Junior Statesman

Posted on by

Yesterday was the Texas primary election. I was intrigued by one of the candidates for U.S. Senate, Sean Hubbard. I’ll bet most of my readers never even heard of him because they’re either Republicans or non-Texans. I tip my hat to him for one main reason: he’s 31 years old and ran for one of the highest offices in our land.

Sure, most of you probably disagree with Hubbard’s views on the issues, and that’s fine. His views aren’t the point today. I like seeing someone my age, barely even legal to hold the office per the Constitution, running for Senate and trying to make a difference. Lots of people my age find politics distasteful, and with good reason. Also, many people my age are very busy with advancing their careers, getting married, raising children, trying to get out of debt, going back to school, buying houses, and other 20- and 30-something activities rather than running for office. Those are all great things, but they mean most of our political leaders in Washington are significantly older than I am. My parents’ generation obviously has much more experience in life, work, family, and other areas, and it includes many good leaders. However, I want to see a broad range of perspectives represented in Washington, and I applaud Hubbard for wanting to provide a fresh voice from my generation.

Hubbard took a lot of heat for his age and lack of political experience. Most of our Senators are middle-aged or old white men, and Hubbard was missing one of the three keys to the job. During the campaign, so many people asked about his age and experience that he developed a canned response that was actually quite convincing, at least to me. But I can see their point. Experience is helpful for any position, especially for U.S. Senator. When the votes were tallied, the voters sent a clear message that Hubbard wasn’t quite ready for the job, putting him in last place. However, he got his name out there, and I suspect and hope that we might see him again on a ballot someday.

Brenden’s Spring Programs – Then and Now

Posted on by

This week was Brenden’s spring program at school, his second big performance so far in his young career. His school, Colleyville Christian School. is full of wonderful teachers and students who worked really hard and put together a great show as expected. Brenden’s class performed “Behold, Behold” and “Awesome God”. We are so thankful that all four of his grandparents and two of his great-grandparents got to attend. We took up most of a row.

Before it began, his teacher gave us his “Me Book”, a compilation of projects, pictures, and other memories of Brenden from throughout the school year plus a really sweet, personalized note from his lead teacher. I wish I could post it here somehow, as it’s a wonderful book that we’ll keep for years to come. I can only imagine how much work it took for his teachers to assemble these books for every student in the class.

Naturally, I had to record his performance. Sorry about the shaky camera work. I’m not the most experienced video guy, but at least I work for cheap!

Spring Program 2012 (Age 3.75)

Spring Program 2011 (Age 2.75)

For comparison, here is Brenden’s performance from last year. Note how much more coordinated and attentive Brenden is now compared to a year ago.

2012 Pictures

Here are a few other pictures of Brenden with his family from this year’s program.

Next spring, both boys will be old enough to participate in the program. They didn’t want to attempt a performance with Jonathan’s one-year-olds class. 🙂

Two Views of Weather

Posted on by

In everyday life, weather determines how comfortable you feel outside and what outdoor activities you might choose. It guides choices like what clothes to wear, whether to wash your car or run the sprinkler system, and whether to take the kids to the park or keep them home with a craft or movie. We get the weather report on TV or the radio to plan our days and weekend activities. Unless an unusual weather event is occurring, such as a hurricane threatening Florida or a crippling blizzard in Denver that makes national news, we don’t really care much about what the weather is doing outside our vicinity.

Flight dispatchers look at weather in a different way from the majority of people. We work in a climate-controlled office while analyzing weather we’ll never see in areas hundreds or even thousands of miles away. We don’t care how the weather makes anyone feel, and it doesn’t really affect our own activities within the office. However, it makes a huge difference in how we plan our flights, but maybe not quite in the way you’d expect.

Good and Bad Weather

Regular people and dispatchers have different definitions of good and bad weather. What’s good for one might not be good for the other.

For Joe Blow:

  • Good weather probably involves a pleasant temperature and a lack of precipitation so he can feel comfortable outside.
  • Bad weather keeps Joe inside and might involve extreme temperatures, high winds, or precipitation.

For a flight dispatcher:

  • Good weather is any weather that allows us to operate a flight as intended – safely, legally, and on time.
  • Bad weather is any weather that might prevent us from operating a flight as intended, such as thick fog, low clouds, thunderstorms, or freezing rain that ices up runways and aircraft. It also forces us to carry lots of extra fuel for holding and possible diversions, forces us to divert at times, and/or prevents us from departing at all.
  • Weather that is unpleasant to people such as rain, hot or cold temperatures, or strong winds don’t necessarily prevent a flight from operating safely. As one of my trainers said once, our planes work fine in the rain.

So we can sum up the two views of weather as such:

  • Normal View: Do I want to be outside?
  • Aviator View: Can my flight reach its destination as planned?

The Rules

The FAA and airline policy forces us, generally with good reason, to follow a cornucopia of rules when we carry paying passengers on a flight. One rule says that we cannot land a plane if the visibility or lowest cloud layer (ceiling) is beyond a specified threshold for the runway we want to use. These values are known as minimums (or minima, if you want to use proper Latin…and I KNOW you do). Normal people don’t usually care about ceilings and visibility because it doesn’t affect them. A 100 foot ceiling might be perfect for a cool walk in the park but a showstopper for a pilot trying to land at an airport.

One common limitation for a good runway is visibility of 1/2 mile and a ceiling of 200 feet. If the visibility is at least 1/2 mile, the crew can line up and descend toward the runway to land. If it’s lower than 1/2 mile, the crew must hold until it improves or divert. Once the crew descends toward the runway to land, the pilots must see the runway at least 200 feet above the ground as they descend. If they do, they can land. If not, they must climb out, go around, and try again or divert.

Buffer Zone

Predicting the future in any field is a mix of art and science, and no one bats 1.000 in any field of prediction. The Feds and every aviator in the world know this. So the Feds added another rule to offset the inherent limitations in a forecast: the alternate rule. It specifies a buffer above the typical minimums and requires us to designate an alternate airport if the forecast weather is anywhere within that buffer zone or below. For most operators, the threshold is 2000 foot ceiling (10 times the minimum ceiling for a good runway) and 3 miles visibility (6 times the minimum visibility). If the weather is below those limits, we must name an alternate airport and carry enough extra fuel to divert there if needed. That way if the weather gets worse than forecast and prevents the flight from landing, we have somewhere to go. We spend much of our brainpower evaluating forecasts, watching trends in visibility and ceiling along with precipitation, and deciding whether an alternate or extra fuel is required or simply a good idea. (I might explore this idea in more depth in a later post.)

So which view of weather is correct? Both, of course. Joe Blow doesn’t have to care that San Diego is fogged in and below mins because he can still run on the beach with his dog. Meanwhile, I don’t have to care that Betty Boop’s picnic in Houston got rained out because my HOU arrivals are plowing through the rain with no problem. Each view is valid for its own purposes.

Jumping to Conclusions

Posted on by

Several weeks ago, I started hearing on Facebook and various websites about the shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, by George Zimmerman, a Hispanic and a self-appointed and armed neighborhood watchman. Zimmerman claimed self-defense and was never charged. Initially, it sounded to many like a case of miscarried justice. Because the two men involved were different races, people raised questions of racism as well. “Zimmerman killed him because he’s black!” many of us assumed. “This is a hate crime! Justice must be done!” I ran with the idea for a while and read several news articles about the case.

Strangely, I wanted Martin’s shooting to be racially motivated. Why? It gave me a good excuse to get riled up, a clear and noble cause to fight for: an innocent black teenager gunned down by an overzealous, racist weirdo. Who wouldn’t cry out for justice? Despite all the progress we’ve made as a society, we all know racism still exists. I see it in friends, acquaintances, and relatives. I see it at work. I see it in strangers. Racism angers me, but rarely can I do much about it other than try to avoid the people involved. Sometimes I ignore it. Other times I say something that never makes any difference beyond appeasing my conscience a bit. It would be nice to see one of them get theirs for once, and maybe this Martin case would provide an opportunity. To support Martin’s cause, I posted a political picture on Facebook. Yay me, I’m Fighting for Justice on Facebook!

However, one of my police officer friends took me to task for it later. Her objection? Not that I was posting something political on Facebook, as she was used to that. She objected to the way the media and so many people like me, despite being far removed from the facts, had jumped to conclusions on the case, condemning Zimmerman as a murderer and the local police as corrupt racists. Only one living person knew what really happened that night in Florida, and unfortunately he was the suspect rather than an objective witness. Finding the truth would require a real and thorough investigation rather than a hasty trial in the corrupt and ignorant court of public opinion. As a cop, she understood the importance of searching for evidence, talking to witnesses, and building a case rather than seeing a scene and immediately rendering a judgment.

I couldn’t argue with her because she was right.

As you’ve probably seen if you’re following the case, further details are emerging that muddy the waters like a boat propeller. It turns out that Zimmerman has proof that his doctor examined him the next day and found significant injuries consistent with taking damage in a fight, just as Zimmerman has claimed. But a police video from the jail that night showed Zimmerman with no visible injuries or obvious pain. Various witnesses report hearing the two men yelling at each other and fighting, with some reporting that Martin was attacking Zimmerman. Some people say Zimmerman is a known racist, while others say he actively helps black people in his community. And at least one news agency deliberately edited the recording of Zimmerman to make him sound racist. Sure, Zimmerman ignored the police dispatcher’s advice not to pursue Martin, and the whole incident didn’t need to happen, but the case isn’t turning out to be the clear-cut racial hate crime that so many people assumed at first.

What really happened that night? The jury will decide in time. But we were fools to assume we had all the facts just from a few details we read in the news. And maybe those of us who immediately and cynically assumed a racial motivation are actually helping to perpetuate racism. We’re making race a “thing” when it doesn’t have to be a “thing”.

Lessons learned.

Stats for the Week

Posted on by

Movies seen: 2 – Dream House, which was OK, and The Avengers, which was awesome
Sodas consumed: 1. But to be honest, it was a huge movie soda, so it probably counts double. OK, triple. It was big. With no ice. Don’t hate.
Miles run: 21.2, including two PRs (woohoo!)
Miles cycled: 11.3
Bicycle crashes: 1 (on the trail, landed on grass, no injuries except to my ego. don’t tell anybody)
Diversions at work: 1 (LAS-HOU diverted to AUS due to thunderstorms)
Shifts worked: 7
Flights affected by bomb threats at work: 2 (SNA-PHX thanks to some clown – read more here – 811 was mine)
New contracts at work: 0, despite much speculation to the contrary
People pissed off: unknown, probably a few!
Controversial/inflammatory statements withheld: several. See, I’m getting better! Sort of. Wooooooosaaaaaaa….woooooosaaaaaaa….
New followers of AndyBox.com: 1 (welcome, Leslie!)
Most popular blog post: Norwegian Cruise Lines vs. The Competition
Highest-profile blog endorsement: awesome AC/DC cover band Back in Black posted my review of their concert last June on their Facebook page
Trips to the doctor: 1 (pink eye. again.)
Years since I proposed to Jenny in Austin: 10, as of Friday. Happy engagement anniversary, or whatever the proper term is!

Posted in Fun

I Haven’t Peaked Yet

Posted on by

People who analyze these things say that for any given sport, athletes typically achieve their top performance around a certain age and then gradually decline until they retire. Female gymnasts peak in their late teens. Swimmers of both genders peak in their early twenties. Tennis players peak in their early to mid twenties. Soccer, football, baseball, and basketball players peak in their mid to late twenties. Naturally, some athletes don’t fit the normal bell curve, such as swimmer Dara Torres, who won three Olympic silver medals in 2008 at age 41. But most athletes fall pretty close. This article discusses the typical ages of peak performance in various sports and some more detail on how and why athletes improve, peak, and decline.

However, this model assumes that the athlete has trained hard for years prior to the “optimum” age range in order to peak then. On an individual level, the timeline might be different for someone who picks up the sport later in life.

This is good news for me.

Distance runners tend to peak in their late twenties and early thirties. Indeed, in my last 10k a few weeks ago, the overall winner was a 31-year-old man who beat me by 10 minutes. Since I’m in my mid-thirties now, I should be starting my downhill slide into slowness. But I still have hope. I didn’t get serious about running until a couple of years ago. I missed years of training prior to what should have been my best years. So if I work hard, I should be able to keep improving for a while, maybe a few years or even more, until I become the fastest I can be. Fortunately, running is a sport one can do well for decades, and there are 50- and 60-year-olds still run times that I’ll never touch. So it’s not like I’ll suddenly turn into a turtle four years from now.

A day will come when I set my final personal record (PR). I won’t know until afterward, though, when I keep trying to beat it and never succeed, and I finally accept that I’ve crested the hill. That will be a bittersweet realization. After that, I’ll run every race expecting to finish behind the young phantom Andy who’s waiting for me at the finish line, swigging Gatorade and checking his mile splits on the iPhone.

But I haven’t peaked yet. I can still do better. I can still get stronger and go faster. I can still improve my technique and run more efficiently. I can still add fuel to the fire.

And I will.