awe and respect I had for the beauty of the Rockies in Colorado, the Cascades in Washington, and the ranges in between.  Even as a child, I remembered wondering if the people that were raised in these environs had a similar appreciation or if they took the glory surrounding them for granted.

I think this appreciation of nature’s offerings is akin to true joy in life.  To truly appreciate it you need to know what it is like to not have it.  This isn’t to say you don’t find beauty in the mountains or joy in life if you haven’t experienced otherwise.   Rather, that the level of awe or joy you are able to experience is commensurate with the pain or lack of beauty that you have experienced.

A life where we have never been tested, where we have not had to struggle, leaves us with nothing to judge the best of times against.  The best times, in such a life, are simply a bit better than the other times.  For those that have spent time stuck in a dark abyss, the value of freedom and light are extraordinary. 

I also believe that we can only have periods of great joy and contentment for limited periods.  Otherwise, we will become complacent, and as the memories of challenges faced and conquered fade, so must our ability to feel exhilaration and inspiration.  Like a refreshing rain cleanses the air, we must periodically be challenged, tested and pulled away from the periods of calm and be reminded of the pain or emptiness that life can bring so that once again we can see life for the gift that it is.

In my mind, we should look upon the challenges life hands us with a knowing nod that it is what needs to happen and the best is yet to come.

Hanging at Hanging Lake

The Hanging Lake trail in Glenwood Canyon is considered one of Colorado’s most used trails. Of course, this summer it wasn’t as the trail was closed from May to August for reconstructive work.  I find it an interesting comment on “progress” that similar work was done to replace the planking around the lake and the rails on the steepest section below the lake in 1972 and again in 1992. In both efforts, horses were used to haul the planking and such up the steep 1.6 mile trail and the Boy Scouts and other volunteers did the installation.  This year’s renovation cost the tax payers $1.1 million as professional crews did the work and the materials were flown in by helicopter. Helicopters also removed the old planking.  It seems to me this is exactly the type of thing that local volunteers would have readily given time for.  Too bad that seemingly doesn’t even occur as a possibility to the Forest Service.  Perhaps such community efforts have fallen prey to our litigious tendencies and the general over-reactions they illicit in public officials.

I have made the trip to the lake many times.  It is extraordinarily beautiful in the summer with the waterfalls in the back feeding the crystal clear waters of the main body.  Dozens of fish wander around unafraid of visitors as if they can read the “No Fishing” signs.  Despite the allure of the lake in summer,  I find trips in January or February to be the most beautiful as the waterfalls are made mostly of sculptured ice and giant icicles cling to the edge of the lakeside cliffs.  Several hundred yards above the lake is “Spouting Rock”.  Here, the creek squirts out of the side of a 120 foot cliff about two-thirds of the way up the face.  In the winter this forms a huge stalagmite of ice often thirty or forty feet high and ten or more feet in diameter near the top.  The base spreads thirty feet or more and is wonderfully decorated with hundreds of small ice-rimmed pools of water.

One of my fondest experiences in the area occurred at the top of the cliff above Spouting Rock.  Where the creek exits the cliff there are a number of cave-like holes begging for exploration.  One fine day, Tim, a friend from college, and I set out to see if we could get into the one of these openings with hopes of  tracking the stream back through the  limestone it had carved away.  The plan was to set a rope at the top of the cliff then rappel down to the holes.  The cliff had a noticeable overhang and we expected to be a few feet from the face by the time we lowered ourselves to the spout.  Right away we had an issue as the edge of the cliff was covered in a thick bramble of thorny bushes.  We couldn’t route the ropes under or through them, so we had to just toss it over the top.  While we were setting the ropes at the top, we noticed a group of elementary school kids with their teacher had arrived at the base and were laying out a blanket for a picnic.  They had seen us and the dangling rope and seemed enthralled with whatever it was they thought we were doing. 

I was the first to go.  Because of the bramble I could get no closer than about three feet to the edge.  The only way to get past this obstacle was to jump backwards about as high and hard as I could.  This was definitely an exciting way to go over the edge of a cliff!  So, jump I did.  Unfortunately, I didn’t leave myself enough slack in the rope and my feet were pulled into the top of the bushes where the thorns got a solid grip on my shoelaces.  I ended up completely upside down with both feet well entangled in the brush.  Because of the overhang, I was also dangling in mid-air.  Once I realized I was soundly attached to the rope, the first wave of fear quickly gave way to the humorous side of my predicament and I laughed so hard I cried.  Having never hung upside down like this I decided to take in the view.  The first thing I noticed was the now panicked teacher rushing the kids down the trail away from the unfolded disaster.  She literally folded all the food up in the picnic blanket so she could get the kids out of there as fast as possible.  I felt bad I ruined their picnic, but at that moment I thought it was pretty darn funny.

We never made it into the caves.  What we thought would be a slight overhang ended up to be at least ten feet and we were never able to swing ourselves into the cliff and grab on. I’ve always remembered the unique view I had that day and wonder if I traumatized any kids.  I haven’t been up to the lake for a few years now.  Hopefully, the future will hold more memorable trips.

Unequivocably… maybe

Well so much for the promise to myself to post once a week. It has been a week with absolutely no time to set aside to write.  This is no doubt due in some part to a general inability to focus and get things done.  Perhaps if I can get  two posts this week it will make me feel better.  I have committed to myself to work fewer nights and weekends which should be a positive step.

I remember reading an article in the Harvard Business Review many years back that was an analysis of what made businesses succeed or fail.  There were about 1700 businesses involved in a Harvard study that spanned ten years.  The firms were followed from inception and ran the gamut from wildly successful to dismal failures with everything in between.  Sizes ranged from single proprietorships to firms with hundreds of employees.  The goal of the study was to see if there were identifiable trends in the management of the successful companies as well as those not so.  They identified something akin to the top ten reasons for success and failure.  All of the other nine reasons in both categories paled in comparison to the first in both lists:  The doomed companies failed to make decisions and the most successful made clear decisions regularly.  Perhaps the most interesting thing is that the healthy firms made many bad decisions, but when it became apparent they were going the wrong direction, they stopped what they were doing, analyzed the new information, and then made new decisions.

I liken it to being lost in the wilderness.  You are pretty sure that the trail to your left will lead you out of your predicament so you commit to your decision and trundle off to the left. After some time you begin to notice nothing has looked familiar and you realize you have made a mistake. If you keep going on that trail, you are going to get further and further from your intended destination.  So, now is the time to make a new decision – which could be an incorrect one as well. After enough decisions however, you will have collected a lot of information about what the wrong directions are.  At some point you will arrive at the correct decision and find your way back out.

This is where I sometimes get hung up.  Whether it is that I am seeking the euphoria that comes with those moments of absolute clarity, or I am simply afraid to expose myself to the risk of a bad decision, I’ll get absorbed in the idea that I can’t afford to make a mistake.  This leaves me in the position of postponing decisions hoping to have better information soon.  So rather than trial and error (or trail and error in the above case) I feel I must have the right answer at the onset.  The bigger the decision, the more likely I am to get myself into this mindset. 

Far too often in my business life as well as personal life I postpone decisions while I seek clarity to the ultimate path I need to follow.  The reality is that I would almost always be better off making a decision with the information available and acting on it sooner.  If it turns out to be wrong, that should become evident at some point and I would then be closer to having the ultimate clarity I am seeking.  What I am beginning to realize is that more often than not, clarity comes in small pieces.  I do need to find clarity for each step on the way, but not necessarily the end-game.

Grow up!

What does it mean to be mature? I have come to think of maturation as the process of integrating into society and learning how to get the most out of the short time we are given on this blue orb.  I attended a lecture in the early 90's where among other things, the speaker talked about a university study on maturity.  My recollection was that the study had identified over 1200 aspects to the human psyche that we could or should experience growth in. No one human could ever show high levels of maturity in all 1200 columns, rather they spent a lifetime building and adding to the list. Escapist behaviors such as drinking, drugs and a host of _______-aholics all tend to stop the maturation process.  The problem is that instead of learning to cope with life's tests and frustrations, the avoiding behaviors keep us stuck pretty much where we were when we started said behaviors.

So what makes up the list of 1200?  I don't really know, but I would guess things like patience, humility, responsibility, compassion, self-confidence, honesty, directness, selflessness, principles, commitment, and  another 1190 adult sounding words.  I remember being amused by the thought of 1200 workbooks that you could purchase individually and work on a particular "maturity merit badge". Certain jobs would require so many merit badges:  Rock Star-0; Professional Athlete-5; Politician-25; Business Owner -100; Judge-250...

 When I was in my early twenties, I was pretty sure I was a reasonably mature adult with mature philosophies about life.  Sadly, despite the fact that I was married, had kids, and a good job I was anything but.  Instead, I teemed with insecurities and not uncommonly felt the need to do things such as exaggerate, manipulate people to get what I wanted or even occasionally lie to get what I wanted or to cover a perceived failure.  I exaggerated to try to convince people that perhaps I was more clever, physically adept, or responsible than I really was. The less I knew about something, the more likely I was to argue with someone about it lest they sense my actual ineptitude on the subject. My guess would be that at least some people who knew me then might have perceived arrogance. (Thanks for not telling me!)  This was really the result of compensating for those pesky insecurities.   I excused my occasional manipulative behaviors as harmless. Instead of being direct and honest about what I wanted I felt it was often better to just avoid any potential controversy and simply nudge people in such a way as to achieve the outcome I desired. I actually viewed this as the "right" way to get things done because it avoided unpleasantness while getting me where I wanted to be.  It took years for me to come to understand that I was perpetuating my insecurities and robbing those I cared most about the chance to really get to know me.
On the plus side, I do think every employer I ever had thought of me as a good employee.  I had a good work ethic and because of my insecurities felt I needed to be really good at whatever I was asked to do and willingly threw my all into every task asked of me.I guess I had earned a few merit badges.

After half a century of life, I would like to think that I have long since outgrown the majority of my insecurities and have evolved to have a strong appreciation for value and desirability of directness.  That's not to say there aren't  regressions , particularly under stressful conditions.  It also isn't to say there is anything resembling a shortage of areas where I could use some additional growth.  The most obvious that comes to mind is "balance." I have always had a "work hard, play hard" philosophy. I viewed this philosophy as a positive for decades.  Recently, however, it has become clearer to me that once again I am short-changing myself and those I love.  As I am forced to periodically reduce staff through lay-offs or attrition, I have found myself feeling a deepening need to intensify my work in order to compensate for the diminished resources.   I tend to take on far more than I possibly accomplish.  I enjoy hard work and extrapolate that to all areas of my life.  The results can sometimes border on the absurd.  It is time to realize my limitations and organize my life in such a fashion that I can provide the necessary time for fitness, family, friends, cars, houses, work, and recreation.

Despite my journey away from many immature behaviors, anyone that has spent time around me understands that I would never want to be described as "mature".  In fact,  I very specifically don't want to "grow up" in some areas of my life.  I think all passions stem from a childlike hunger for fun or knowledge.  Risky behaviors such as kayaking, rock climbing, diving, flying and a many others could be considered immature and selfish to pursue.  However, I think they provide a balance between childhood fantasies and the harsher realities of adult life.  It seems that it is more often than not, the immature aspects of our personalities that are the most interesting and perhaps the most likely to attract friendships or mates. I for one want to keep as many childlike qualities as I can get away with as long as they keep my life interesting and don't take away from other important relationships in my life.

Won't Boot

I was recently reminded of an old computer that I had saved from near death.  I did a brief stint circa 1981 in a computer repair facility as a repair tech.  I hadn’t thought of that job in a long time but some enjoyable memories came wandering back as I reached deeper into this not-too-often visited part of my past.  The rescued computer was a Radio Shack Color Computer (fondly called CoCo) that ran off a Motorola 6809 processor. The 6809 had some nice graphics functions built in compared to its predecessor the Motorola 6502 that was used in the original Apples.  As I recall, this computer had been next to a Christmas tree when said tree went up in flames (and the living room for that matter).  The customer brought in this creosote covered, foul smelling and partially melted computer in the hopes we could do something with it.  The shop manager looked it over carefully for about 30 seconds and then flung it in the trash.  “Nope, nothing we can do.”

 I thought of that poor little Coco all day and decided to take it as a little project for myself.  The only criterion for the repair was that I would use no out of pocket money.  As other computers came in and had components replaced I would scavenge usable parts off of the removed bits and pieces. Eventually, I was able to get it fully functional and I had that little computer for years.  When the kids were little, I even remember writing some video games for them in 6809 Assembly.  Ahh, coding was so simple and fun then…

Radio Shack didn’t want their repair techs to actually find bad components and replace them.  Instead, whole circuit boards or power supplies were swapped out.  Not only did this make repairs expensive, it wasn’t particularly challenging either. Despite company policy, Dave the shop manager and I always tried to do component level repair when possible.  This saved the customers some money and made the job much more satisfying as well.  Parts were often slow or expensive to come by so Dave and I would scavenge components from already known bad boards.  At the time, “The Shack’s” top of the line business oriented system was the Model II. This was a large oafish unit with an integrated monitor and an eight inch Floppy drive. Internally, there was a power supply, motherboard, CRT components and five circuit cards:  CPU, Memory, Disk controller, video, and serial/ parallel I/O.  Each card had dozens of chips, transistors and other valuable components that we would pull off as needed.  The bad components were always soldered carefully back on the donor board as we couldn’t get credit from the main office if we sent back boards that we had obviously performed such shenanigans on.  Another technique that was often used to isolate a bad component was to cut the copper traces leading to or from it with an X-acto blade in.  Again, we dutifully repaired the cut traces with bit of wire and some solder.  It was rather obvious on casual inspection that a lot of um… “work” had been done on the boards.

When a tech wasn’t able to repair a computer by swapping out boards, the next step was to ship the whole computer back to the factory repair center in Fort Worth.  If factory repair couldn’t fix it, you would get back a brand new computer.  Well, after months of scavenging parts, we decided it was time to send a whole computer back to Texas and see if we couldn’t get a new one in return.  We grabbed a power supply and CRT controller that were blackened from a lightning strike.  The Floppy drive had a cracked read/write head and  both motors were seized up. All five circuit boards had multiple cut (but repaired!) traces and innumerable bad components.  A detailed repair tag was supposed to be taped to the unit outlining what had been tried and what the results were.  For this project, we skipped the repair form and impishly stuck a little post-it note on the monitor that read simply:  “Won’t Boot”.  We did get our new computer back - along with a grumbly note.  Dave eventually was offered a job to move to Texas and became VP of the factory repair center.  When he first arrived and met the President of the division, there sat the CPU card out of that computer - replete with dozens of trace cuts.  The president had mounted it on a little oak stand with a brass plate stamped “Won’t Boot”.  Turns out, that system is what got Dave noticed for the big promotion.  Sometimes it does pay to break the rules. 

premises, premises ...

A couple of nights ago as I lay in bed  trying (unsuccessfully) to clear my mind so I could fall asleep, I realized  that in most major cities of the world there exists thriving examples that illustrate perfectly the premise of my previous post.  Unfortunately, they are called "gangs".  This realization pretty well dumped water on that already oxygen deprived ember.
The bright spot was a comment posted by C. Gay that quoted the Dalai Lama.  I happen to be a sucker for the Dalai  Lama's teachings, and have more than once searched the web or for examples that I could use for whatever point I was about to argue or just to ponder in my own existence.  Anyway, to paraphrase the quote, it essentially suggests that rather than punching, shooting, or otherwise maiming someone who has wronged you it would be far more useful to get to know this person.
Let's face it, this guy has more wisdom in his exiled pinky finger than I've got between my northern and southern extremities.  His understanding of human nature is certainly extraordinary and is thoroughly incorporated into his teachings.  If a majority of the world, especially its leaders, followed his teachings, this would certainly be a far happier, safer and saner place to live.  Despite that, I find my mind wandering, as it does, around this quote and the premises upon which it is built.
My thoughts are often well illustrated and in this case seemed a bit like a scene from a play.  Visualize with me a scene where a man's wife has recently been killed by a religious zealot.  Despite his grief and rage at the attacker, he remembers the Dalai Lama's teachings and decides instead of exacting revenge, he will invite this man over for a civil dinner where they can get to know each other.  In this way he hopes to gain understanding into the painful life this man must certainly have experienced.  Apprehension and nerves flail in his body as the minutes count down to dinner.  The attacker arrives precisely on time and glancing around anxiously he pulls out a gun and summarily eliminates the only witness to his previous crime.  The curtain falls.

But there is another scene!  This one is in a war torn country where a small village has just been taken by  NATO troops.  In the gunfight, a villager lost his wife to a soldier's bullet.  Despite his grief and rage at the man responsible for his wife's death, he remembers the Dalai Lama's teachings and decides instead of picking up his rifle, he will invite the soldier over for a civil dinner where they can get to know each other.  In this way he hopes to gain understanding  as to why this man thinks he can come to a foreign country and kill innocent civilians. Despite great apprehension, the two do meet for dinner.  After the man tells the soldier about his wife and his love for her the soldier breaks down and sobs. The soldier talks of his ideals and dreams of a world at peace. Dinner continues well into the night and as the curtain closes it is clear they are both visibly touched by the poignancy of their respective situations.

I believe the second scene would be the far more common one.  I would like to think that most humans, despite strong beliefs or painful experiences, would eventually succumb to the humanity of the other's plight and they could find a way to coexist.  Unfortunately, there some people that are so angry, mentally ill, or otherwise blinded to the value of human life that they would take advantage of any perceived weaknesses and attack mercilessly.  Further, I think in many cultures these are the people that will rise to power and subsequently lead the dutifully loyal soldiers into a murderous war.
It seems to me that the Dalai Lama's thoughts require the premise that both parties will act in a sane, rational fashion.  This is probably a valid assumption for the majority of interactions I will ever personally encounter in my own life and thus is probably sage counsel for my life.  But how does a society come to terms with the ideals of its greatest thinkers versus the depraved rage of a minority scattered about the globe?  I certainly can't begin to fathom any sort of sensible solutions.  I long for a world free of war but feel a guilty comfort knowing that I have the epitome of destructive technology keeping enemies at bay thus allowing me to drive my SUV to Starbucks for a latte fix without getting shot at by Jihadists.