The Truth

The Truth hurts and will hurt feelings. The truth rears up and attacks. Clearly telling the truth is the honorable thing to do and I certainly cannot be held accountable for what is indeed true. It is simply not my fault, nor is anybody to blame. It's just true.

It is simply not something that I did, nor is it a willful act. I cannot be blamed for it.

My ethics lead me towards Truth.

The Lie

The Lie is the easy thing to do. The lie won't hurt anybody's feelings and quite simply, they will never know if it is true or not. In a lot of ways it allows everybody to save face. I can gracefully dismiss everything with a lie and oddly enough, this makes things much better going forward for everybody.

Will my personal and professional ethics allow me to lie?

The Lie is my easy way out which indeed might be better.

Mother Earth

He Said, She Said: Best Seat in the House

via text

He Said: Why am I always out by myself at dinner while all the tools bring their hot dates to sit near me?

She Said: Maybe the same reason my dates keep cancelling on me? If any concellation, I dined alone too. Rented My Best Friend's Wedding to watch alone. Not sure what I was thinking....

Now serving Pity, party of two. Your table is ready

Best seat in the house....right next to the kitchen.

Getting to Me

This week things have been "getting to me".

I really have myself to blame.

Listen - start standing up for yourself. Don't let people talk down to you and absolutely never become what they think you are. Be smart. Be assertive. Don't let them walk over you. Got it?

I have no reason to complain until I change my own behavior. You are better than this.

My Meeting: Planning for Barrington

I am constantly amazed by the people that I meet in my life. As big as the world seems, it is amazingly small.

I owe it to my dear Phain that I know the name Barrington Irving. His story is nothing short of amazing. Barrington is a 23 year old African American man who will be the first African American man to fly solo around the world and also the youngest person to ever fly around the world. There is nothing more that needs to be said beyond that last sentence.

I find it wonderful to know that there is another black man out there that becomes giddy like a school girl at the thought of flight. Freedom. Liberation from gravity. Life without bounds. This with his dream of educating more youth about the wonders of flight make this man not only a world record holder, but also a hero.

I met with Kysa who is organizing his time here in Houston when he makes it here. She said he is currently in Hong Kong. I will be doing my best to help out the effort to welcome him to Texas and Houston when he comes this way. I am not sure how I will help - gotta figure that out. But I do think a good start is by getting the word out there that here is a young black man defying all odds against him to do something wonderful. People need to value him as much as they value young black men that can either throw or catch a ball. Houston needs to stand up as the aviation and aerospace center that it claims to be.

There is a lot of work to be done. I look forward to helping Barrington's foundation to ensure that the world knows his voice.

I Could Only Ask

If given

power
status
prestige
responsibility
honor
success
seniority

I could only ask that I remember where I was, and remain humble. I want the humility to stay grounded and remember that people are not in our lives to be manipulated and walked over. I want the wisdom to know it is not about me, my self interest, or my self importance.

Status does not provide the right to stand above others and pull the strings.

We make it through this life together.

God Does Want Me To Fly.............

Because he gave me Wings!

It's all sweeter with my own gear now, it finally came in. My very first rig.

Custom Wings container
Sabre 2 - 210 main canopy
PD 193 reserve canopy
Cypress AAD (in case I have a very, very bad day)

The container was the last component that I was waiting for the longest, however, it was totally worth the wait. Getting a Wings container built just for me was a smart move. Although the rig is heavy, it is completely comfortable not to mention I think it looks awesome. I am gonna keep this one for a long time for sure.

I had a bunch of cool jumps this weekend. I jumped mostly 4 way formations and one five way but clearly the highlight of the day was my first hybrid. We built a four person base with me, Aki, Dawn, and Kari. After we launched the base, Hatch and Lane came in and took chest straps and punched a stand under us. I had no idea how much that would accelerate the base but boy did we start screaming down. Hatch and Lane touched feet under us and all was good until Hatch somehow got light and pretty much inverted the whole thing sending most of us tumbling. Glad I got that one on tape!

Today was my first solo high pull from 10,500 which was awesome. We took the Otter to about 13,500 ft for the jump run, and the rest of the groups began to get out leaving me last in the plane. I had a great diving exit and a few seconds of free fall before pitching my hackey just under 11,000 ft. I was in the saddle shortly there after, and simply flew around the farms and roads around the DZ for the next 15 minutes or so. Too bad it was kinda hazy because I really could not see much in the distance. You can usually see downtown from altitude but not today. Being up that high is truly addicting and I completely see why Larry always makes his first of the day a high pull from altitude. It's just you and your canopy exploring the blue sky. I went almost a good two miles from the DZ to 288 before making my way back. Catch a thermal.....drift up and grab the risers for the ride. This jump really gave me a chance to explore everything about my canopy and even an opportunity to try some aggressive turns to spiral down. I kept thinking while I was flying down this is so peaceful and it is such a shame that it was my first super long canopy flight. I have got to do more of those.

Oh, and more burble hops!

The Sabre 2 - 210 flys exactly like I expected. This was my first canopy downsize from the student gear, but I was more than ready for this next step. Every opening was soft and on heading - nothing unpredictable so far. It has tons of flare and very predictable dives in a turn and surprisingly is not flying as steep as I anticipated. I thought it was really gonna fly to the ground but turns out, it is very well behaved. Grab the rear risers and it will fly quite well in slow flight holding altitude. There was not much wind this weekend so I quickly found out that the canopy will really swoop you along the ground at about 15 mph until you flare it out. landing into a steady 10 mph wind will be very welcome instead of having to run out every landing.

I did two of the five pack jobs myself but clearly I am just WAY too slow at this point. It's taking me a solid 40 minutes to do a pack job which completely sucks when the packers can do it in easily under 10. I will be happy to pay $5.00 a pack at this point.

Oh, note to self. Even more burble hops!

I Can't Fix You

I cannot understand why you did not call
I really don't get why you don't see me as the ONE person you should be with
I don't think you need to go over there to find something that completes you
I do respect that you have a family connection there
I think you should do whatever your heart leads you to
I do know your heart led you to me
I know relationships should be easy
I refuse to deal with your emotional drama that you create
I know you were right when you said the others could offer nothing I could not
I know I was right when I told you that was true
I don't think it is fair to anyone to try and pursue anything further
I know that you know I deserve better from you
I can't fix you
I don't have the time, effort, or ability to fix you
I know this is your loss

My Weekend with Baxter

In My Circle

I have always been really close to the chest. With emotions, my job, feelings, friends, and everything else I suppose in my life. I can be tough to get to know and in a lot of ways distant until I am comfortable and that can take some time.

I suppose as a result when I look back over a year, there really are not a lot of new people that I can say that I have as new friends. That is probably true of most people my age I guess though. You form your circle of close friends and that is it. Kinda odd when you factor in how out going I can be.

I have been spending a lot of time with Jennifer and Chad recently and I can sense that they are special people and hopefully life long friends. Just good people. Oddly enough, there is no reason that I should not have met Jennifer years ago with all that we have in common and the people that we know. I think that I am drawn to them the most because of the fact that we seem to be at the same "place" in our lives right now. It's odd but it feels a lot like the brother sister relationship that I had with Wendell and Chelsea at Kellogg. Very similar.

All said, I am glad they are on my team and in my circle at the moment.

Turns out

Even assholes can have their good days.

This is certainly my trial of faith and belief.

And my how good women are at playing the game........I wish I had some of these skills. Sorry, but I have no interest in playing along.