Two and a half years back, I started a new career. I never thought about becoming a CEO some day — much less that of a $100M company – and yet that was what I was going to be. Having heard scary stories about PE firms and how they spit out CEOs, I had no aspirations to ever work for or with a PE firm. And the sum total of my domain knowledge in the industry I was going to join – Geospatial – could be summarized in two words – “Google maps”.

As any first time CEO will tell you – no amount of mental preparation gets you ready to realize the sheer loneliness of the job (when the door closes, it is you and only you who has to take the decision) or recognize how the sense of power to change is largely false (think of trying to steer a large ship – you turn one degree at a time – hard turns are going to break the ship into two) or the limitations of being open with everybody (somehow every word is closely interpreted as a message).

And then, there are moments that are indelibly marked in your memory as the real perks of such a job. One such evening happened a couple of days back. We organized our first ever partners summit this week. We were a little overwhelmed by the response. Eventually, we had to expand the logistics to take care of more than twice the number of guests as we had originally envisaged.

I was given the most important role a CEO can ever aspire for – the official mixologist and bartender for the evening activities!! The event was held in a large hangar with a brand new helicopter (that was a mean machine) and airplane in display. As you can see, I did my job with quite some aplomb 🙂 , even if I say so 🙂

The exciting part was improvising continuously as Kim (who did all the groundwork in setting up the bar at the hangar in a wonderful way) and I would realize that we missed something or recognizing the different tastes of guests from all over the world and test with a few combinations before we hit their mark. One of the partners brought in shot glasses – so there was some last minute scrambling to put together some shots too.

The official drink was called Quantum Sip – it had taken me two weeks of research and testing at home to get the right combination of taste as well as match out company colors. The other big hit was Hendricks and tonic. Finally, the shot was a Baby Guinness.

And here is the best part. I got to know many of those partners intimately – their background, their families, their business, their challenges, their aspirations – as we chatted up at the bar while fixing their drink. And at the end of the day, that was the big purpose of getting together with them.

Our customer event was held in the Aviation Heritage Center in Sheboygan airport. Airplanes and helicopters – regardless of size is still very exciting for me…

This week I had my flight from Terminal B at Atlanta airport. Since it was just an overnight trip, I had only my backpack with me. I walked from Terminal T to Terminal B and noticed a very nice addition in the tunnel between A and B. You might have seen in the past, I had posted pictures of all the African sculptures and the wall paintings that decorates part of the long tunnel.

Now there is a section that will make you feel like you are walking thru a tropical forest. You can see from the picture how the tunnel looks inside as you walk thru it. What you cannot see is the loud sound of tropical forest birds continuously being played. There is a portion where if you look up you see the blue sky with birds flying across and making bird noises (of course all done thru artificial lighting and sound).

Very well done! If only they could sprinkle some water droplets and crank up the humidity, some might be even be tempted to settle there after missing their flight to a tropical destination!!!

Even for a road veteran like me, this one was unique. I still cannot understand how he got inside the plane after he managed to catch up to it in the tarmac. That was a big plane. They do not have steps. And in any case, the captain could not have given permission to open the doors. You would think the cops would meet him promptly at the tarmac under the plane and the whole airport would have been in shutdown mode.

Incredible!

http://www.cnn.com/videos/travel/2016/08/09/passenger-chases-plane-on-tarmac-orig-vstop-dlewis.cnn

Early morning landed up in Atlanta airport not knowing what is in store for me. Delta seems to be limping back to normal. Still a lot of canceled flights. And dislocation of crew. In fact we are waiting for one air more hostess to show up so we can start boarding.

That said, as I walked into the airport, out of curiosity, I checked the departure boards to get a feel for how many flights have been canceled. I was shocked to see that in the very first board, pretty much all flights had been canceled. But I was even more shocked to realize that most of them were headed to Atlanta!! Lest you forgot, I am in Atlanta airport!! And I am looking at the departure board!!!

I had to do some digging to understand what was the bug in the system.

I took a risk this time and went to India without my DSLR. I never missed it. The iPhone was enough to capture all the moments for me – some 350 or so of them. That was like 50 good shots per day!! Then we went to the Blue Ridge Mountains and I had thrown in the DSLR in the car. It came back with me without even being touched once. The iPhone was enough.I was starting to wonder whether the investment was wise…

Then yesterday, I really really wished I had the camera with me. I was cruising down I-25 from Denver to Colorado Springs for a meeting when I saw signs of Air Force Academy. Soon, I could see the big building near the mountains – which I assumed is the academy. A little further down, there was a sign for Scenic Overlook. I figured it was one of those spots from where you could see nature in its full splendor. I glanced at my watch – at best I had about 10 minutes to spare. I figured that on my way back, I would stop by and take a few pictures.

A few minutes later, I could see the exit for the Scenic Overlook. There were quite a few cars and people visible there. And yet, there was nothing that scenic on that side. Unless you count the gorgeous Colorado mountains running along the highway. Curiosity got the better of me and I took the exit and pulled over.

Boy, am I glad that I did it. Casually, looking into the distance, I could see nothing but the mountains. And then I looked up in the sky as everybody was doing. That was when I noticed tens of planes doing all sorts of acrobatics and many many more small creatures slowly floating by. A little concentrated look and I realized people practicing parachuting and paragliding from planes and getting trained to land safely in the mountain jungles. That is also when I noticed the runway and the steady stream of various kinds of planes taking off and landing.

The iPhone did not do much of a justice to spot those small objects in the sky. You can see a plane in this one in the distance. There is one parachuter I could detect in this picture. Look to the last peak on your left and look about 2 o’clock from there.

I saw other people bring out their zoom lenses. For once, I wish I had my DSLR with me…