One thing in life is the people closest to you are the ones who have the greatest effect on you. They can give you the happiest moments and the saddest moments. It's easy to think that life is all clear blue skies and when a cloudy patch comes up you wonder what's up and think that something major is wrong.
One of the scriptures that is frequently quoted with respect to friendship is proverbs 27:17- " Iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend" (KJV)
Now consider how this happens, two knives do not sit up next to each other warm and cosy and then they magically become sharp. No what happens is they strike each other and sometimes sparks fly, that's how it goes down. Similarly with our friends there can be those heated moments which come up when due to our humanity our flaws become evident. Nobody's perfect and so we do not see eye to eye all the time but we can build each other using the right words and end up being the better.
Let me quote Dr. James Dobson who put it so well in his book "Life on the edge"
" Whenever two human beings spend time together, sooner or later they will probably irritate one another. This is true of best friends, married couples, parents and children, or teachers and students. The question is: How to respond when friction occur? There are four basic ways they can react.
- internalize anger and send it downwards into a memory bank that never forgets. This creates great pressure within and can even result in disease and other problems
- They can pout and be rude without discussing the issues. This further irritates the other person and leaves him or her to draw his or her own conclusions about what the problem may be.
-they can blow up and they to hurt the other person. This causes the death of friendships, marriages, homes and businesses.
- Or they can talk to one another about their feelings, being very careful not to attack the dignity and worth of the other person. This approach often leads to permanent and healthy relationships."
And I end with the words of Psalm 133:1 "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in unity"
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Monkey Business
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!
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!
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...
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