Italia

Arona, Italia.  A meravigliosa place for buon cibo, musica, amicizia and vistas!
Sights, Sounds and Amici

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Prague, Italy, & California - Past, Present and Our AI Future

Image
A whirlwind trip across countries and continents.  New adventures, friends, and technologies, juxtaposed with glimpses of the 1930s, offer a cautionary tale about Europe’s future.   And through it all, I am pondering the questions: Who am I? What is my deepest desire?  Heading to Europe to attend the SFTE symposium in Prague, I visited Italy first.  My plan was to stay again in Venegono at La ManSardina with the hope of recreating my November experiences.  But as it was a long weekend to celebrate Italy’s Independence, I learned too late that my friends had made other plans.  I was disappointed. But recognized this as an opportunity to exercise Anthony Dello’s non-attachment and Eckhart Tolle’s “living in the now” philosophies.   So the first night in Italy, I went out with Leonardo flight test colleagues for a fun dinner event.   One of them (Simone) invited me to go sailplaning , which turned out to be an  incredible exp...
Read more

Cozumel- Redux

Image
Snow skiing or scuba? - which to choose for a solo adventure before the traditional family holiday visits? I chose the "red pill" for what I hoped would be a warm respite in an alternate universe.  It was the right decision! Perfect weather, warm water, a "chill" all-inclusive resort (Allegro Cozumel), and accommodating staff combined with a nexus of adventurous sojourners from around the world made for a wonderful getaway.  Natalia I felt rusty with only 12 dives under my belt from my previous two excursions at Cozumel and Okinawa. But my dive leader, Natalia, an adventurous young 20-something spirit from Madrid took me under her wing and put me at ease.  Batting cleanup on my second diving was Lucas, a Brazilian.  What gives them their adventurous spirit? Why wasn't I that way? Perhaps from my baby-boomer attachment to a stability-a common thread in baby boomers.  Would more affluence have changed that? Sometimes I think so. Lucas ...
Read more

The Tao Road to Risk Mitigation - In Wichita Kansas?

Image
A 5-hour road trip brought me to a midwestern aviation capital in Wichita, Kansas.  The annual U.S. Flight Test Safety Workshop was again an enlightening and sobering remembrance.  MIT's STPA was again presented as a tutorial,  but his many test programs will incorporate it.  Too few I'm afraid.  Distinguished retired USAF test pilot Rod Huete took us through the painful lessons of the 1990s X-31 mishap.  Painful because the Air Force Test Center had embraced all the CRM practices that should have prevented this accident.  And the X-31 program had assembled a stellar test team.  But again the ego and human frailty yeared up to bite.    Mike Contratto, Dept. of the Air Force augmented this theme with his thought-provoking presentation, "The Tao, Self Deceptive Rationalization and the Vulcan Mind Meld."  In his talk, Contratto incorporated wisdom from George Chandler's masterpiece, "The Tao of Safety" quoting the comp...
Read more