Picture this.
An ape in the forest high up in the trees, moving along with his troop. Every time he switches trees he has to hold on to the tree he's on, grab the next then release the current one so as to keep moving.
Was just thinking about this in relation to life. We have to keep moving from one stage to the next as we progress. However if we try to grab onto the future and still insist on holding on to the past- the old branch so to speak we'll just end up hanging in the air not progressing. So to move forward you've got to let go if the past, with it's victories, failures, disappointments etc and reach out to the future with it's new possibilities!
In those same lines consider what Paul said "Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. " Phil 3:13-14.
Don't get hang up on the past keep moving forward to greater things!
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Saturday, 26 December 2009
A Work of Art
Just realized that the last couple of years I've written a post about the most outstanding movie I'd watched during that year. In 2007 it was Transformers if only for the visuals and last year it was obviously The Dark Night the highlight being the performance by the late Heath Ledger.
This year saw the sequel to transformers though a roller coaster of special effect and action lacked the wow factor of the first. I'm a big science fiction fan so when I heard James Cameron had a new movie coming out I knew it would be quite something. After all he is the man who brought us The Terminator which also had a sequel this year. There had been a lot of buzz about Avatar so when it came out I had to give it a look to see the special effects. This is the same man who took the game a notch higher with Terminator 2 back in the day, both in terms of special effects and budget and he has outdone himself once again.
He's well known for being late and over budget and for the third time one of his movies is the most expensive ever made and he's been quiet since his last Titanic effort (pun intended). I can say that the wait was worth it. Would have loved to see it in 3D but with the nearest IMAX over 1000km away I watched it the old fashioned 2D way. It is visually stunning and looked 'realistic' even though Pandora was a fantasy world. Story was good too deepest not exactly but good enough to keep me on the edge of my seat and though it was long just kept wishing it wouldn't end- however knowing hollywood they could try to milk this one with a sequel.
One particularly interesting aspect of the story is a departure from the humans are good aliens are bad theme we usually have. Found it sort of similar to District 9 in that respect and you really get to sympathize with the aliens' plight. I also think that this movie is some sort of Allegory of the bush invation of Iraq. In fact some of his catch phrases like 'pre-emptive attack' and 'shock and awe' and the obvious invasion because of mineral resources. Entertaining but also makes youu think of human nature and greed.
So this year they saved the best for last. I give this one 5 stars without reservation.
This year saw the sequel to transformers though a roller coaster of special effect and action lacked the wow factor of the first. I'm a big science fiction fan so when I heard James Cameron had a new movie coming out I knew it would be quite something. After all he is the man who brought us The Terminator which also had a sequel this year. There had been a lot of buzz about Avatar so when it came out I had to give it a look to see the special effects. This is the same man who took the game a notch higher with Terminator 2 back in the day, both in terms of special effects and budget and he has outdone himself once again.
He's well known for being late and over budget and for the third time one of his movies is the most expensive ever made and he's been quiet since his last Titanic effort (pun intended). I can say that the wait was worth it. Would have loved to see it in 3D but with the nearest IMAX over 1000km away I watched it the old fashioned 2D way. It is visually stunning and looked 'realistic' even though Pandora was a fantasy world. Story was good too deepest not exactly but good enough to keep me on the edge of my seat and though it was long just kept wishing it wouldn't end- however knowing hollywood they could try to milk this one with a sequel.
One particularly interesting aspect of the story is a departure from the humans are good aliens are bad theme we usually have. Found it sort of similar to District 9 in that respect and you really get to sympathize with the aliens' plight. I also think that this movie is some sort of Allegory of the bush invation of Iraq. In fact some of his catch phrases like 'pre-emptive attack' and 'shock and awe' and the obvious invasion because of mineral resources. Entertaining but also makes youu think of human nature and greed.
So this year they saved the best for last. I give this one 5 stars without reservation.
Saturday, 10 October 2009
My tree
I have a tree in my garden
When the wind blows, the gusts do not reach me,
When the sun scorches I hide in it's shade,
When I am hungry it's fruits satisfy
It's flowers delight both the eyes with their beauty and the nose with their fragrance
What a treasure it is
But my tree needs to be watered, lest it's flowers fade and leaves wither and die
Any good farmer must tend his own and so shall I
As I the Lord sustains with the rain from above
If you wonder what I call my tree
Friendship is it's name
And tend my tree I shall
by
Gituma Nturibi
When the wind blows, the gusts do not reach me,
When the sun scorches I hide in it's shade,
When I am hungry it's fruits satisfy
It's flowers delight both the eyes with their beauty and the nose with their fragrance
What a treasure it is
But my tree needs to be watered, lest it's flowers fade and leaves wither and die
Any good farmer must tend his own and so shall I
As I the Lord sustains with the rain from above
If you wonder what I call my tree
Friendship is it's name
And tend my tree I shall
by
Gituma Nturibi
Friday, 18 September 2009
Have we learnt?
This is not so much a rant but food for thought.
I was just thinking the other day.. Looking back at 1999 Kenya was going through the same problems, rains had failed, dams were running dry and this lead to water and power rationing. Fast forward to 10 years later 2009, same problems yet again kind of made me wonder whether we learnt anything from our pas experience. Granted we rely a lot on hydro-electricity and diversification has been fast and slow plus of course we can't control the weather, there are some things we could have done.
Okay so we can't control the weather but there's a meteorological department that had warned us of the drought, from previous experience plans could have been made earlier for emergency power generation to mitigate the effects. The government is always talking about development, looks like we still have a long way to go, hope 10 years down the line we won't be going through the same stuff again.
The power rationing is sad but the thing that I'm really worried about is whether we learnt anything from the post election violence last year. Recent events raise questions as to whether people are still reasoning from their tribal cocoons. Case in point is the whole Mau forest issue and most importantly the Truth, Justice and reconciliation commission. The commission affords an opportunity to seek a solution for past ills but it looks like some want to use it to settle scores. Personally I wonder why some would want to use it to prosecute suspects of post election violence. However I think it will be long road to the truth, not necessarily a quick fix for all our problems hope we can be patient.
Just hope that come 2012 our people will have their eyes opened and that people will not be laying down their lives for their leaders, it is the leaders who should be loyal to them. We must never tire of praying for our country!
I was just thinking the other day.. Looking back at 1999 Kenya was going through the same problems, rains had failed, dams were running dry and this lead to water and power rationing. Fast forward to 10 years later 2009, same problems yet again kind of made me wonder whether we learnt anything from our pas experience. Granted we rely a lot on hydro-electricity and diversification has been fast and slow plus of course we can't control the weather, there are some things we could have done.
Okay so we can't control the weather but there's a meteorological department that had warned us of the drought, from previous experience plans could have been made earlier for emergency power generation to mitigate the effects. The government is always talking about development, looks like we still have a long way to go, hope 10 years down the line we won't be going through the same stuff again.
The power rationing is sad but the thing that I'm really worried about is whether we learnt anything from the post election violence last year. Recent events raise questions as to whether people are still reasoning from their tribal cocoons. Case in point is the whole Mau forest issue and most importantly the Truth, Justice and reconciliation commission. The commission affords an opportunity to seek a solution for past ills but it looks like some want to use it to settle scores. Personally I wonder why some would want to use it to prosecute suspects of post election violence. However I think it will be long road to the truth, not necessarily a quick fix for all our problems hope we can be patient.
Just hope that come 2012 our people will have their eyes opened and that people will not be laying down their lives for their leaders, it is the leaders who should be loyal to them. We must never tire of praying for our country!
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Gotta Go!
Now as promised some stories
Almost immediately after I got my Private Pilot Licence it was time to do the long cross country flights. The First one we do is from Port Elizabeth to East London, on to Queenstown and back. I was initially scheduled to do it all on my own as my licence wasn't ready yet so I couldn't carry a passanger. Pretty daunting to go all that way alone first time but somehow it ended up being postponed and later on I could get somebody to go with me.
Took a while before the weather was good enough for me to on the flight, what's more it could only be done on a weekend as I was in class during the week. After a couple of postponements I got up early on a Sunday ready to go but yet again the weather was dodgy so I gave up and went for breakfast. Now as I was having my breakfast I was told that I had to for the flight, The big man had come that morning and said that all guys scheduled to fly should get on with it. I talked about him in my earlier post, old British guy with this Sean Connery voice thing going on. His theory was that the bad weather was only at the coast and on our way back once past the mountains all we had to do was descend below the clouds and we'll be all right. We had to take his word for it and off we went.
No sooner had we taken off than we met some clouds, could hardly see the horizon but fortunately for us it was just a small patch and further on things were ok. As we got closer to East London it was pretty clear. Now my passenger had decided to have a little too much juice that morning and you can imagine the side effects. Now a little physics lesson here, as you go lower the atmospheric pressure increases so you can imagine how his bladder was feeling as we descended to East London. As soon as we landed he couldn't take it any more, he Simply HAD TO GO! So he decided to relieve himself out the door as we were taxiing along. Hope nobody up there in the tower had binoculars...
So busy was he that he forgot to talk to tell me about the marshaller( who directs where to park) who I passed and went all the way to the end of the apron and asked the tower where the marshaller was and was told " but sir, you've just passed the marshaller!" Talk about embarassment. After that we did the necessary refuelling and stuff and went on with the rest of our trip. The rest was pretty much uneventful though it was pretty bumpy in the mountainous Queenstown area. We didn't hang around for long as we were told that the weather in PE was getting bad.
As we got closer to our destionation the clouds kept increasing and getting lower and lower and we had to keep on descending. Was pretty stressful but once we were past the mountains it worked pretty much as the old man had told us. It was getting worse as we went along and we arrived back at the school just in time as the clouds were rolling in at low altitude. 5 minutes later and we'd have been in trouble.
Phew it was finally over first experience, had doubts but what is amazing is how the old man had got it spot on about the weather, it's like he had a sixth sense or something. Truly experience is the best teacher. Yeah and I nkow better than to drink a lot before a long flight!
Almost immediately after I got my Private Pilot Licence it was time to do the long cross country flights. The First one we do is from Port Elizabeth to East London, on to Queenstown and back. I was initially scheduled to do it all on my own as my licence wasn't ready yet so I couldn't carry a passanger. Pretty daunting to go all that way alone first time but somehow it ended up being postponed and later on I could get somebody to go with me.
Took a while before the weather was good enough for me to on the flight, what's more it could only be done on a weekend as I was in class during the week. After a couple of postponements I got up early on a Sunday ready to go but yet again the weather was dodgy so I gave up and went for breakfast. Now as I was having my breakfast I was told that I had to for the flight, The big man had come that morning and said that all guys scheduled to fly should get on with it. I talked about him in my earlier post, old British guy with this Sean Connery voice thing going on. His theory was that the bad weather was only at the coast and on our way back once past the mountains all we had to do was descend below the clouds and we'll be all right. We had to take his word for it and off we went.
No sooner had we taken off than we met some clouds, could hardly see the horizon but fortunately for us it was just a small patch and further on things were ok. As we got closer to East London it was pretty clear. Now my passenger had decided to have a little too much juice that morning and you can imagine the side effects. Now a little physics lesson here, as you go lower the atmospheric pressure increases so you can imagine how his bladder was feeling as we descended to East London. As soon as we landed he couldn't take it any more, he Simply HAD TO GO! So he decided to relieve himself out the door as we were taxiing along. Hope nobody up there in the tower had binoculars...
So busy was he that he forgot to talk to tell me about the marshaller( who directs where to park) who I passed and went all the way to the end of the apron and asked the tower where the marshaller was and was told " but sir, you've just passed the marshaller!" Talk about embarassment. After that we did the necessary refuelling and stuff and went on with the rest of our trip. The rest was pretty much uneventful though it was pretty bumpy in the mountainous Queenstown area. We didn't hang around for long as we were told that the weather in PE was getting bad.
As we got closer to our destionation the clouds kept increasing and getting lower and lower and we had to keep on descending. Was pretty stressful but once we were past the mountains it worked pretty much as the old man had told us. It was getting worse as we went along and we arrived back at the school just in time as the clouds were rolling in at low altitude. 5 minutes later and we'd have been in trouble.
Phew it was finally over first experience, had doubts but what is amazing is how the old man had got it spot on about the weather, it's like he had a sixth sense or something. Truly experience is the best teacher. Yeah and I nkow better than to drink a lot before a long flight!
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
The Learning Curve
Hmm. I have so fallen into the trap that has caught many other bloggers.What with Facebook and twitter hogging my attention the blog has suffered. Seven months into the year and no post whatsoever. better late than never!
So Last time I was in the blogosphere I was on about my first experience as the Pilot in command. A lot has happened since then, logged many more solo hours and learnt a lot along the way. I eventually got my Private Pilot license and recently passed the 100 hour mark. There's a saying that goes at 100 hours a pilot thinks he knows everything, at 1000 he does know everything and at 10000 hours he realizes that he knows nothing! So you can see where I fall in all of this right now.
Flying is interesting, there's always something new to learn and I doubt there's any pilot who can say he knows everything. In my short aviation career I've had numerous lessons drilled into me, some with ease and others with difficulty. There's one lesson that really stuck as I'll explain.
Referreing to my previous post I had detailed how prior to my first solo I had gone on a check ride with the big man of the school and that he had taken some time to take me back to basics. The exercise he drilled me on was called control co-ordinaton, here's where I launch into some technical mumbo- jumbo so please bear with me. Let me explain, turning an aeroplane is a delicate art which invollve proper co-ordination of hands, eyes and feet. Naturally you would think that you bank( turn i.e) usign the control column alone but your feet have to move in tandem otherwise the result won't be so good to put it simply. Hope you get the picture. It's a pretty basic skill but at the time my handling of it was not to his satisfaction so I had to endure the embarassment of being taught again.
Fast forward to a few weeks later when I went on anothe check ride with another instructor. It was a mess of a flight could hardly get anything right and he ended up recommending that I repeat it. However there was one positive remark in all of it- "You can co-ordinate!" Still laugh when I remember that story, lesson learnt- the hard way!
More on my adventures and misadventures in the air shall be coming soon, stay tuned...
So Last time I was in the blogosphere I was on about my first experience as the Pilot in command. A lot has happened since then, logged many more solo hours and learnt a lot along the way. I eventually got my Private Pilot license and recently passed the 100 hour mark. There's a saying that goes at 100 hours a pilot thinks he knows everything, at 1000 he does know everything and at 10000 hours he realizes that he knows nothing! So you can see where I fall in all of this right now.
Flying is interesting, there's always something new to learn and I doubt there's any pilot who can say he knows everything. In my short aviation career I've had numerous lessons drilled into me, some with ease and others with difficulty. There's one lesson that really stuck as I'll explain.
Referreing to my previous post I had detailed how prior to my first solo I had gone on a check ride with the big man of the school and that he had taken some time to take me back to basics. The exercise he drilled me on was called control co-ordinaton, here's where I launch into some technical mumbo- jumbo so please bear with me. Let me explain, turning an aeroplane is a delicate art which invollve proper co-ordination of hands, eyes and feet. Naturally you would think that you bank( turn i.e) usign the control column alone but your feet have to move in tandem otherwise the result won't be so good to put it simply. Hope you get the picture. It's a pretty basic skill but at the time my handling of it was not to his satisfaction so I had to endure the embarassment of being taught again.
Fast forward to a few weeks later when I went on anothe check ride with another instructor. It was a mess of a flight could hardly get anything right and he ended up recommending that I repeat it. However there was one positive remark in all of it- "You can co-ordinate!" Still laugh when I remember that story, lesson learnt- the hard way!
More on my adventures and misadventures in the air shall be coming soon, stay tuned...
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
Up, Up and Away
It's been a while since I last posted as I've been quite busy getting the hang of flying so let me share a little experience that I had over the last few days that has been major.
By last week I had already done quite a number of hours and it was
about time for me to go solo so I was taken to a senior instructor who I flew with a couple times punctuated by a three day gap due to some lousy weather last week. However on Friday I was taken to the chief instructor who I had to stick with till he released me for my first solo. First flight on Friday went pretty well and he had some good encouraging words for me even telling me to believe in myself and I could do it.
The second flight on Saturday was a different story.I hadn't flown for 2 consecutive days for quite a while and those gaps tend to make you a bit rusty so I thought that this was my chance to get some good consistency. However after a relatively good start I made some of the same mistakes of the previous day and even some new ones. At one point I was given quite a dressing down in the cockpit and thought things had gone really bad. Afterward I was told that on Sunday morning I'd fly with the big boy himself, the owner of the school. He's quite an imposing figure a tall old man with a big grey beard who has a lot of experience under his belt so I knew the standards would be pretty high.
So on Sunday morning I woke up to another fine cloudless morning and I was surprised as the weather is hardly ever consistent. My flight was a little delayed as he was dealing with another student before me. When my time came he gave me a briefing first and looked at the comments from the previous flight and gave me some pointers on what to do. Soon after it was time to get going. Even when we were on the ground he had quite a number of comments to make on the things I was doing wrong and more when I got into the air. Probably due to nervousness I kept making some very silly mistakes which so got to him that he had to revise some of the basics with me in the air. This was really embarrassing for somebody who was already quite some way into the course. You can imagine how I felt after the de-briefing. I had really been brought down to earth or so to speak.After that I did quite a lot of thinking and praying, "have to pull up my socks" I kept telling myself. Fortunately on Monday I was scheduled to fly with the chief instructor so I was relieved.
Once again perfect weather on Monday morning, cloudless and only a slight hint of wind. This was truly amazing for me 4 days in a row of good weather was a first. I guess at this point you're probably thinking that I'm obsessed with the weather but it's part of the job! So as I was saying I was back with the CFI with a lot on my mind no doubt- "have to get to right this time, you can do it!" Went through the usual drill and he even expedited it so that we could get into the air much faster. Off we went into the sky, did a good flight and for the first time made a good landing, previously that had been my biggest problem. He went on to congratulate me for the good landing and of course there was the inevitable but- I had turned too early. Made the same mistake again and I was chastised but managed to fix it on the third try. I knew that what he was looking for was 3 good landings and that would be it. 1st one was good, misjudged the 2nd so
I didn't touch down but the next 3 were ok. On the last as I was about to get airborne again he took hold of the controls and just then I knew the moment I had been waiting for had finally arrived! A smile started forming on my face and I started psyching myself up. He asked
how I was doing whether I was ok and stuff and explained what I had to do next was to go up and do a circuit on my own.
Once he was through with the briefing he stepped out and it was time for me to do my thing. I gave him a thumbs up, put my hands on the controls, did my radio call and got going. The first thing that was really weird was the empty seat beside me and once I got airborne it felt really light and had to keep making adjustments. The flight went pretty well and it was definitely less stressful not having somebody there making comments every time you made a little mistake. Soon it was time for me to land and I was lined up on the final approach to the runway. Had to work on what was usually my weak point all on my own. This approach is particularly tricky as there are some trees just before the edge of the runway and so you have to be really careful so
that you don't end up perched on them. As I came in I noticed I was getting low and heading towards them. Naturally you would try to pull the plane up but this is a no-no as that would cause you to slow down and sink faster, I almost fell into this trap but I quickly increased the power and got over them and was back on course. Once Over them I was basically over the fence and went ahead to do a not so bad landing even if I do say so myself. It was finally done, the first solo, the first major milestone in my flying and 15th December 2008 shall remain permanently etched in my memory. After touching down I taxied back to the apron where the CFI was on hand to congratulate me and the other students were the to carry to the pool for a dip.
It's really hard to explain the feeling as I was really happy and at the same time relieved as it had taken me a while to get there as most of my colleagues had already gone before me. However I thank God for the way it went and the experience with the big boy which gave me a
wake up call.
Now it's on to the next stage.
By last week I had already done quite a number of hours and it was
about time for me to go solo so I was taken to a senior instructor who I flew with a couple times punctuated by a three day gap due to some lousy weather last week. However on Friday I was taken to the chief instructor who I had to stick with till he released me for my first solo. First flight on Friday went pretty well and he had some good encouraging words for me even telling me to believe in myself and I could do it.
The second flight on Saturday was a different story.I hadn't flown for 2 consecutive days for quite a while and those gaps tend to make you a bit rusty so I thought that this was my chance to get some good consistency. However after a relatively good start I made some of the same mistakes of the previous day and even some new ones. At one point I was given quite a dressing down in the cockpit and thought things had gone really bad. Afterward I was told that on Sunday morning I'd fly with the big boy himself, the owner of the school. He's quite an imposing figure a tall old man with a big grey beard who has a lot of experience under his belt so I knew the standards would be pretty high.
So on Sunday morning I woke up to another fine cloudless morning and I was surprised as the weather is hardly ever consistent. My flight was a little delayed as he was dealing with another student before me. When my time came he gave me a briefing first and looked at the comments from the previous flight and gave me some pointers on what to do. Soon after it was time to get going. Even when we were on the ground he had quite a number of comments to make on the things I was doing wrong and more when I got into the air. Probably due to nervousness I kept making some very silly mistakes which so got to him that he had to revise some of the basics with me in the air. This was really embarrassing for somebody who was already quite some way into the course. You can imagine how I felt after the de-briefing. I had really been brought down to earth or so to speak.After that I did quite a lot of thinking and praying, "have to pull up my socks" I kept telling myself. Fortunately on Monday I was scheduled to fly with the chief instructor so I was relieved.
Once again perfect weather on Monday morning, cloudless and only a slight hint of wind. This was truly amazing for me 4 days in a row of good weather was a first. I guess at this point you're probably thinking that I'm obsessed with the weather but it's part of the job! So as I was saying I was back with the CFI with a lot on my mind no doubt- "have to get to right this time, you can do it!" Went through the usual drill and he even expedited it so that we could get into the air much faster. Off we went into the sky, did a good flight and for the first time made a good landing, previously that had been my biggest problem. He went on to congratulate me for the good landing and of course there was the inevitable but- I had turned too early. Made the same mistake again and I was chastised but managed to fix it on the third try. I knew that what he was looking for was 3 good landings and that would be it. 1st one was good, misjudged the 2nd so
I didn't touch down but the next 3 were ok. On the last as I was about to get airborne again he took hold of the controls and just then I knew the moment I had been waiting for had finally arrived! A smile started forming on my face and I started psyching myself up. He asked
how I was doing whether I was ok and stuff and explained what I had to do next was to go up and do a circuit on my own.
Once he was through with the briefing he stepped out and it was time for me to do my thing. I gave him a thumbs up, put my hands on the controls, did my radio call and got going. The first thing that was really weird was the empty seat beside me and once I got airborne it felt really light and had to keep making adjustments. The flight went pretty well and it was definitely less stressful not having somebody there making comments every time you made a little mistake. Soon it was time for me to land and I was lined up on the final approach to the runway. Had to work on what was usually my weak point all on my own. This approach is particularly tricky as there are some trees just before the edge of the runway and so you have to be really careful so
that you don't end up perched on them. As I came in I noticed I was getting low and heading towards them. Naturally you would try to pull the plane up but this is a no-no as that would cause you to slow down and sink faster, I almost fell into this trap but I quickly increased the power and got over them and was back on course. Once Over them I was basically over the fence and went ahead to do a not so bad landing even if I do say so myself. It was finally done, the first solo, the first major milestone in my flying and 15th December 2008 shall remain permanently etched in my memory. After touching down I taxied back to the apron where the CFI was on hand to congratulate me and the other students were the to carry to the pool for a dip.
It's really hard to explain the feeling as I was really happy and at the same time relieved as it had taken me a while to get there as most of my colleagues had already gone before me. However I thank God for the way it went and the experience with the big boy which gave me a
wake up call.
Now it's on to the next stage.
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