Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Tyler's Take - Come Fly the Friendly Skies

Just recently, I was getting ready to fly back to Arizona for a conference. I was sitting in the concourse area of the Indy airport eating a quick dinner before heading to the gate when I noticed a pilot grabbing a quick bite as well. He was sitting at the table a few feet in front of me. Now if you'll allow me for just a second to be slightly judgmental and superficial...I noticed that this pilot is someone that would probably be classified by my wife as a "sad-sack". He was a little disheveled and looked like he was maybe someone that doesn't have a real exciting social life. And most likely, he's never been accused of being the "life of the party"! To me, he looked like the kind of guy that has spent a lot of time focusing on his career. And then I stopped and realized something...this is exactly the type of pilot I want for my flight! I don't want someone in the cockpit who is having a party in there. I want a no-nonsense person who is focused on making the flight as safe as possible. I don't need my pilot to have a personality; I just need to get to my final destination alive!

Precisely as I was thinking that to myself, the pilot stood up, grabbed his rolling suitcase, and started to walk away. As he did so, the bag he was pulling behind him ran into the chair he was sitting in just a second ago. At that point, I changed my mind...I guess this is not the man I want flying the plane I'm riding in after all!

Monday, February 9, 2009

Tyler's Take

Anyone that knows me well knows that I have a little problem. Well, I probably have more than one but the specific one I am referring to now is what doctors call "color deficiency". For those that don't know much about my condition, this does not mean that I'm color blind; I don't live in a black and white world...I see colors just fine except that sometimes they get mixed up in my brain (incidentally, these are probably the same people that find joy in playing the "let's hold up something to Tyler and see if he knows what color it is" game!). Those that know me really really well, know that the colors I most commonly get confused are purple and blue. It's definitely not the worst affliction in the world to have but it can get a little annoying sometimes. One such time happened this past Saturday.

I was at work, running my 2nd/3rd grade basketball league. Midway through the morning a parent turned in a purple iPod to me that he had found laying on the Gym floor. A little while later a boy and his dad approached me and asked if an iPod had been turned in. I said, "as a matter of fact, yes, I did just get one. What color is yours?" The boy told me that his iPod is blue so I said, "Oh, I'm sorry, the one that got turned in is purple". The dad then, being the wise man that he is, (as if he had gotten an inside tip that I don't see colors all that great) said "well, can we take a look at it anyways?" I said, "sure", but in my head I was thinking "why are we wasting time with this...the boy is only going to be more disappointed". Sure enough, I showed the boy the iPod and his face lit up as he told me that it was his. The dad just looked at me like I was a moron and then shook my hand and thanked me. I will forever choose to believe that the iPod was, in fact, purple and that the boy and his dad were together on a conspiracy to trick me. The same way I know that the Sutton family Ford Taurus we had while I was growing up was also purple and not blue like my parents try to make me think!

Darn those defective retinas!