Hack Like Heck: AirborneSurfer

Fantastic, look forward to seeing it!

Hi Rory,

It's been a crazy week here, but the project is completed! It looks pretty great, too, if I do say so myself

I hope you'll enjoy the video as much as I have!

I'll try to update the blog tomorrow!

How's the project going Matthew?

Hi Tariq!

Wasn't it the late Douglas Adams who said that he loved deadlines for the whooshing sound they make as they go by? I think college conditioned me to work under ridiculously tight deadlines--my upper-level classes often demanded a rigorous writing or presentation schedule with weekly "murder boards" that required thesis-level defense for what might have seemed mundane subjects, so I had to bring my best game more often that I care to remember!

I've had a few close calls in my day, though. I've pulled more than a few all-nighters trying to get a presentation just right, going into a board with no sleep and twitching from the caffeine and adrenaline still coursing my veins! I've never run across a problem where I just can't get something to work under deadline, though. Somehow, I always managed to get it right in the end--even if it meant driving a 70-mile round trip in the middle of the night to get one part that I needed for a project from the nearest 24-hour store!

As for bulldozing, I tend to push headlong like that until I find I start spinning my idiomatic wheels. Once I'm at that point, I have to stop and ponder the situation. I had a professor who used to preach about taking a moment to "wind your watch" and consider all the options during an emergency. It's foolhardy to panic and get caught up in the immediate task when you can take a step back and get a clearer picture of the situation and weigh the percentages. Powerful words considering this guy made a living flying nuclear weapons around during the height of the Cold War! Instead of a bulldozer, I prefer the metaphor of a chainsaw: it's a versatile tool that can mow through the toughest, thickest problems, but--in the hands of a skilled craftsman--it can also avail fine details that might go unrealized. Sometimes, though, all the finesse in the world can't amount to a good Hulk smash! The trick is knowing when to use it.

In aviation, we talk about the priorities of command--aviate, navigate, communicate--and those have always been the guiding principles when dealing with stressful situations. It's not a perfect metaphor, but it does impart a guide by which one can manage a crisis. Aviate--keeping the craft airborne without immediate danger of collision (with another craft or terrain)--is the highest priority; get yourself and your situation under positive control and don't panic! Navigate--knowing where you are and where you're headed--is the next priority; understand the factors in play and position yourself to where you can take action when the answers come. Finally, communicate--in aviation, it's literally getting on the radio and asking for assistance--is the lowest priority of crisis management; once you're "straight and level" and on a "known heading", the answers will either become clear or--as is more often the case--you will be in a position to find the answer. It goes back to "winding your watch" and getting a sense of what's really happening. You might not have the immediate answers, but you'll be in a better position to find them!

Hi Matthew,

The ability to work under a tight deadline and deal is definitely a plus...  

Have you ever been in a situation where you were forced to work under a tight deadline and nothing you did to seemed to work?

Is it better to bulldoze your way till you make progress or step back for awhile.

How do you deal with stressful situations where answers may not be apparent?