Brian & Pam Depart for Switzerland

Just called Brian and Pam to wish them well on their trip. They are
moving to Bern Switzerland for 9 months. Busy with last minute
preparations, they depart tonight. I promise to take good care of
your Patriots season tickets Brian :-)

Morning IFR Lesson

The morning started with a clear blue sky and me arriving at the airport early. Ron had already put the plane in the hangar to defrost from yesterday's snow storm. Things were looking good for my IFR training flight. When Matt arrived we planned a flight out to Gardner for the VOR-A approach then up to Keene to do the ILS 2, returning to Nashua for the RNAV 32. I got the plane cleaned off, pre-flighted, and away we went. Heading out to Gardner. Since I was under the foggles I couldn't see out the windshield, but apparently things were turning sour out west faster than predicted. I had to descend to 2900 feet to stay below the building cloud layer. As we approached the Gardner VOR air traffic control sent us down to 2500 for traffic that was flying an approach at Orange, which utilized the Gardner VOR as well. I flew the full approach without an issue - until I missed the crossing of the VOR inbound. I had the GPS zoomed out too far and started my timer at the wrong point. This had me crossing the missed approach point at 2000 ft. It took my instructor to point out that I was way to far and now on a glide slope that intersected a hill on the other side of the airport. As I executed the missed approach, we could see snow squalls north of us towards Keene. We canceled our flight following and set a course back to Nashua. I had to descend to 2500 to stay VFR on the way back, as the cloud cover continued to get lower. Back at Nashua I could hear that the tower was busy handling a bunch of arrivals for a Daniel Webster safety seminar. However, Lenny got us in and down without a hitch, and even let me run all the way down the the Echo taxi way - right across from my tie down. Not quite the day of flying I was hoping for, but at least I got out there. I am just now realizing that I forgot to close the cowl flaps for the entire flight. Damn!!

Sensing Change

Sometimes you look back and realize something in the universe was trying to send you a message. It took a year after taking this photo to fully realize it, but the moment I saw this sign in Shanghai I knew something was up.

China Changes Everything

On a business trip to China in 2006 I came across a sign in Shanghai that would make quite an impact on me. I initially found the phrasing quite humorous and laughed out loud about it with a colleague I was with. I snapped a photo, as I am known to do, so I could remember the moment. I soon realized this little sign in an out of the way corner of a far flung location was a particularly appropriate metaphor for so much of what I was feeling about everything from politics to my personal life. Sometimes profound changes can come from the most unexpected places. I don't know what will come of this blog, but I needed somewhere to collect the seemingly trivial observations that I don't want to loose to the depths of my questionable long term memory.