So I’m back in Minneapolis for another exciting round of ‘Watch the paint dry’. Well, it certainly feels like watching paint dry. There’s boring and then there’s this. This makes boring look like fun.
I’m up here for work while we do some testing on a new product. I could try to go into detail of exactly what and how we’re testing, but it would take pages. So picture this, you’re sitting behind one end zone of a football stadium and you’re trying to hold a conversation with someone sitting behind the other end zone. Oh yeah, the stadium is full of 35,000 people all screaming at the top of their lungs. Can you hear me now?
While all of this testing is going on there’s a small mountain of data going past that is monitored and has to be perfect. Fortunately I don’t have to look at all that data as it goes by, the computer does that. But, I do actually have to sit here in case something goes wrong. Well, it almost never does. So what is there to do while this goes on day after day, week after week? Let’s see, we throw things at each other, surf the web, YouTube, read email for the hundredth time, update a blog, read blogs, try not to nap, play practical jokes on each other. You get the idea. Ugh…
But the upside is that I’m living on the company nickel totally so my budget is looking pretty darn good right now. The longer I stay up here the better it gets. That plus I get to go try out a new restaurant every night if I want and I have found some good ones. If anyone is ever coming up to the Minneapolis/St Paul/Bloomington area, let me know, I can recommend some really good restaurants.
The real kick in the butt is that I’m hearing I might have to ship this whole road show to someplace in Indiana for some other testing. At this rate I’ll be lucky to get back to Florida in time for the fourth of July. Funny part is, for the all the time I have spent up here in the last two or three months, it doesn’t hold a candle to the marathon I did a few years ago.
And of course just as soon as I get back we immediately start flight testing. In July and August I get the distinct pleasure of sitting in the ass end of a test plane flying around at 1500 feet in all of the summer thunderstorms. Hot and lumpy, I can hardly wait. Somebody in the company really hates me.
So as not to make this post a complete downer, I’ll interject some really good news. With the current 'pay off the house before I go' plan, I’ve been able to so far make three additional payments towards principal only and have calculated out exactly how much I can comfortably do each month. So I plugged all of that into spreadsheet central and have a payoff date identified. If my calculations are correct I should have the house fully paid off sometime next week.
Wait,.... what? Hmm, perhaps I should recheck my math. Tell you what, I’ll get back to you on a corrected date.
Actually, it should be within the next three years and that works very well with the rest of the schedule. So there it is. If I keep forging ahead and everything falls into place and the creek doesn’t rise, I should be totally debt free and ready to take off in a little over three years. Then the schedule will be most of the year on the road and the rest at home. I could get used to that.
So what else is going on? Well, let’s see, I’m considering trying a video blog (or Vlog) for the fun of it. I think it would be far more entertaining than this blog and will work a whole bunch better once out on the road. It will be far easier and meaningful to show you something rather than trying to describe it. So right now I’m studying up on how to do a decent Vlog and once I get one finished I’ll post it.
So far I’ve learned that every Vlog must have a story line, even if it’s just a rudimentary one but it must be there. Just posting a random bunch of video clips is meaningless and nearly impossible to watch. Not sure what my first story line will be and it will probably be very simple but we’ll see how it goes.
I have already started capturing some videos clips and gathering up some music for background & fill. I’m learning that for every 1 minute of finished video, about 10-20 minutes worth of clips never gets seen.
So the next time you see me, if I have a cell phone or camera in my hand, don’t freak out. Just capturing video.
