Celebrating Independence day reminds me how fortunate, and thankful I am to live in the USA and count myself as an “American.” The reason is freedom. Two freedoms in particularly: 1) the freedom to love and marry who I want without government intervention and 2) the freedom to fly. But #1 is to love and […]
Continue ReadingLike many of us, many interests have expressed themselves over the years–compartments of life that consume time and provide enjoyment. While flying has been the most powerful , others have held sway as described below. And now, if there’s one thing I would love to be, it would be a missionary of rationality: basing our […]
Continue ReadingI’d just gotten hired at my first employer as a flight instructor. I was determined to be good at it–to teach safely, effectively, and to let the students fly the plane without excessive interference. I remembered instructors who were too handsy on the controls, making it difficult to get the feel. Was it him or […]
Continue ReadingI marvel at how some remarkably bad designs persist. Do these people test their stuff in something resembling a real world? Do they use normal humans with normal fingers? How about the restaurant owners: do they expect people to tease out the finer details of operation while a line forms behind them, and their food […]
Continue ReadingHave you ever noticed that unhappiness from a sad event fades? We then tend to go back to our average, or baseline level of life satisfaction. This emotional falloff is fortunate. It’s why the saying “time is the best healer” is pretty sage advice. Emotional Falloff Probably the best example of this is when a […]
Continue ReadingMy history is intertwined with flight, but there was a time before flight; a time when I didn’t really think about flying as something available to me. I drew ships. I had some fascination with being in moving things. I remember putting a ping-pong table top of a wagon and pulling it around with our […]
Continue ReadingI’m lucky to have a human that I truly enjoy spending time with, and I’m hoping for many more years. He is the Great Tim. Many aspects of Timness are difficult to explain, but one of the most impressive is thoughtfulness. He does all these little things that I don’t even think of let alone […]
Continue ReadingMy paramotoring started in March of 1999. There was no formal (read consensus) training program so I opted for the next best thing: paraglider training using the US Hang Gliding Association (USHGA)’s program. Through my long exposure to aviation I’ve had numerous flying friends die which enforced more respect for the dangers of flight and […]
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