Finding The Right Pace

Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised that when I take the time to slow down just a little, and smell the roses, how right it feels.  With today's American tech work environment with its tight schedules, deadlines, etc, we start to build a routine that is a very fast pace for everything we do.  I think because of that, we are missing out on more than we know, missing out on important stuff.  The following were great reminder to find that pace.

Flight to Hesperia

I went flying with a friend out to Hesperia as part of the "Tonytex Fly-in".  Thankfully my wife wasn't too upset with me and it was a chance for me to create a new memory with a great flying buddy, Michel Schmeid, and refresh my friendships with my flying pals.  Michel and I have had some great adventures over the years.  With me making an exciting nighttime landing into California City, when we went to see the third X-Plane flight that set the record and won the X-Prize, and Michel's intense cross-wind landing into Chiriaco Summit, it's been a lot of fun.  This flight we goofed around a little in the cockpit and took a quick picture.  It was Michel's idea to have 4 GPS units in the airplane along with Garmin's state of the art glass panel avionics suite plus an iPad with charts, and Michel acting like he’s lost (at least that's the caption of the photo we took).  We mounted our made-for-flight portables to the aircraft and snapped a picture.  The auto-pilot gave use plenty of time to use the traffic information system and scan for traffic over the busy LA basin. We played with the new capabilities of the “glass cockpit” and talked about all kinds of stuff, mostly flying.

We had a nice breakfast with the gang, talked and laughed about the flight over, and told a load of lies about what great pilots we were, as well as renewing our friendships for 2011.  By setting the pace just a little slower and not being in a rush to get out of town and back to San Diego, I photographed what will always be a great memory, hopefully, for Tony Texeira and his grandson.  Tony was standing by the runway with Michael watching planes land and counting railroad cars as they went by on the tracks (on the other side of the runway).  When we started gathering to leave, we posed for pictures in front of Jim Newports 337 Skymaster.  Michael took it all in and then posed with Michel and I in front of the turbo C-182 we brought up. Great memories for all five of us.

Lunch at Robert's Jalapenios

On Tuesday after the flyin, I stopped in for lunch at Robert’s Jalapenos, the best Mexican food in the area.  I was thinking of just grabbing a breakfast burrito to-go but decided to relax for a few minutes before I went back to work.  Luise and Greg were there and we shot the bull for a minute while I ordered.  I wished Greg a happy new year since this is the first time I've seen him this year.  I'm glad I did sit down and take my time because the owner, Robert, came over to my table to say hello.  I've known Luise and Robert for probably 15 years and they treat me like family.  It was really great to see Robert and hear that all was going well with his family and the two restaurants.

It's experiences like this that remind me that it's worth slowing down, just a bit, to smell the air like my labradoodle and experience the throb of life.