Category Archives: Days in My Life

I don’t just sit around and watch TV.

A Computerless Day

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And on the seventh day, she shut off the computer.

A comment on my blog post, “Is Social Networking Sucking Your Life Away?,” got me seriously thinking about how often I use a computer when I really do have better things to do with my life.

Why We Use Computers

Well, obviously most people always have something better to do with their lives than sit in front of a computer. But I can’t deny certain reasons why we use computers:

  • To get work done. After all, a computer is a tool for getting many kinds of work done. So you may have to work with a computer every day just to get your work done. I use a computer for this reason quite often.
  • To relax and unwind after a long day at work or doing something intense. This is what the commenter said and I think it’s a perfectly legitimate reason to use a computer. After all, computers have become a hub for entertainment, with video games (but please don’t get me started on those), sites like YouTube, and sites that provide news and entertainment information. My husband watches TV to unwind in the evening, many people turn to their Internet-connected box. I admit that I do this once in a while, although I really prefer a good book or movie.
  • To communicate with others across long distances for free. iChat, Instant Messaging, Skype, and many other tools make it possible to use the Internet to keep in touch with friends and family members anywhere in the world. When Australian photographer Jon Davison was here last month, he used iChat on his MacBook to have a video chat with his girlfriend back home. It was amusing to see him walking around the house and yard with the computer, pointing its camera at the guest room he was staying in and the views of the mountains to the north. But heck, why not? Live audio and visual communication across thousands of miles to another continent for free? If I had anything to say to someone that far away, I’d be doing it, too. And, of course communication doesn’t have to be audio or visual — it could be a simple e-mail message.

When There Are No Days Off

But on Saturday, I spent nearly the whole day in front of my computer. I did a bunch of things, the most important of which was to create some marketing material I’ll need this week. But did I have to do it on a weekend? My husband was home from work, we’d cancelled two days of a helicopter gig in Wickieup due to wind, and we had both days unexpectedly free at the same time. Yet I was sitting in front of a box working with Photoshop and InDesign to create flyers and he was sitting in front of a different box watching sports.

One of the drawbacks to being a freelancer/business owner and working from home is that there’s often no distinction between work days and days off. After a very busy month and a half of hard work for both of my businesses, I’d completely lost the distinction. I’d fallen into the trap that made every day that I wasn’t flying a day that I could be working. Where were the days off?

So I took yesterday off — from using the computer.

A Day Away from the Computer

It was a conscious decision I made the night before, so it wasn’t difficult to get started on the right track.

The only tough parts for me were skipping my morning blog entry — which I like to do every morning, if I have time — and not checking the weather. I had plenty of time — I was up a 5 AM while Mike continued to sleep. I made my coffee and gave Alex the Bird his scrambled egg. But since I wasn’t going to start the day with a blog entry, what was I going to do? The answer was kill clutter.

Our kitchen has a built-in desk with cubbyholes above it. Over the years — and I do mean years — the desk and cubbyholes have become the gathering places for all kinds of loose papers and other items. I found expired car registrations, broken jewelry, the title for my Honda, photos taken and developed in 2001, business cards, and a lot more. I wound up throwing half the stuff out. Half of the rest was put away immediately. The rest — well, let’s just say the clutter has shifted to a new position. (I’ll deal with it today.)

Then Mike and I went to Wickenburg Airport to socialize with fellow pilots at the Sunday morning coffee and donuts. This was a “tradition” that I started back when I ran the FBO there and every FBO operator after me has done the same. (It’s actually a money-making proposition, with voluntary donations covering the cost of the coffee and the donuts, with plenty to spare.) It was cool and windy out, so most folks were inside the terminal. I spent quite some time with a newcomer, giving her a long list of flying destinations that included either restaurants or lodging or both. (In fact, I didn’t realize I had so much information in my head about that.) We also stopped by the hangar to drop off a few things and tidy up a bit. I got to play with my new 18-55mm camera lens, which we found in our mailbox on the way to the airport.

Back home, I did a bit more tidying up while Mike took his truck back out to help a friend move some furniture. By the time he was back, I’d brought our two horses up to the tack room and had prepared them for saddling. We went for a nice ride out in the desert behind our house. I’d brought my GPS with me and my point-and-shoot Canon camera. My goal is to match up photos with track points to put GPS info in the photos. (I discussed this in my recent post, “Day 5 on Google Earth,” and will go into greater detail when I actually achieve this goal.)

At one point, we stopped on top of a ridge that overlooked the whole west side of town. On one side was a golf course and hundreds houses. On the other side was rolling desert hills without a structure in sight. I commented to Mike how special the place was — the border between civilization and wilderness — and how terrible it was that greedy developers all over Arizona are trying so hard to replace the wilderness with tract housing. The scars on the land that will soon be Wickenburg Ranch — so clearly visible from our vantage point — really brought home this point. How long would it be before our vantage point on a horse trail would be the middle of someone’s living room or garage?

Wickenburg Panorama

Back home, it was difficult not to rush to the computer to offload the pictures and GPS tracklog. But I spent the next hour and a half doing something I hadn’t done in a long time: taking a nice long soak in the bathtub with a book.

Then, at 5, it was time for dinner with some friends. Jim and Judith have left Wickenburg for the Las Vegas area, with a second home on the California coast. They were in town this past weekend to finish packing up their house, which is for sale. (They want me to buy the house because it has a helipad and hangar, but I think their neighbors would kill me with the amount of flying I do.) We had dinner at their favorite restaurant in town, which is also one of ours: House Berlin. We had a great dinner, checked out their new car, and exchanged hugs and best wishes.

I finished up the day reading in bed while Mike watched the baseball game on television. I fell asleep early and woke well-rested.

I Did Cheat Twice

I do have to admit that I used my computer twice during the day.

The first time was when I went into my office to shut it down early in the morning. The computer starts each morning at 5 AM to gather my e-mail and download podcasts. When I went to shut it down, it was displaying an e-mail message about my eBay bidding status. I’m trying to buy a 10.5 mm lens for my Nikon D80 and I couldn’t resist seeing if I was still the winning bidder. I wasn’t. But the auction doesn’t end until today, so I still have a chance. I shut the computer down within 30 seconds.

Later in the day, I also used the computer to suck my existing track logs off my GPS. I wanted to start with a clean slate, but keep the existing data. The whole process took about 2 minutes.

I won’t argue that these two tiny uses “don’t count.” They do. But I’m not ashamed of them. And I’m extremely proud that I didn’t use my laptop, which sits in the kitchen these days, to check the weather. I was sorely tempted on several occasions.

Was it a Better Day without Computers?

Yes. It was. I spent time with my husband and critters and friends. I made a dent in some of the clutter in my house. I spent hours outdoors in fresh air on a beautiful day. What could be better on a computer?

So I think I might practice what I preach a little more often — maybe on Sundays.

Fire Hazard Weather

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High wind and dry conditions are a bad mix.

I’ve been watching the northwestern Arizona weather carefully for the past few days, checking National Weather Service forecasts for Wickenburg (where I live) and Kingman. I had a flying gig at Wickieup this weekend and although I didn’t expect much revenue from it, it was an opportunity for Mike and I to escape home responsibilities for a few days and camp out with some extremely unusual folks. Wickieup is 2/3 of the way between Wickenburg and Kingman, so I figured that if I extrapolated between the two, I’d get a good forecast.

The forecast wasn’t good. It called for high winds — 30 mph or more — on Saturday and Sunday. Although I have flown (and I suppose I will fly) in winds up to 50 mph (not recommended, folks), the landing zone in Wickieup is on a narrow ridge with one way in and out while the event was going on. If the wind was coming from the northwest, I’d be operating with a tailwind, which is always a bad idea when you have a heavy load at 4,000+ feet elevation. The area is very mountainous, so all that wind going over the mountains would make for a rough ride. The end result: me operating in marginal conditions to give my passengers rides that they might not enjoy.

Since I’m just coming off a month-long period of heavy flying — I flew about 50 hours in the past 30 days — I decided that it just wasn’t worth it to spend the weekend. So we flew up for the day, did a few rides, watched the activities — more on that in another post — and flew home.

When we got home, I checked the weather again, mostly to make sure I’d made the right decision about the weekend. (I had.) The Wickenburg weather forecast included something I’d never seen before: a Fire Hazard Watch. Here’s what it said when I checked it again this morning:

...FIRE WEATHER WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM LATE TONIGHT THROUGH SUNDAY EVENING DUE TO STRONG AND GUSTY NORTH WINDS AND LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITY..

A LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM IS DEVELOPING OVER THE WESTERN STATES THIS MORNING. THE COLD FRONT ASSOCIATED WITH THIS SYSTEM WAS LOCATED IN NEVADA AND WILL CONTINUE TO MOVE SOUTHWARD TODAY AND TONIGHT. SUSTAINED NORTH WINDS OF 20 TO 30 MPH WITH HIGHER GUSTS APPROACHING 45 MPH MAY DEVELOP ON SUNDAY. IN ADDITION...VERY LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITY CAN BE EXPECTED. THE COMBINATION OF STRONG WINDS AND VERY LOW HUMIDITY MAY CREATE HAZARDOUS FIRE WEATHER CONDITIONS.

(Sorry about the ALL CAPS, but that’s the way they publish them.)

This warning just emphasizes how dry it can be here in the desert. I can’t remember the last time it rained here — maybe a month ago? We have plenty of stretches where it doesn’t rain for two or more months. Not long ago, Phoenix had a record 143-day dry spell. That’s almost 5 months!

The weather, in case you’re wondering, is almost always clear here, with bright blue skies. During our dry season — which is 8 to 10 months out of the year — there are rarely any clouds at all. Sure it’s beautiful, but it gets a bit tedious at times. You find yourself wishing for some cloud activity. You find yourself wishing for rain.

Right now, there’s a fire burning north of Wickenburg, although I’m not sure exactly where. We saw the smoke as we flew home from Wickieup. I have a feeling it’s somewhere southwest of Williams, AZ, perhaps in the Big Chino Wash area. There was another one burning southeast of Flagstaff when I flew back from Flag with passengers last Friday. In this dryness, it doesn’t take much to get a fire going. And when the wind kicks up, a small fire can quickly turn into an out-of-control blaze.

Yet people will continue to toss their cigarette butts out their car windows as they drive on highways and back roads. I can see the results of their carelessness as I fly around the state. Acres and acres burned east of Vulture Mine Road just south of Wickenburg. More burned along I-40, I-10, I-17, and SR-89. Signs up and down the highways proclaim Fire Danger Extreme, but no one stops to think of the consequences of a tiny cigarette butt or the sparks from an ATV or dirt bike. Those signs are for other people.

While I don’t expect a fire to break out in the area this weekend, I hope one doesn’t. If it does, with the high winds that are expected, we could get clouds — clouds of smoke.

The End is Near

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I’m almost done with a month on the road.

On September 14, I left home to start the first of a string of flying gigs that kept me away from home for 16 of the past 28 days. I estimate that I flew at least 3,000 miles during that time. (I flew about 200 miles just today.) I know I slept in 9 different hotel rooms — plus my camper — and ate in at least two dozen restaurants.

Right now, I’m stretched out on a Sleep Number bed — in other words, an overpriced, remote controlled air mattress — in Flagstaff’s Radisson hotel. The linens are nice. I’m watching the Weather Channel, angry that I just missed Stephen Colbert on Larry King, and amazed that there’s nothing else on worth watching.

Tomorrow is the last day of our Southwest Circle Helicopter Adventure. Normally, I think I would have enjoyed every minute of the trip. But somewhere about halfway through this week, I realized that I was tired of traveling, tired of being away from home.

Fortunately, my passengers want an early start tomorrow. So I’ll pick them up at their B & B at 8 AM and whisk them away to their last activity: a hike around the ruins in Walnut Canyon. I suspect that I’ll be too tired to join them on the hike in, so I’ll hang out in the rental car (a PT Cruiser, I think) or on a sunny bench and read until they’re done.

Then, it’s back to Flagstaff airport, where the helicopter has been fueled by the excellent crew at Wiseman Aviation and the hour-long flight back to Deer Valley Airport. I’ll say goodbye to my clients, give them the parting gift that I’ve been lugging around for the past five days, and high-tail it back to Wickenburg. With luck, I should be back in my own home by 3 PM.

I think I might spend the afternoon napping in my own bed.

Best of all is what’s on my calendar for the next seven days: nothing.

No books to write, no clients to fly, no meetings, no phone calls. I might even shut off my phone to keep it that way.

Okay, so I’ll be honest: I do expect to work next week. I need to start writing Leopard articles for Peachpit’s Web site. I’m hoping to knock off about 20 of them during the next two months. And I do need to start thinking about the video I’m under contract to do for MacPro Video. And develop a new brochure for Flying M Air’s multi-day excursions. And put together a proposal for the Navajo Film Commission. And create a package for Phoenix-area concierges.

But I’m not going to do it all next week. I’m going to take a little break and knock off just a few of the east tasks.

I deserve some time off.

Still Working Hard

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I am so incredibly tired.

September knocked things up a notch when two things happened at roughly the same time:

  • I got a bunch of flying gigs. To be fair, the biggest gig was booked back in March or April. That’s the gig I’m on now — flying a group of Russian photographers around Lake Powell, Monument Valley and Shiprock. (I’m in Monument Valley now; more on that later.) But in addition to my annual appearance at the Mohave County Fair, I scooped up two photo shoots at Lake Powell and three relatively lucrative custom tours for Realtors. And did I mention the Australian photographer I needed to take around so he could get shots of my helicopter operation for an upcoming book? (Of course I did. I’m still tickled about that.) I flew more than 45 hours in September, and most of them were solid revenue hours.
  • My editor reminded me that Apple promised to deliver Leopard in October. Counting back from the end of the month, it became obvious that I’d have to have my book done by the first week in October if Apple delivered on that promise and we wanted our book to be in stores the day Leopard became available. And one look in my personal bank account reminded me that I write for a living and had been neglecting my livelihood.

Thus began a month of very long days. And timing couldn’t be worse. Not only was I scheduled to do this big gig with the Russians, but the dates happened to fall on the very last days I had to write the book. So I had to finish it before I left. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I was packing for my trip as my computer was generating PDFs and uploading files to Peachpit’s server.

I worked 14-hour days last week. Basically, every waking hour was spent in front of my computer, writing about Leopard. And, believe it or not, I have two laptops with me here on my trip so I can knock off the Introduction before the book goes to the printer.

But although the book work is not 100% over, it’s over enough to relax a bit. And even though I’ve been flying my butt off, I do have a nice quiet evening to myself.

And I know — I’m way overdue for a blog post.

Not Enough Hours in a Day

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Still too busy to blog regularly.

I’ve been neglecting this blog lately, which is something I’m not happy about. You see, I need to blog. I need to keep this journal of my life and share tips and how-tos with strangers all over the world.

So when I neglect it, as I have been for the past week or so, I feel bad about it.

I Take Work When I Need To

But the reason I’ve been neglecting things is because I’ve been so busy doing the kind of work that pays the bills. (No, blogging doesn’t do that.) As any business owner or freelancer can tell you, there isn’t always paying work to do. Sometimes, after a dry spell, you have to take the work that comes along.

And that’s how it is with Flying M Air. Summer in Wickenburg simply sucks. I can’t put it any other way. There are few people around and none of them want to fly — including me. It’s just too damn hot. So with just one gig in all of July and just three or four in all of August, I was personally funding Flying M Air again, paying its bills through the dead summer months.

And Flying M Air doesn’t have small bills to pay.

When September rolled along, I was anxious to do rides at the Mohave County Fair for the third year in a row. And right after that, were two good gigs with photographers over some of Arizona’s most scenic areas. Although the Fair gig was a bust this year, the two gigs that followed it earned me more than 15 hours of revenue time. That’s enough to keep Flying M Air in the black for four to five months. Best of all, I have another very lucrative gig lined up for Lake Powell, Monument Valley, and Shiprock at the end of September and beginning of October.

I Work Two Jobs

All these gigs have been keeping me from my office for days at a time. That means I can’t do the work I need to do for my other job, the one that funded Flying M Air in the first place.

I’ve been working on my 70th book, a revision of my Mac OS X Visual QuickStart Guide for Leopard, since July. It’s a 750-page volume and I decided this year to tear it apart, reorganize it, and rebuild it from the ground up. I’m nearly done, but it’s been a long, hard task from the start.

It’s always hard writing a book about software when all you have is beta. Betas aren’t always stable, so they occasionally crash at the most inopportune times. Betas aren’t always final, so the thing you wrote about two weeks ago might be different today. It’s a constant process of review and revision.

It’s also a process of learning how new features work. Sure, there’s some onscreen help for some of the new features. But it’s spotty and incomplete, designed to teach basics. It’s best used as a starting point for learning more. Only by “playing” with the feature and experimenting with it can you learn the little tricks that give the book value to readers. That’s my job, and it’s both fun and frustrating sometimes.

Tight Scheduling

As I write this, aviation photographer Jon Davison is in my kitchen, cutting up a cantaloupe for his breakfast. Here’s here to photograph and write about Flying M Air and my helicopter for a book he’s writing about Robinson helicopters. We’ll be flying today and tomorrow and probably on Tuesday. Today’s the air-to-air portion of our photo work; we leave in 45 minutes to fly in formation with my buddy Dave, who owns a Hughes 500.

Although this isn’t a paying gig, it’s important. Jon’s coverage of Flying M Air will help me promote the company. The book, when released, will show readers the kind of work I do and places I go. I’m eager to promote my 6-day excursions and this will definitely help.

So I’m squeezing Jon into my schedule. A few days with him followed by a few days of Leopard followed by a few days in the Four Corners area, flying photographers around.

October is another busy month, with gigs on three of the four weekends.

What To Look Forward To Here

When the Leopard book is done, I’ll begin writing short how-to pieces for this blog about it. But don’t expect to see them before Leopard is released. I take non-disclosure agreements very seriously and don’t have any desire to get Apple, Inc. pissed off at me.

And if you like reading about flying, keep checking in. I’m sure I’ll have some things to say about my work with Jon — hopefully, with photos — and the photographers I’m working with at month-end.