New bumper sticker

Want one? Click on the picture to go to the order page. (However, it should probably read: "Honk if I'm paying your mortgage.") Laura and I have stopped paying our mortgage. Why pay for it when we can have tax payers pay for it? :o)

TobyLaura.com

Less can be more

Are you still living in the dark ages? Are you still stumbling in the night? Is there still weeping and gnashing of teeth in front of your computer monitor? If so, I'll bet my next paycheck that you are stuck in the wonderful world of windows. Tired of your operating system committing an illegal operation? Frustrated that every time you shutdown your computer, the "Ending Application" window shows up? Maybe it's time to switch? Nah!

For those who have made the switch, the newest Apple Operating system is coming soon. Right now, Leopard is the current OS, and the new one will be called Snow Leopard. But, unlike windows, Snow Leopard isn't overreaching, over-promising, and over-claiming it's strengths. As a matter of fact, it's not adding a lot of bells and whistles, it is shrinking the size of the OS. It will be smaller and lighter, faster and more agile, and take up less space on your hard drive. (Can you imagine the monstrosity of patchwork called windows actually shrinking in size?) It will leave more room for your own files. It's streamlined form will be more efficient, stable, and make much better use of dual core technology. Mac's often use two processors to work much faster than one large one. Utilizing two processors efficiently takes smart software, and that is coming in Snow Leopard.

With a smaller, lighter, faster, and more efficient operating system, the time to switch to Mac will be better than ever. The fact that they can run windows at the same time, thus having the "best of both worlds" is really the piece de resistance. I honestly don't mind if you don't switch -- it's no skin off my nose. It actually keeps my Mac safer from virus makers by keeping Mac's market smaller! However, I used to live in the darkness and want to share the light as much as I can. Click on the picture of the X for more info from Mac on Snow Leopard, or read this article by Ken Rockwell about why Mac's just work.

"With Mac, it's plug-n-play. With windows, it's plug-n-pray."

TobyLaura.com

The Falklands

There are three of us pilots on the flight from Anchorage to Hong Kong, one captain and two co-pilots (known as first officers, by those with a title complex). The other co-pilot and I were discussing our pasts, like most pilots do to pass the time, and I discovered that he was Argentine and has lived in the U.S. for the last six years. Alfredo is getting his U.S. citizenship soon -- a great guy, but unfortunately, he will add to the liberal voting bloc :o)

He was a pilot in the Argentine military back in 1982. I immediately asked him what he thought of Margaret Thatcher and he laughed. He continued to regale stories from the war and how the Brits would shoot at ships, just as his friends were launching off the decks of those ships in navy fighters. Asked why he thought that Argentina would want to fight the British, he talked about how there was economic hardship in the country at the time, so a war may spur on national pride and recovery. There also was a sense that the Brits wouldn't fight as hard, being so far from home, for just a few islands. He felt that they had a fighting chance, but that they didn't count on Reagan sending in help. Looking back, he said, it would have been obvious that Reagan would try and help Thatcher.

Fast forward twenty five years. A lot of the British Aces from that war are now senior training captains at Cathay Pacific. As a matter of fact, a great check captain Paul Barton, the one who did my base training – where we practice takeoffs and landings, was the first British Harrier pilot with a kill in the Falklands war. He probably shot at my new friend Alfredo! When Alfredo was hired and did his initial checkrides, Paul Barton was the examining check captain for him. Alfredo's sim parter was also in the Falklands war. As they were in the middle of their training, Fredo's sim partner asked him when he flew in Argentina. He answered, “In the early 80's.” His sim partner laughed and said, I was in her Majesty's Navy, and I'll bet I shot at you! They had a good laugh about it. Alfredo likes to remind the British guys that the weapons technology was so much more advanced in the Royal Navy than what he had. “The Brits could just click the fire button and the missile would launch and head for the targeted aircraft, chase it, and blow it away. They could even fire on an Argentine airplane coming straight at them and if the missile missed, it would turn around and follow the target! We had nothing like that, so we earned our kills.”

I guess time does heal all wounds (or it wounds all heels, I can't remember). Alfredo can laugh about it now, but I find it more than ironic that when he came to work at Cathay Pacific as a new hire, he had a sim partner and then a checkride given by pilots who tried to kill him earlier in his life! Luckily, everyone is around to laugh about the stories and I guess it proves that the pilots at Cathay are truly diverse.

TobyLaura.com

Vladimir Photo

One of the last flights that I flew at Chautauqua, I brought my camera along to take a few cockpit photos. It was also the flight that Laura came along on, so that she could be my passenger. The blog about that story is here. Anyway, I took a photo of the co-pilot Vladimir Naskovski and sent it to him.

A few months later, he got a call from a Macedonian Magazine that was doing stories about Macedonian airline pilots around the world. He sent them his story and included my photo. My photo of him showed up on the front page of the story! Now I can say I'm published, sort of. I don't get hung up on photo rights and all that stuff and am just happy for him and that the photo worked out. Now, if I could only read the article. Clicking the picture may increase its size for you.

TobyLaura.com

Turning 31

It's hard for me to believe that I'm turning thirty one today. Sure, I'm certainly grateful to continue to enjoy birthdays, but if I thought that thirty seemed old, thirty one seems even older, as I am no longer on the cusp of the thirties, but now firmly entrenched in them.

We're over the North Pacific, at 11,600 meters, roughly 38,000 feet (we're in Russian airspace, and they like meters instead of feet). I feel pretty blessed to be spending my birthday aboard a Cathay Pacific 747 that we are piloting from Anchorage to Hong Kong. There are three pilots, and we each get about a three hour break on this 12 hour flight. I'm still not used to being paid to take a break while flying.

Yes, I'd like to be home with Laura, but it's still pretty cool to be at work. I look at it like an opportunity to be in the cockpit of a 747 for a birthday “free ride” gift. If someone had told me twenty years ago that I'd be flying a 747 for my birthday at thirty one, I would have jumped for joy. I'm still excited, but it is a job, after all.

I get home in a few days, and then I'll celebrate surviving thirty one years here on Earth with Laura and her family. I hope to get home to Texas to see my family sometime in March, as it's almost been a year since I've been down to the great red dirt state of Texas. My schedule needs to cooperate to make that happen. As I take stock of my life so far, I can see nothing but the gracious blessing of God's hand, undeservedly so, everywhere I've gone. He protected my family growing up in Indonesia, gave me the opportunity to learn to fly and go to school in Indiana, protected my jobs with the airlines, given me a great wife, a house, and family.

With the current economic troubles the globe is having and God's promise to end this world someday, I have no idea what my future holds, and what will happen in my next thirty one years. But I know, just as I look out the windows and see the sun rising above the clouds, that His hand is protecting me on this airplane, that His hand is also guiding me along life's turbulent waters, and that He will be blessing me all along the way. Why? It's simple: He promises too.

TobyLaura.com