Switching gears lately in my other life to work with Blueridge Forestry on a mapping workflow for them. Making this map of a local closed landfill turned model airplane field really was a snap.
Category: on the move
Fly Young Eagles… fly
Our EAA Chapter flew almost 30 young eagles on Saturday. Only one of them puked…
A hard left turn for me
I think a lot about direction lately. My trip to Daytona to meet with other EAA leaders has really solidified what I’m looking for.
This sums it up perfectly in so many ways:
Hey, once upon a younger year
When all our shadows disappeared
The animals inside came out to play
Hey, when face to face with all our fears
Learned our lessons through the tears
Made memories we knew would never fadeOne day my father—he told me,
“Son, don’t let it slip away”
He took me in his arms, I heard him say,“When you get older
Your wild heart will live for younger days
Think of me if ever you’re afraid.”He said, “One day you’ll leave this world behind
So live a life you will remember.”
My father told me when I was just a child
These are the nights that never die
My father told meWhen thunder clouds start pouring down
Light a fire they can’t put out
Carve your name into those shinning stars
He said, “Go venture far beyond the shores.
Don’t forsake this life of yours.
I’ll guide you home no matter where you are.”One day my father—he told me,
“Son, don’t let it slip away.”
When I was just a kid I heard him say,“When you get older
Your wild heart will live for younger days
Think of me if ever you’re afraid.”He said, “One day you’ll leave this world behind
So live a life you will remember.”
My father told me when I was just a child
These are the nights that never die
My father told meThese are the nights that never die
My father told me
What does a UAS pilot do to prepare for a huge snow storm?
He files for a 9 mile radius NOTAM for the whole weekend over a really beautiful part of the country. That’s what.
It’s just an old beat up truck
Its just an old beat up truck
Some say that I should trade up
Now that I got some jangle in my pocket
But what they don’t understand
Is it’s the miles that make a man
I wouldn’t trade that thing in for a rocket-Dierks Bentley “I Hold On”
Ray Bradburry on Critics
I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.
Oats
Whoever came up with the idea of selling oatmeal at fast food places as a genius. And yes, Starbucks is fast food.
What’s the food cost for a 1/2 cup of oats and some flavoring? Like 4 cents. I’ll bet the cup they serve it in costs as much as the food.
I don’t understand why you’d pay $3 for this on your way to work. You know you can grab a packet of instant oatmeal out of your pantry and bring it to work right? Microwave it in your coffee cup. It’s probably about 15 cents that way.
Paying $3 for something that takes you 30 seconds to do for 15 cents sounds like something the government would do.
Odd Hours
We’re getting our 3D printer today… I wonder what we’re going to print first…
We have priorities you know.
A comment on Sprint Customer Service
I hear nightmare stories from people all the time on AT+T’s customer service…
Yesterday afternoon Julie and I noticed a sudden loss of cell service at home. We have identical phones (other than color) and we’re both on Sprint. We’ve been happy Sprint customers for about 6 years now, and issues are rare.
I’ve worked on cell towers over the years and am an expert in radio communications, so I’m pretty patient with this stuff. We forget sometimes that we’re talking on two way radios when we use these things. Radio signals are subject to all kinds of potential interference, and the cell carriers have thousands and thousands of towers to manage. Many of them are in very remote locations, and since we live in the mountains, it’s especially remote here. The cellular system is complicated, and sometimes I’m amazed that the whole thing works at all.
Anyway, I didn’t have any urgent phone calls to make last night, so I decided to wait until this morning to see if things cleared up. When I picked up my phone and then Julie’s phone we still didn’t have service, so I jumped on Skype to call Sprint customer service.
I got a customer service rep in 30 seconds. We chatted for a minute about what was happening and she started looking at the towers in our area. She ran some tests and noticed that the two closest towers were reporting “much lower numbers” than normal. She set up a network trouble ticket which sends a technician out to the towers to work on them. Then she attached a ticket to my account to track how much time we would be without service so they could credit my account for those days.
In 5 minutes she was able to diagnose an infrastructure problem and have Sprint take responsibility for it. Then she dispatched an expert to go out in the field to fix it.
Through good customer service, I was able to HELP them identify a problem they might not have known if someone didn’t report it.
I’m a happy customer even though I wont have cell service for the next day or so.
THAT is how you do customer service. Kudos to Sprint.
