mikeg's blog

I have yet again engaged in an argument on Twitter with people who think Root Cause Analysis is a terrible, bad and misguided thing, and I've decided to put this very simplistic explanation of why I don't agree with that perspective here so I can just point people at it the next time I need to have this discussion.

Continue reading "Root Cause?"

Those of you who are of of the loop (reading this blog rather than following me on Twitter) are probably unaware of the fact that I went out and bought a plane. I've been rotating my training using my plane (N8031W) and the flight school's aircraft, and recently switched over to mine full-time. I've been slowly working down my list of squawks and stuff I want to do to the plane. Since it might be of interest to the one or two people who read this who are also into aviation, I figure I'll throw a few figures and numbers out there. Purchase price of the aircraft (1965 PA28-180 "Cherokee 180C"): $35,000 (including getting it from TX to NY).
Misc. parts, maintenance, etc. since I bought the plane: About $3,500
Cost difference in training since switching to my plane: $0 (because of maintenance, buying parts, and because I've been flying more often).

Continue reading "Das fliegenwagen"

 Holy Hairballs - A Blog update!  Dayum it's been a while!

So, what the hell do I want to talk about?  Well, I want to expound for a bit on the FAA/AeroNav proposal to start charging for digital chart data. And, because this is my blog, I can!

Really everything I want to say can be said by an appropriate LOLCat:

 

Continue reading "Dear FAA/Aeronav..."

So the point of this whole thing is trivial enough that I went ahead and did it: Go to Wikipedia and type in your birthday (month and day). Then you write down 3 events, 3 births, 3 deaths and 3 holidays.
December 29

Events

• 1778 – American Revolutionary War: 3,500 British soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell capture Savannah, Georgia without firing a shot.
  Way to go Georgia, just roll over and take it. Bitches.
• 1890 – United States soldiers kill more than 200 Oglala Lakota people with four Hotchkiss guns in the Wounded Knee Massacre.
  120 years later we're still treating the natives like shit & using the treaties to wipe our national ass -- Progress, we no can has
• 2003 – The last known speaker of Akkala Sami dies, rendering the language extinct.
  Interesting tidbit in honor of all those linguistics courses I took.

Births

• 1800 – Charles Goodyear, American inventor (d. 1860)
  A subtle reminder from the universe to check your tire inflation and wear pattern
• 1921 – Robert C. Baker, Inventor of the chicken nugget (d. 2006)
  Cue ironic chorus of "Nugget Man"
• 1967 – Andy Wachowski, American director
  I still won't forgive him for the Matrix sequels. Filthy humans ruinsed a good thing.

Deaths (Excluding the "event" death)

• 1731 – Brook Taylor, English mathematician (b. 1685)
• 1737 – Joseph Saurin, French mathematician (b. 1659)
• 1891 – Leopold Kronecker, German mathematician (b. 1823)

Apparently not a good day to be a mathematician… Do I get any bonus points for a trifecta?

Holidays
Only 2 and nothing relevant: The 5th day of Christmas (but nobody cares aside from the song) and apparently St. Becket's day (patron saint of secular clergy, so I suppose that's appropriate with me being an ordained minister and all)

Sure, OK... why not.

Paul Randal started this mess: He wrote a blog post about 3 events that brought him to the current point in his career, and invited the rest of the interwebs to do the same.  I decided I would and promptly forgot about it, then @zippy1981 did and I felt guilty, So here, with a decidedly carreer-and-IT slant because y'all just DO NOT WANT to know about my personal proclivities, are my three events:

 

Continue reading "What got me where I am today (the "3 things" blog meme)"