Lead a vivid life that does good
Alan McDiarmid, a Kiwi and Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, died today aged 79.
I saw an interview with him last year on Campbell live and he said this quote
" I am a very lucky person. And the harder I work, they luckier I seem to be"
Alan McDiarmid – 2006
When you look at this picture what do you see? What does it bring to mind?
I found this rock/stone/pebble while sitting on the sea wall at the Tauranga Marina the other day watching the world go by.
I wondered if the rock used to be a part of a bigger rock. I wondered if it was man made or how it was created. I wondered how old it was and what it weighs. I wondered what its composite materials were?
When you look at it what do you see?
Do you think I should try and sell it on Trade Me?
I post another day about what I thought after I wondered all these things. (Maybe)
"It is like climbing into a new car when you have been used to driving a car that is 25 years old." citied Roger (CFI) when I asked him about the new Alpha 160A (R2160) that the Waikato Aero Club has replaced the Cessna 152's with.
A week or so later he is proven correct when I go for my first type intro flight. The first thing I noticed when I clambered into ZK-WKF, doing my level best not to stand on the plush leather seats, was that everything looks new, there are actually some digital gauges and a GPS unit.
Marie kindly explains the various features and start-up procedure and before long we are off to the eastern training area for some stalls and a forced landing. 
I have now completed 3 type introduction lessons in the Alpha 160A and here are my brief observations (from a novice perspective)
All in all a great asset to the club and a fun plane to fly. I'm looking forward to my cross country flights in it!
[Hat Tips]
Photos – Chris Nielsen
Waikato Aero Club
Alpha Aviation
This is a part of John Keys speech yesterday.
My father died when I was a young child. I do not remember him.I was raised, along with my sisters, by my mother, in a state house in Christchurch. Back then I thought I was poor and, by most standards, we were. As I grew up, though, I recognised that what my mother gave to my sisters and I was far more valuable than money.
She instilled in us the desire to improve ourselves by our own hard work, the confidence that we were able to do it, and the hope that it was possible to do so. She instilled in me an ethic of hard work and determination and a genuine belief that "you get out of life what you put into it".
How many kids in New Zealand are never taught these values? How many kids will grow up not knowing that anything is possible and not knowing anything but dependence on the state.
Imagine if we could teach parents to inspire their kids again! Imagine if they regained the appreciation for hard work that I think is getting lost in the youth of today.
John Keys impresses me. If he gets to be PM, what a hard job he has before him.
Finally I am reminded that I am so blessed to have the parents I have. They have always believed in us, supported us, taught us to work hard and encouraged us.
I have blogged before about the interactive mocca that you buy from the 'Naked Grape' in Tauranga.
Well, now I have found an interactive Muesli in Hamilton. It's a new cafe that opened in Te Rapa called AGIO, which is Italian for 'relax'. It does average coffee, but a great Muesli. Check out the photo from my cellphone. Just pour it into your plate and you are away!
Anyway, just because there is no point to this post, I got to thinking about the perfect cafe. I think the perfect cafe would be on leisure island, I have no idea of its real name, with a view like the one taken from my PDA below, and sell interactive mocca's and muesli.
How cool would that be?
Oh and I think there is a lesson to this post and my previous one. I really need to buy a small digital camera that I can take with me wherever I go. My 1 megapixel PDA with a dirty lens simply doesn't cut it.
There they are! The Marlborough Sounds. 
The picture from my PDA does it little or no justice, but I simply had to take some photos. The lady in front of me had a real digital camera and I thought of asking her to email them to me, but my courageous contemplation turned to weak actions.
I sit in the ATR, transfixed at the sight of the Marlborough Sounds out my window and grateful for the relief from a tiring day that woolgathering about the Sounds allows.
I have long dreamed of chartering a yacht and sailing around the Sounds. I dream of waking up on a still, warm, sunlit and cloudless morning surrounded by little islands covered in bush and farmland. The only sound is the sound of water lapping enchantingly against the side of the boat. I dream of jumping from the side of the boat for a quick swim to remind my body it is alive. Then I dream of the mandatory cooked breakfast that has smells and aromas and tastes that can only be experienced in location such as this.
It's a dream. A long held dream. Hopefully one day it will become a reality.
By means of introduction, a gobblelygook is a device that sits in your sink, that you run water through and it mashes up the food into waste water. From there it is mixed with all sorts of waste water delights like #1’s and #2’s and other stuff and pumped to the sewage treatment plant. In Hamilton’s case the water is then pumped back out into the Waikato River upstream of the Auckland domestic water supply intact.
Auckland water … yummy yummy. The Wiggles should rerecord there song!
Anyway, the other day I was putting some left over food down the gobblelygook and a guest said I should save it for another day. They then said “think of all the staving people in Africa”. Now this is not a dig at that person, because I have heard this statement a number of times in my life and I am sure it is more about not being wasteful than anything else.
But if we were really to stop and think about all the staving people in Africa, would it really change what we throw away. For me personally eating stale bread the next day is not my idea of fun and if I did it would not help the staving people in Africa or another place one iota.
I guess the point of this post is that there are heaps of statements that we make that really mean very little unless we are actually prepared to follow through on them. If I really thought of the staving people anywhere, and was compelled as a result, I would do stuff and give stuff (not left over bread) that would actually make a difference in their lives. If I don’t then there is little point raising it as an issue.
The person who made the comment may already do all of that, I don’t know, but I was challenged about the throw-away phrases I use that do the same thing.
Last Thursday after we got into the Fast 50, I took a few people from work out to dinner with me to celebrate. At the table was Hav who just has an immense passion for agóge; Rob jnr who has such a detail mind and who keeps so many things I hate doing on track; and Cherie who is simply one of the most bona fide people I have ever met. Anyway I am sitting in this restaurant with a funny look on my face, watching my friends and just soaking it in and totally overwhelmed. There was something about the moment. A sense that in spite of everything hard we have been through, we're going to make it. I know this sounds a little corny, but you know what I am saying. It was an ordinary moment in an ordinary setting that for me became infused with something bigger. With community. Inspiration. Hope.
In two weeks time I have to talk on authentic community and I was chatting to a friend of mine yesterday about what that means. Community literally means 'in common'. People who gather together with something in common. Authentic according to dictionary.com theoretically means "not false; genuine". To me it means more than that.
It means being Real.
Honest.
Vulnerable.
Loyal.
An authentic person doesn't wear 'masks' to make them appear to be different than they are. They are honest and real about their struggles and failures. They seek help and are vulnerable.
I asked my two team meetings recently "How are you going? Really? " and generally I received genuine. Real. Honest. Vulnerable answers.
I think this small business called agóge. This business with people from all over the world, with varying educations, from different religions and diverse upbringings is starting to become an authentic community. A community that could actually make a huge difference in peoples lives.
It humbles me.
We have all seen the Oscar's or MTV awards. Someone gets an award that they just didn't expect and end up babbling into the microphone about nothing. I have, in my own opinionated way, thought it was bizarre that these stars would speak publicly so badly.
Anyway last Thursday a group of us went to the fast 50 awards. We were sitting there and they said the first award is for the Fastest Employee Growth in the Central North Island. As they said it I was struck by the fact that we might actually win this, which was something I hadn't prepared for, "and the winner is Logistics Personnel".
What the? I then tried to get my team to come up with me (their legs became rocks), I lost my way getting up the front (there were only about 100 people there) and then was lost for words. Yes you heard it correctly, I, Andrew Nicol was lost for words. I blahed something about thanking my team about ten times and promptly left the stage. To this day I can't believe it!
Later we got another award for 28th Fastest Growing Company. I had a bit more to say about living people matter and my team, but I will never get over the shock of being lost for words.
You can read my viewpoint post to see some of my thoughts about our growth.
I apply the brakes and decelerate for the booth ahead. An oldish graying lady slowly opens the booth window and greets me very pleasantly for 6am. Handing over a dollar coin is eventually followed by the barrier arm rising and my accelerating off down Route K towards Tauranga City. I am quite sure I it is the only toll road in the country, and probably one of the quietest roads as well. There are two many easy alternatives that only add a few km's and minutes to the trip to make it a success.
So why do I pay a dollar? Too save on fuel and time of course.
Later that day I was chatting to Greig about how stupid it is you can't get from 15th Ave back onto the toll road. It is stupid, for the record, because of lost revenue opportunities for them (there would be at least an extra car each day & I would get to save more time). Anyway I admitted to Greig that saving fuel can't be the real reason I take that road. I often drive around aimlessly in my car wasting more fuel than that. Furthermore saving time cant be the real reason because I would waste more time watching a couple of sets of TV ads than I would going the long way.
I was chatting to a friend the other day and she said that she doesn't read some stuff because she doesn't have time. I thought I can understand that. Later however, I thought it is not that we do or don't have the time, it is that we choose not to make the time.
We all have the same amount of time in a day, it is actually that we all choose to use it differently. We can choose to use it on friends or family or love or work or hobbies or watching TV ads or taking toll roads or reading stuff or not.
The only problem is that you never, ever get to live that time again.
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