BoldUlysses.com

1. Work is stabilizing. I’ve figured out a workflow, am on great working terms with everyone here and was the happy recipient of a free calzone last Friday. Bret, Andreas and crew went to a nice Italian place for lunch and Andreas somehow ended up with a free calzone, which he passed off to Bret. Bret in turn promptly forgot it in the fridge when he left at 4, and called back to offer it to me, not wanting it to sit around over the weekend. They had pity on the token office single guy, I suppose. In any event, it was the best calzone I had ever eaten. Yes, better than Rudino’s, and that’s saying a lot.

2. Observations re:groups of people. After having worked in a design environment for two years and change, being around engineering types is a welcome change of pace. The difference made itself apparent even during the hiring process by virtue of the fact that I was actually selected based on my resume and qualifications and not through an interpersonal avenue (i.e. somebody who knew somebody who knew about the job). Having been in the design environment for as long as I was, my experience was that being selected based on qualifications alone hardly ever happens (Mihali and Karen at UNC Design Services notwithstanding). Networking and knowing folks in the business is vastly more important in order to secure a good design job vs. an engineering job. That isn’t to say it’s not true for the latter, but in a much smaller proportion from what I’ve seen.

Speculations as to why this is are inconclusive. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that design is a more right-brained, subjective, organic endeavor, and one’s impressions of people on a personal level reflect characteristics of the eventual design output? Or maybe it’s tied into the large numbers of freelancers involved in design and the networking that’s essential for their day-to-day? Who knows. Whatever the case, with my current job, I kind of liked being selected based almost entirely on my qualifications for once.

I’ve probably shared this observation before, but another pair of groups between which I’ve found marked differences over the past few months have been folks involved in aviation in some capacity (“plane people”) and car enthusiasts (“car people”). The main difference comes in terms of the criteria by which they evaluate each other as fellow enthusiasts, how they size each other up, in other words. In car circles, knowledge of the industry and the workings of the cars themselves certainly counts for quite a bit, but there’s no objective yardstick by which to compare repositories of knowledge, so it’s a difficult criterion to get a handle on. Driver skill could (and should) play a large role, but we’re so straightjacketed by (rightly so) safety concerns and (more arguably) speed and driving restrictions that skill levels have little opportunity to make themselves evident unless on an open track environment where the limits of the car can be explored. Spending much time in that environment isn’t a realistic proposition for many folks. So by reduction, then, we’re left with one factor by which to evaluate our relative prowess as car buffs: What kind of car we drive. In a lot of respects I feel like it’s superficial and it shouldn’t be the main criterion, but really it’s not all that bad–it says a lot about a car enthusiast’s tastes, knowledge level and automotive penchants in a concise manner.

Aviation enthusiasts, on the other hand, prioritize different things when sizing each other up. Rising operational costs, insurance and outright costs of purchase mean that few pilots actually own their aircraft, and when they do it’s often in the manner of a timeshare piece of real estate–several people are part owners of the same plane, with a certain number of hours allotted to each over the course of a year or so. It drives the costs of flying down, but marginalizes ownership as a criterion. Knowledge is certainly highly-regarded, but just as in automotive circles it’s difficult to gauge. No, in aviation communities, skill is the primary yardstick used to compare pilots. It’s logical, really–flying is at its heart a kinesthetic enterprise, without most of the physical restrictions placed upon the automotive world. So the pilot’s skill has a much larger envelope in which to manifest itself on a routine basis. And the very milestones we live between as pilots, our ratings (instrument, commercial, multiengine, etc), are explicit on the subject of our individual skill level. It’s a convenient and meaningful method of gauging our relative aptitude in the pilot’s seat, and at least on certain levels, gives aviation enthusiasm a more substantial feel than its counterpart in car circles.

3. I’m almost at my limit with my car’s driveshaft center support bearing. Every year when the weather first turns cold it starts alternately making horrible grinding noises and screeching like a banshee in overlapping (but equally grating) tones, depending on the car’s speed. I turn the music up but even so it’s enough to make me go crazy over the space of several days. Last year I had a replacement bearing purchased but didn’t install it because the noise went away by itself in late December. I’m hoping the same will happen this year (the bearing is close to $100 and installation is a bear), but it’s already at the point where it certainly doesn’t reduce my stress levels at the end of a long day, driving home. Ugh.

4. My semester’s officially over. I took my one and only exam this morning, the FAA Written Exam (one of three exams needed to become a private pilot–the other two are the Oral and the Practical, both of which I’ll take in the Spring). Mr. Hahn promised a steak dinner to anyone who scored perfectly on the 60 multiple choice exam questions (selected at random from a pool of about 5-600). I missed one question, so I got a 98%. So close. But I suppose I can live with that.