Flying and the art of motorcycle maintenance


One of my favorite books is called Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.  It is a book about life, values, and of course fixin’ motorcycles.  There are many great quotes in the book by Robert R. Pirsig and one of them is this:

"The truth knocks on your door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away."

Once you think about that for a minute it becomes increasingly obvious to many of us that there is a lot of truth in that statement.  So many times we cannot see what is right in front of us or goes by without our consciousness grasping the fact that it was there.

I’ve been flying a lot lately and it seems like I have been spending more time in planes than in my rig (car).  So many flight attendants with names like, Dawn, Natalie, Jennifer, and Grant.

Always the slightly forced smile after so many years serving people pretzels, water, coffee, and a soft drink giving that pleasant word here and there while resetting the call button.  I have been traveling the same routes lately so we are starting to recognize each other and more in depth conversations about what I am working on and where I’m heading this trip.  Nice people sometimes doing a thankless job.

With all of the flying it reminds me of old sayings from my previous flying days.  Here are a few of them.

  1. Always try to keep the number of landings you make equal to the number of take offs you've made.
  2. It's always a good idea to keep the pointy end going forward and the shiny side up.
  3. Every takeoff is optional. Every landing is mandatory.
  4. When in doubt, hold on to your altitude. No one has ever collided with the sky.
  5. A 'good' landing is one from which you can walk away. A 'great' landing is one after which they can use the plane again.
  6. In the ongoing battle between objects made of aluminum going hundreds of miles per hour and the ground going zero miles per hour, the ground has yet to lose.
  7. If all you can see out of the window is ground that's going round and round and all you can hear is commotion coming from the passenger compartment, things are not at all as they should be.

Flying has its own rewards but sometimes the path you take leads you to destinations unknown or at least unexpected.

Ice

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Morrison Springs - Ponce de Leon, Florida

Image
Morrison Springs Ponce de Leon, Florida County road 181 Morrison Springs was one of our favorite dive spots on many of our Florida trips but it also had the most danger to it.  One of Northwest Florida’s best-kept secrets was known to more Georgia and Alabama folks than Floridians.  And they weren’t talking.  It had to do with the jewel of a Panhandle spring, a turquoise pool surrounded by stately cypress trees whose aerial roots stand taller than a man. Below the surface, clear, 68-degree water wells up from a spring cave source over 90 feet deep. Morrison Springs is just far enough off the beaten path in this sunny pine and cypress country to be special for any diver lucky enough to find and dive the site. The shallow pool reflects the overhead blue sky and if the water is clear and the bottom clean of silt, it resembles a giant sapphire.  Unlike some springs with a deep, black hole source, this one takes visitors gradually into its shallows from a gol...
Read more

Are Showing Your Nipples Appropriate Work Attire?

Image
Let me first say that personally, I have no problem with it at all. This has been kind of a weird week here in the north land with the first of many winter snowfalls’s to come and the landscape once again beautifully covered in the white stuff. It looks like the kids will have to put their Halloween costume on over a snowsuit again this year as the cold snowy stuff is here again. That is not what I wanted to write about tonight but was necessary to set up what I did want to write about. “Frosty nipples” are quite common here during most of the year and when things cool down on the cusp of winter probably more so. Work attire with tight shirts or low cut blouses that ‘make a statement’ during colder weather could be taken several ways by co-workers or visitors to your place of business. While you may not always be taken seriously by others in the office and some may have trouble looking you in the face, I say it's a freedom of rights issue. If you want to show o...
Read more

Biscuits and Whores

Image
Some of the best things about life I learned from Lonesome Dove. Great movie, excellent characters, and tells a story about how to live life. Augustus McCrae “It ain’t dying I’m talking about, it’s living.   I doubt it matters where you die, but it matters where you live.” I'm just tryin' to keep everything in balance, Woodrow. You do more work than you got to, so it's my obligation to do less. “Yesterday’s gone and we can’t get it back.” “I'm sure partial to the evening,' Augustus said. 'The evening and the morning.   If we just didn't have to have the rest of the dern day I'd be a lot happier.” Hat Creek Cattle Company Well we don't rent pigs and I figure it's better to say it right out front because a man that does like to rent pigs is . . . he's hard to stop. Biscuits “I never knew you to get excited about anything except biscuits maybe . . . and whores!”    Captain Woodrow Call to Augustus McCrae in Lonesome Dove. Whores L...
Read more