Barstool Philosophy - My Lessons From a Dog-Eared Notebook.

 A few years ago, I developed what some might consider an odd habit as I started to learn aircraft mechanics. 

Every weekend, I'd sit at the local watering hole, enjoy an "adult beverage" (responsibly of course), and do something not many people see in a pub.

I'd pull out a composition notebook, and write down a few things I learned. 

You read that right, a notebook, writing with a pen and paper. 

Sometimes it took me five minutes. Sometimes it took me thirty minutes, but I always tried to get those notes record that lesson learned..  

It might be something I learned not to do, or some pearl of wisdom from a silver haired mechanic who had been working on airplanes since Kennedy was President of the United States. 

I don't recall what prompted me to do it. But I found the act of putting my thoughts on that paper with ink helped me slow down and rethink the lesson. It gave me the ability to relive the lesson, and hopefully commit it to a deeper memory. 

Eventually, after a few years of collecting notes, I've got a very well used, and nearly full notebook full of lessons. 

Looking at that somewhat beat up notebook, I realized it's a collection of knowledge and experience, something I can look back, and reflect on. 

At some point I plan on transferring those lessons electronically, I may even do that on on this blog. While this lessons aren't CAD related, they at the very least may teach transferable lessons to the CAD world. 

For now, I'll leave you all with this thought. consider coming up with your own version of the dog-eared notebook. We all learn something every day. 

Maybe we just need to take a few minutes to slow down, and remember the lessons. 

They can pay off one day, either for yourself, or perhaps for the next person that comes along. 

About the Author:

Jonathan Landeros is a degreed Mechanical Engineer and certified Aircraft Maintenance Techncian. He designs in Autodesk Inventor at work, and Autodesk Fusion 360 for home projects. 

For fun he cycles, snowboards, and turns wrenches on aircraft. 

Barstool Philosophy - When Did I Become the Expert!

Every once in a while, I responsibly enjoy an "adult beverage" and ponder life. 

I call it "barstool philosophy".  

The beverage over which much
wistom is shared

Recently,  I celebrated my 51st time riding a giant rock around a "gianter" ball of fire floating in the vast expanse of space. 

Only a few days after that, I found myself helping seal the fabric envelope on a 1940s vintage  Taylorcraft. 

The Taylorcraft with fabric
over its steel tube frame

But this time "helping" meant handing the brush to someone half my age and saying, "you're up, kid".  

Somehow, when someone said, "he's the expert", and we looked around for that guy, I realized the eyes were looking at me. 

It didn't seem right. There's so much I don't know, so much I haven't done yet. 

I learned, or rather re-learned, teaching is a different mindset.

It's watching, guiding, stepping in, but not too much. It's saying, "if you do that, this bad thing will happen. Ask me how I know."

But we reached the finish-line in that milestone. The end product was pretty good 

The kids looked at me and said , "I hope we did good. "

Little do they know, the thought going through my mind was...

"I hope I did good."

So what lessons did I learn from this anecdote? \ "old guy with experience". I'm not sure when that happened. 

But happened it did. And I realized I had something to offer. While I don't know it all, the years had taught me more than I realized. Things that had become second nature by me were new, valuable lessons to those just starting out. 

Somewhere, without my realizing it happened, I became a mentor. 

I learned patience. I learned to look at a student and say, "You made this mistake. This is what you did wrong." And with a wry smile I'd say, with accurate self-deprecation, "Ask me how I know. I did it too.' 

And finally..

This post is pretty far removed from the Computer Aided Design Posts I've done in the past. My life and career has evolved. I'm not as deep in 3D modeling tools as I once was. The versions I use are old, and I don't use them at the level I did a few years go. 

But the lesson shares common ground.

For those of use who have a little more gray in our hair, and find ourselves squinting a little harder at our screens because "someone made the fonts smaller". 

Look to the fresh faced kids who were born after we graduated high school. 

You might have something to teach them.