Category Archives: Personal development & HR

Time to look back and reflect on how the year which is about to end developed. Brief recap of my 2020. (1)

If I had to pick three personal and positive memories from this 2020 they would be:

1. Skiing together with my daughter Andrea down some pistes (slopes) for the first time (in Vars, Haute-Alpes, Southeastern France). She was 6 years old at the time and had spent the last years’ skiing holidays in the piou piou kids’ garden. This year she obtained her ourson medal (following the French ESF system).

2. Seeing my son David learning to swim without the help of armbands. He turned 4 years in early April, and by mid May we set up the pool. Early on the swimming season he insisted on imitating his sister, who already knew how to swim, until he managed to do it on his own. Since then we enjoyed dozens of days of swimming together.

3. Flying with the family for a weekend excursion to Avignon.

Those were my most memorable moments, but as you can imagine this year 2020 was also a messy and uncertain one for us, to some extent. Indeed, some of the other good things of the year were those that didn’t happen: no one from our family or our most immediate relatives got infected with coronavirus nor had to go through hospitalization; despite of the bad turn taken by international travel, the aerospace industry and the generalized job cuts, we are all still working.

Not everyone was that lucky. In 2020 I lost an aunt and a close former work colleague. Other colleagues and friends lost relatives during the past twelve months, we have known dozens of cases going through illnesses (covid and others) in the past months. My thoughts are also with them today.

On a lower level, the fact of living abroad far from either of our families made that the lock downs and travel restrictions allowed us to only see my siblings or parents-in-law from Christmas to Christmas, or my sister-in-law and parents in summer for a short period of time.

On the contrary, the lock downs made us spend much more time with the kids. Having schools closed from mid March to end May was tough, a real balancing act. But it gave us the opportunity to see first hand the kids’ growth: David starting to pick up English or counting; Andrea drastically improving her reading, writing, maths and drawing.

Like most people we had to cancel many activities (including family visits and a couple of friends had to cancel their weddings). However, early on we switched to not planning much and opted for a quiet and laid back year.

Flying: Other than the above mentioned excursion, I only flew 9 flying hours, including 14 take offs and landings, the least in the last 9 years (we could not fly for months as a consequence of the emergency measures taken by the state and our aeroclub). And only my friend Javier flew for the first time with me at the controls this year.

Running: I completed one single race, the half marathon of Blagnac on March 1st (which already felt awkward as that same day was supposed to take place the half marathon of Paris but that one was cancelled). Since then, the marathon of Madrid was canceled twice, the Ronde des Foies Gras, as well. I didn’t subscribe to any other race. And this year I barely ran above 750km, the least in the last 10 years, far below the average of +1,900km per year from 2011 to 2016. A thing to improve in the 2021.

Blogging: This year in February was the 10th anniversary of the blog, but I didn’t manage to write much; only 7 blog posts in 2020. The blog received just above 26,000 visits in 2020 (the least since 2012) and nearly 430,000 since I started it in 2010.

Travelling: We didn’t travel a lot this year, but still we saw a few new and old places: Embrun, Vars, Vaison-la-Romaine, Lavaur, La Halle de la machine, L’Envol des Pionniers, Cuellar, Chartres, Oradur sur Glane, Rocroi, Rijswick, Kijkduin, Wijchen, Amiens, Tours, Madrid, some of the latest A380 convoy…

Reading: With so much time at home due to lock downs and cancelled plans, I found plenty of time to read and reading I did. In the end I completed 37 books and read above 13,400 pages (more than ever). For the detailed list of books, see the post I wrote about my 2020 reading list with a brief description of each book.

Investing: one of Buffett’s quotes is “opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble“. This 2020 was one of those years that presented opportunities and, despite of that, we didn’t invest much in 2020; on the contrary, we saw how having many eggs in the same basket compounds the uncertainty in testing times, as to the jobs’ uncertainty we added the steep dive of our employer’s stock price of which we own shares. As of today, it has recovered half of what it lost, but it was a good reminder.

NGOs support: Since we purchased our house in 2017, we had slowed down the donations to different NGOs that we had been supporting for years. We re started with some of them at the end of this 2020. With the economy’s dire prospect for the coming months many will require support, it will also be a time to spend.

Now it’s time to rest, celebrate with the family and hope for the best in 2021. This year there will be no running the San Silvestre Vallecana in Madrid with tens of thousands of other runners in the evening of this December 31st, but a lonely 10km run just my brother and me in our village. The only planned trips we have for 2021 are another skiing week in Vars and a booked weekend in autumn to celebrate my in-laws anniversary, let’s cross fingers so that we can accomplish those two plans.

Other than that, my wishes for 2021 are simple and basic: that the pandemic gets controlled in a few months, that the flying traffic recovers and the aerospace industry starts to get stabilized, and that the general public and economy can get to their normal lives.

I wish you the best for 2021, enjoy it!

—

(1) You can see here my 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 recaps.

Time to look back and reflect on how the year which is about to end developed. Brief recap of my 2019. (1)

The main event of the year: I switched jobs and started working at widebody marketing in Airbus.

Having said that: other personal objectives for 2019 have been moderately accomplished to different extents. Now, let’s review the year in more detail.

Flying. It took me until March to make the first flight of the year, and did not fly much until September, I only then flew enough to renew the license for the next two years. In total I flew 13 flight hours, including 36 take-offs and landings. I also passed an exam to renew the radio communication qualification in French for another six years.

If I recall it well, this year my work colleagues Carlos and Aleks, my mother in law Wijnanda and fellow pilot Marc flew for the first time with me at the controls. I flew as well with my father in law, Meine, with Luca, Andrea and David a couple of times. Believe me, there are very few things more enjoyable than flying with friends. I am sure that in 2020 that will be the case with some more.

This year again I took part in the rallye aerien of our aeroclub ACAT. It was a great experience again, even if this time we had more trouble in finding ourselves. On the other hand I could not take part in any of the fly outs organized by our Aviation Society.

Other things aviation. This year, I visited the Polish Aviation Museum of Krakow which was a great discovery. On top of that, I read some aviation books: “Buying the big jets”, “Straight & Level, Practical Airline Economics”, “Nuts!” and “Skygods, the fall of Pan Am”. And at the very end of the year, and after having lived in or around Toulouse for 9 years, I finally got to see the A380 convoy in its route from the ship offloading in Langon to Toulouse:

Airbus. After nearly 4 years working in the development of the Airbus A330neo, and seeing its entry into service, as mentioned above, I switched jobs within the company. This time I moved to the commercial side of it, in the product marketing team which regards at the positioning of our aircraft, future developments to be made and supports sales campaigns. Quite a fun job. The move started with a four-month-long training which felt very much like going back to aerospace engineering school; studying again aircraft performance, mission requirements, impact of aircraft configuration on the mission, aircraft economics, etc.

Believe it or not, there were other things than aviation in our lives in 2019:

Public speaking. I stayed rather active in our in-company Toastmasters public speaking club until I switched jobs. In this coming 2020 I shall re-start with it.

Blogging. This year I managed to write only 17 blog posts, well below previous years. The blog received nearly 34,000 visits in 2019 (less than in 2018) and above 402,000 since I started it in 2010.

Reading. Since moving to our new house, we have dedicated one of the rooms to be a family library (call it a pet project). We keep on buying books that we consider good enough and place them there, keeping our curiosity and the thirst for good reads always alive. This year I kept up with the reading pace, up until starting the training for the new job. I then faced some months of slow pace reading until the last quarter. In the end I read 17 books and nearly 5,000 pages (less than in 2018). For the complete list of books, see the post I wrote about my 2019 reading list with a brief description of each book.

Running. In 2019 I have run just below 1,200 kilometres, slightly higher than the previous year but a very low yearly mileage since I arrived to Toulouse in late 2010. I completed 6 races, less than in previous years, including 2 marathons (Krakow and Porto), a couple of trails (Ronde des Foies Gras (26 km) and Trail du Cassoulet (24 km)) and the Christmas’ races at the end of the year. I found myself with little training some weeks before each of the marathon and the running this year has been putting up mileage some weeks just ahead of those races to ensure that I could finish them.

Skiing. In 2019 we have repeated the wonderful all-family skiing week in the Alps (Vars) as we did in 2017 and 2018, and as we will do again in a few weeks in 2020. This year, Luca and I were placed in different groups and Andrea continued making progress, jumping two levels to earn her “Garolou” medal. In the afternoons we enjoyed going altogether to practice some luge near the hotel with David.

Bull fighting. This year again, I managed to attend a  couple of bull fights: the Feria de Pâques de Arles (France), at the great Roman amphitheater, and the Feria de Pentecôte at Vic Fezensac, a small lively village in the Gers (France) and later on in Arles (France).

Travelling. This year we visited Madrid, Aix-en-Provence, Digne-les-Bains, Vars, Orange, Arles, Vic-Fezensac, Krakow, Saint-Tropez, San Remo, Genoa, Vernazza (Cinque Terre), Tuscany (Pisa, Siena, Florence, San Gimignano, Vinci, Lucca), Alassio, Saint-Jean Cap Ferrat, Millau, Porto, Blois, Amiens, Wijchen, Amsterdam, Fontevraud, San Sebastian… Many of these places have meant repeat visits, but they are lovely and we’ll continue to go there.

Now it’s time to rest, celebrate and soon to plan how we want the 2020 to turn out. For us it will include David starting to speak English and skiing, hopefully lots of flying and running (including at least a marathon in Madrid), some books to read, museums to see, trips and excursions to enjoy… For now, I will close 2019 celebrating my sister’s birthday, running the San Silvestre Vallecana in Madrid with friends and enjoying a last dinner with the family.

I wish you the best for 2020, enjoy it!

—

(1) You can see here my 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 recaps.

Time to look back and reflect on how the year which is about to end developed. Brief recap of my 2018. (1)

The main events of the year: Luca switched jobs and started working for Airbus, and Andrea switched languages and her default language is now English.

Having said that: other personal objectives for 2018 have been moderately accomplished to different extents. Now, let’s review the year in more detail.

Flying. It took me until March 30th to make the first flight of the year, but since then it has been the year in which I flew the most, with above 23 flight hours, including 29 take-offs and landings. This year we could not manage to make our flight excursion to San Sebastian to have lunch but we did one to Auch. This year as well, together with my friend Asier, I took part in the aviation rally of our aeroclub (see here the post about it). But above all, I will remember this year by the incredible flight excursions we made to England and the Balearic islands.

Together with Albert, a work colleague, we flew to England over a weekend to attend the Flying Legends air show. We took the opportunity to visit the Shuttleworth collection and see its flying display. And on the way back and forth we over flew some Loire valley castles, the Mount Saint Michel, the racing circuits of Le Mans and Silverstone, the coast of Normandy, the Isle of Wight… it was an amazing experience. See here the post about it.

A couple of months later, we flew over another weekend to Menorca and Mallorca with the children. We bathed at the hotel pool and the beach only one day, but we over flew the wonderful coastlines of both islands in another memorable excursion. See here the post about it.

These two excursions have meant a learning and experience leap forward in terms of planning, flying and radio communication skills, and equipped with that experience and confidence no doubt that in 2019 I will be preparing other flight excursions as interesting as those.

If I recall it well, this year my work colleague Alex, fellow pilot Albert, Pablito and my sister Beatriz flew for the first time  with me at the controls. I flew as well with Luca, Andrea and David a few times, and with Asier. Believe me, there are very few things more enjoyable than flying with friends. I am sure that in 2019 that will be the case with some more.

Other things aviation. This year, I finally visited the aviation museum of Toulouse, Aeroscopia (opened in 2015). I also visited the Imperial War museum at Duxford (England) and the Shuttleworth collection, as referred above. In that trip, I attended two air shows: Flying Legends and the display of the collection. On top of that, I read a couple of aviation books, “Tintin, Herge – et les avions“, and the classic “Skunk Works“.

Airbus. After 4 years of development and 11 months of flight test campaign, the A330neo, the Airbus project in which I have been working since mid-2015, obtained its type certificate on September 26th and the first production aircraft was delivered to TAP Portugal airline, two months later, on November 26th. Those have been great achievements for the teams; and on a personal level, as well. And that also means that in the coming year I’ll be switching jobs again.

Believe it or not, there were other things than aviation in our lives in 2018:

Public speaking. One of my objectives for the year was to become a bit more active in the in-company Toastmasters public speaking club, and was able to meet it: I prepared and delivered a few speeches (4) and participated in contests; I came in second place at both club and area level, not being able to participate further. See here the speech that I gave at area level.

Blogging. This year I managed to write 36 blog posts, more than in 2017 (13), though less than the years before (70-100). The blog received nearly 41,000 visits in 2018 (about the same than in 2017) and above 368,000 since I started it in 2010.

Reading. Since moving to our new house, we have dedicated one of the rooms to be a family library (call it a pet project). We keep on buying books that we consider good enough and place them there, keeping our curiosity and the thirst for good reads always alive. This year I kept up with the reading pace, trying to read 25 pages a day (which on average I managed), for a total of over 9,200 pages (over 1,100 more than in 2017) and 27 books. This permitted me to tackle some classics which I had wanted to read for some time such as “War and peace”, the “Aeneid” or “Le rouge et le noir”. For the complete list of books, see the post I wrote about my 2018 reading list with a brief description of each book.

Running. In 2018 I have run just above 1,100 kilometres, another “minimum” yearly mileage since I arrived to Toulouse in late 2010. I started training well in January but fell ill at the end of the month, which forced me to stay in bed for a week. It then complicated into otitis and I found myself in March not having almost run for weeks. Since then, I found it difficult to find the motivation to run systematically. Nevertheless, I did run 10 races, including 2 marathons (Vienna and Dublin (with great feelings and better than expected time)), 3 half marathons, a couple of trails (Ronde des Foies Gras (26 km) and Trail du Cassoulet (32 km)) and a few other races.

Skiing. In 2018 we have repeated the wonderful all-family skiing week in the Alps (Vars) as we did in 2017 and as we will do again in a few weeks in 2019. This year, Luca and I were placed in the same group and Andrea continued making progress, earning her “Blanchon” medal. In the afternoons we enjoyed going altogether to practice some luge near the hotel with David.

Cycling. Did I ever write about cycling in this blog in the previous years? No, right? Long story short: we climbed the Col du Tourmalet last August with my friends of the university in what was a great excursion. See here the post about it.

Bull fighting. This year again, I managed to attend a bull fight, it was in May during the Feria de Pentecôte at Vic Fezensac, a small lively village in the Gers (France). Later on, in August, while touring Navarra and Pamplona we visited the Plaza de Toros and its wonderful museum, very informative and descriptive of the world famous encierros of San Fermin.

Travelling. This year we visited Madrid, San Lorenzo del Escorial, Gap (Route Napoleon), Avignon (Pont and Palace des Papes), Bruniquel (castle), Vienna, Eurodisney (in a wonderful weekend for the kids… and even more for me!), Vic Fezensac, Bordeaux, Nantes, Saint-Malo (a wonderful city), Mount Saint Michel, Omaha beach (WWII), Honfleur, Compiègne (WWI Armistice), the Château de Cheverny (Tintin), England (see flight excursion above), Navarra (Olite, Pamplona, Javier, Roncesvalles), Sarrant, Lavardens (castle), Luz Saint Sauveur, Pont d’Espagne, Menorca and Mallorca (see flight excursion above), Ireland (Dublin, Cashel, Kilkenny, Killarney, ring of Kerry, Glendalough), Auch, Saint-Benoît-du-Sault, Château du Clos Lucé (Leonardo da Vinci), Empel (“miracle of Empel”), Somme (WWI battle), The Hague, Breda, Amiens (cathedral), Château de Chinon, San Sebastian… Many of these places have meant repeat visits, but they are lovely and we’ll continue to go there.

Most of those travels were road trips. And for us 2018 started with a grain of luck (and use of chains) by we being able to get out rather quickly from the snow-covered A-6 road out of Madrid on the evening of the 6th of January that made the news for a few days for having thousands of people blocked in the road over night.

Other reasons for joy in 2018 have been:

• My family: my sister started working for Accenture in Denmark and in November came to visit us in the new house for a first time. My brother (despite of my calls for him to come to France) keeps enjoying Sevilla with the high pace job at the last stages of A400M deliveries with increased responsibility, learning and teaching opportunities. My father keeps attending the university (50 years later) to enjoy history lessons, having frequent meals with friends, attending conferences and even started going to the gym (!). My mother keeps being as energetic as always doing massages, visiting the family, travelling (she went to Saint Michel just a couple of months after I went), reading, teaching Andrea Spanish and swimming (or anything you ask her for!), etc.
• Some more friends got married: Marisa and Laurent.
• And we welcome some newborns from family and friends: Adrian, Benjamin, Thijs. (2)

Now it’s time to rest, celebrate and soon to plan how we want the 2019 to turn out. For me it will include a change of jobs, the starting of my son David into pre school, another all-family skiing week in the Alps, lots of flying (hopefully with one or two amazing excursions) and running (including at least a marathon in Cracovia), some books to read, museums to see, trips and excursions to enjoy… For now, I will close 2018 celebrating my sister’s birthday, running the San Silvestre Vallecana in Madrid with several friends and enjoying a last dinner with the family.

I wish you the best for 2019, enjoy it!

—

(1) You can see here my 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 recaps.

(2) So far, I have never written about it to keep an uplifting tone for these yearly posts, but, as we grow older, you can imagine that every year we have had also our sad moments of having to say good-bye to fellow family members and friends. Today is a good moment as well to think about them.

Time to look back and reflect how the year which is about to end developed. Brief recap of my 2017. (1)

The main event of the year: On July 17th, we signed the contract for the purchase of our house, as Andrea quickly and aptly named it: la maison bleu!

That was by far our main objective for the year, and was achieved rather quickly thanks to the thorough research of the market by Luca, who quickly spotted the opportunity.

Having said that: the other personal objectives for 2017 have been moderately accomplished to different extents. Now, let’s review the year in more detail.

Reading. We purchased at the turn of the year a good pack books in order to build up our library and reading waiting list. This year I kept up with the reading pace, having read 25 books, over 8100 pages or just above 22 pages per day. This permitted me to tackle some classics which I had wanted to read for some time such as the “Iliad”, the “Odyssey”, “Dracula” or “Les Misérables“. For the complete list of books, see a post I wrote about my 2017 reading list with a brief description of each book plus links to more thorough summaries which I wrote in the blog for some of them.

Avgeek. Reflecting for this post, I realize that this year I have unintentionally reduced the amount of aviation-related activities: we visited again the Cite de l’Espace in Toulouse (for Airbus September event) and I only read one aerospace book (“The Right Stuff”).  I clearly need to make up for this in the coming 2018.

Flying. After obtaining the licence at the end of 2015, in this 2017 I had to ensure that I met the minimum requirements to renew it before it expired, which I did in October, thus we have two more years to enjoy the pleasure of flying. I did not reach the objective of flying of 30 hours, but still managed to flew above 20 flight hours (20.7), including 25 take-offs and landings, and we made a few flight excursions: notably a second flight to San Sebastian, in which we hope it’s going to become a tradition, “the July flight to Biscay”(we technically flew down to Biscay, though landed in Fuenterrabia), another excursion over the snow-covered Pyrenees, one to La Escala Rosas, Creus cape, or a couple of them chasing and spotting aeronautical light houses from the old days of l’Aeropostale (see the flight excursions section of the blog here). Ah, I almost forgot to mention it: this year, after an 18-month self-imposed ban to improve navigation skills, we started navigating using GPS. It makes a difference, though I’ll continue to fly old-style.

If I recall it well, this year  only Luismi had his baptism regarding flying with me at the controls. I flew as well with Luca, Andrea and David a few times, and with Asier, my brother Jaime and my mother. Believe me, there are very few more enjoyable things than flying with friends. I am sure that in 2018 that will be the case with some more.

Within this flying  paragraph I could not fail to mention that the A330neo, the Airbus project in which I have been working since mid 2015 flew for the first time in October 19th. Since them a second flight test aircraft also joined the flight test campaign, and together have flown well over 30 flights (search them in flight radar by their call signs: F-WTTN and F-WTTE).

Blogging. Family life, intensive reading and the buying of the house were the main culprits for having drastically dropped the production for this blog… not the lack of ideas, books or events to write about. I only managed to write 13 blog posts in 2017 Definitely, I will be a bit more productive on this front in 2018.

The blog received just above 40,000 visits in 2017 (less than in 2016) and above 328,000 since I started it in 2010.

Travelling. This year we, the family together, or I alone, visited Sevilla, Argentina (Perito Moreno, route 40, los 7 lagos, Buenos Aires), Bilbao, Saint Bertrand de Comminges, Saint Cirq Lapopie, Rocamadour, Lisboa, the Netherlands, Gargilesse-Dampierre, Orleans, Waterloo, Chenonceau, La Rochelle, San Sebastian. Many of these places have meant repeat visits, but they are lovely and we’ll continue to go there. On the other hand, this year I almost didn’t have to travel due to the job: just a single trip to Madrid.

Sports – Running. For yet another year, practicing sports has meant mainly running. However, in 2017 I have run just above 1,260 kilometres, well below the 2,000 km target that I set to myself at the beginning of the year. Many issues contributed to that, mainly illnesses and trips (skiing stage and Argentina). Nevertheless, I competed in some 12 races (versus 10 in 2016) including: 2 marathons (Sevilla (where I managed a second best time in the distance) and Lisboa), a half marathon, three trails (Ronde des Foies Gras (25 km), Trail du Cassoulet (32 km) and Trail du Pastel (22 km)) and a few 10k races.

Following a mantra I keep to letter, “the running shoes, always in the suitcase”, the year 2017 caught me running in: Sevilla, El Calafate, Getxo,  Lisboa and Wijchen, plus the tens of times I trained in Toulouse, Colomiers, Blagnac and now Fonsorbes.

Apart from running, I played football one single day and for the first time went on a all-family skiing week in the Alps (Vars). That was a lovely experience, with courses for Luca and me, and Andrea ! That was cute, seeing Andrea sliding at 3 years old. No need to say, that in this 2018 again, we will repeat the experience.

Other reasons for joy in 2017 have been:

• My family: my sister completed an internship at NATO in Norfolk (USA) and now is back in Denmark.  My brother continues to enjoy his time in Seville with A400M deliveries. My father is enjoying is retirement busy with university, conferences, trips and other events. My mother continues with her massages business, stayed with us for weeks in the summer and enjoys travelling, reading, etc.

• Some more friends got married: Juan and Lara.

• And we welcome some newborns from family and friends: Boris, Carlos, Mateo…

Now it’s time to rest, celebrate and soon to plan how we want the 2018 to turn out. It will include the certification and first delivery of the A330neo (which will mean I’ll be closer to change to another job), another all-family skiing week in the Alps, a marathon in Vienna, lots of flying and running, some books to read, museums to see, trips and excursions to enjoy… For now, I will close 2017 celebrating my sister’s birthday (in the distance), running the San Silvestre Vallecana in Madrid with several friends and enjoying a last dinner with the family.

I wish you the best for 2018, enjoy it!

—

(1) You can see here my 2010, 2011, 2012 , 2013 , 2014, 2015 and 2016 recaps.

Brief recap of my 2016. (1)

In the last year recap I mentioned about the coming 2016 that it would “include the welcoming of the baby, an early trip to Brazil, lots of flying and running, Dutch lessons, some books to read, museums to see, trips to enjoy…“, it is now the time to see how did it go:

The main event of the year: On April 3rd, our second child, David, was born!

Having said that: the personal objectives for 2016 have been mostly accomplished. Now, let’s review the year in more detail.

Reading. I ended 2015 with a good reading pace of about 2 books per month, which I more or less have kept or revamped during 2016. This has permitted me to read up to 33 books, including some classics which I had wanted to read for ages such as Don Quixote or “The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money” by Keynes. For the complete list of books, see a post I wrote about my 2016 reading list with a brief description of each book plus links to more thorough summaries which I wrote in the blog for some of them.

Avgeek. This year we visited again the Ailes Anciennes in Toulouse for one of their Visites Cockpit, we visited again the Cite de l’Espace in Toulouse (for Airbus Christmas event),  we took part again in the aeroclub Christmas event, I read a few aviation books (see a link to the complete list above) and we attended the great air show at La Ferté Alais, where I got my baptism aboard a Junkers Ju-52. On top of that I spent weeks folding paper planes, take a look at them here.

Flying. After obtaining the licence at the end of 2015, in this 2016 I passed the exam to obtain the FCL055 English proficiency for radio communications. I fulfilled my objective of flying over 20  flight hours (+22), including 22 take-offs and landings, and we made a few flight excursions (see the new section about them in the blog here), notably my first cross border flight with Asier to San Sebastian.

If I recall it well, this year  a few friends and family members had their baptism regarding flying with me at the controls: David, Elena and Nacho. I am sure that in 2017 that will be the case with some more friends. See below the nice video that Nacho compiled of our flight last October (see his blog post about that experience here).

Learning. This year, I took Dutch lessons at the Goethe institute during the first quarter (a gift from Luca) which I interrupted with the birth of David. I have recently engaged in an open online MOOC specialization on Data Science from the Johns Hopkins University in Coursera, of which so far I have completed a single course out of the 10 which form the complete the specialization. As part of Airbus-internal training I completed over 10 class and online training (the best one being on aircraft performance and how they are flight tested).

Family 2.0. Family life and intensive reading during this year are the main causes of having managed to just write 61 blog posts in 2016, 9 posts short of my personal minimum target of 70 posts. Hopefully, I will be a bit more productive on this front in 2017.

The blog received just over 44,000 visits in 2016 (less than in 2015 though) and is close to reaching the 300,000 since I started it in 2010. Andrea still hasn’t yet started her own blog, David neither. Give them a bit more of time.

Travelling. This year we, the family together, or I alone, visited Madrid, Brazil (Sao Paulo, Pantanal, Santos), Castro Urdiales, Burgos, Miranda de Ebro, Trevino, Segur Le Chateau, Paris, Fontainebleu, Bassoues, Lupiac, Cazaux, Fuenterrabia, Denmark (Odense, Legoland, Kronborg, Copenhagen), Mallorca,  Ireland (Dublin, Glendalough, Kilkenny, Cashel, Limerick, Moher, Galway, Connemara, Bru na Boinne). On the other hand, this year I almost didn’t have to travel due to the job: just a single trip to Madrid.

It seems that we will start strong in 2017 on the travelling front, that is always good news.

Sports – Running. For yet another year, practicing sports has meant running, apart from a day in which I went skiing and another of playing volley and some swimming during our stay in Mallorca.

In 2016 I have run well over 2,100 kilometres, which was a goal I set to myself at the beginning of the year (setting a new yearly record surpassing the 2,030 km achieved in 2015). I competed in some 10 races (versus 11 in 2015) including: 2 marathons (Albi and Dublin (where I managed a second best time in the distance)), a couple of half marathons (Blagnac and Toulouse ), a couple of trails (Ronde des Foies Gras and Trail du Cassoulet) and some other 10k races.

Following a mantra I keep to letter, “the running shoes, always in the suitcase”, the year 2016 caught me running in: Pantanal (3 times), Sao Paulo (3), Castro Urdiales (2), Burgos (2), Lacs de l’Essonne, Paris, Montesquiou, Torrelodones (7), Copenhagen, Mallorca (4), Verfeil, Mauvezin, Glendalough, Cashel, Galway, Dublin, Madrid (2), Beauzelle, plus the tens of times I trained in Toulouse, Colomiers and Blagnac.

Other reasons for joy in 2016 have been:

• My family: Andrea and I visited my sister in Denmark in August in what was our first daughter & daddy trip together(see related picture above). My sister got accepted to an internship at NATO in Norfolk (USA) which she will start in 2017.  My brother keeps enjoying the high pace job at the last stages of A400M deliveries (we will visit him again there in Seville in a couple of months). My father started attending the university again, 50 years later, to enjoy history lessons. My mother keeps being as energetic as always doing massages, visiting the family, travelling, reading, etc.
• Some more friends got married: Carlos, Virginia, Jon and Domingo.
• And we welcome some newborns from family and friends:  Saúl (in fact, his was a last-minute arrival in 2015), Maria, Toni, Pablo, Jimena, Niels, Diego, Alejandro, Hernán, Lara, Vera…

Now it’s time to rest, celebrate and soon to plan how we want the 2017 to turn out. It will include the first flight of the A330neo, the first all-family skiing week in the Alps, a new attempt at the marathon in Seville, a family trip to Argentina, lots of flying and running, R programming lessons, some books to read, museums to see, trips and excursions to enjoy… For now, I will close 2016 celebrating my sister’s birthday (in the distance), running the San Silvestre Vallecana in Madrid with several friends and enjoying a last dinner with the family.

I wish you the best for 2017, enjoy it!

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(1) You can see here my 2010, 2011, 2012 , 2013 , 2014  and 2015 recaps.

Brief recap of my 2015. (1)

In the last year recap I mentioned about the coming 2015 that it would be “a year full of personal and professional changes, with plenty of learning opportunities, kilometres to run, marathons to enjoy, airplanes to fly and flights to catch, museums to see, books to read, trips to make and parties to enjoy“. Let’s see:

Family.

The main events of the year:

• We are expecting a second child! (a boy)
• I switched jobs (always within Airbus).
• I passed both theoretical and practical exams and am now a private pilot!

Having said that: the personal objectives for 2015 are fully accomplished. Now, let’s review the year in more detail.

Avgeek. Believe it or not, this year I visited as many zoos than aerospace museums. But this is only because Andrea is as keen on seeing animals as on seeing airplanes. We visited the museum Espace air passion in Angers, the exhibition Pasion por Volar at ABC museum in Madrid, we visited Ailes Anciennes in Toulouse. Together with my engineering school colleague Serna and thanks to the kindness of several work colleagues we visited several of Airbus facilities in Toulouse (including simulators, telemetry room, iron birds, A380 FAL, etc).

Flying. As mentioned above, this 2015 has been the year in which I passed both theoretical and practical exams and finally became a private pilot! I managed to complete some 16 flights totalling over 19 flight hours, 33 take-offs and landings and including 5 solo flights (see here an account with my path to the PPL) and 2 flights already as captain (alone and with the family).

If I recall it well, this year only my former colleague Ruth had her baptism regarding flying with me at the controls. I am sure that in 2016 that will be the case with many more friends.

On top of that we made an unforgettable excursion with my friend Rapha and other colleagues from the Aviation Society to visit the Castles of the Loire Valley. We were about to make another one to Menorca island, but the weather forced us to cancel that one at the very last minute.

2015 Flight Hours.

Reading. This year again I didn’t set any objectives in terms of number of books, but I only prepared a shelf with a selection of about 20 books that I wanted to prioritize. I started well the first month and finished the year at a decent pace  of 2 books per month, but reading “The spirit of Saint Louis” by Charles Lindbergh took me ages. In the end, together with that, I read 11 books: “Profiles in Courage” (by J.K. Kennedy), “El arte de ser padres” (by F. Dodson), “El general en su laberinto” (by G. Garcia-Marquez), “Diary” (by Anne Frank), “Pensar con Arte” (by M. Conthe), “España 3.0: Necesitamos resetear el pais” (in Spanish), “Lee” (by D. Southall Freeman), “Common stocks and uncommon profits and Other Writings” (by P. A. Fisher), “The gospel of wealth and other timely essays“ (by Andrew Carnegie), “Vol de nuit“ (by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry). See a post I wrote about my 2015 reading list.

Learning. This year, I have not taken any online open MOOCs but plenty (10+) of Airbus internal online trainings and some class ones (People make the difference (↑), Finance for non financiers (↓, too basic)).

Since switching jobs in July I started using French continuously at work (which wasn’t the case before even if working in France!). In 2016, what I will take on (again) is Dutch, this time joining a small group of students to get formal training!

Family 2.0. Despite of the family life and different changes, I managed to write just about 70 posts, though a bit less regularly. The blog received just over 45,000 visits in 2015 (less than in 2014 though) and is very close to reaching the 250,000 since I started it in 2010.

On top of that, Luca created a new professional website to offer her services as a lawyer in France (take a look here). Andrea hasn’t yet started her own blog.

Travelling. This year we visited Sevilla and Madrid (to take part in both marathons), the Loire Valley, stayed with friends for a week in Mallorca, made an escapade to San Sebastian and Biarritz to meet our friends from Brazil, made a 2-week tour around Spain (covering Madrid, Ubeda, Baeza, Sevilla, Huelva, Merida, Madrid, Valencia, Gandia, Murcia, Barcelona… driving some 4,500 kilometres in those two weeks). We visited the Netherlands (three times, about a week each time). Made some more escapades to Andorra, Montauban, Montpellier, Nimes, Arles, La Camargue, Millau…

Again, those were the leisure trips; on top of that, the job made me go to Madrid another 10-12 times (?), that made it tiresome and difficult to combine with other things but gave my plenty of opportunities to see my family, friends and to run in the Retiro park… however, that changed since I switched jobs in July 🙂

Sports – Running. Again, this year, apart from a day in which I went skiing and some more of swimming, what I did was basically plenty of running.

In 2015 I have run over 2,000 kilometres, which was a goal I set to myself at the beginning of the year (setting a new yearly record surpassing the 2019km achieved in 2013). I competed in some 11 races (versus 9 in 2014) including: 3 marathons (Madrid (my 3rd participation in it), Toulouse (my second) and Sevilla (where I had the bitter experience of quitting for the first time)), another 100km-long ultramarathon (Millau again, this time with Jaime), a half marathon (Blagnac, where I set my new personal best time in the distance!), a trail (Ronde des Foies Gras, with a new personal best time) and some three 10k and the Course the Noel in Toulouse over 8.5 km.

Following a mantra I keep to letter “the running shoes, always in the suitcase”, the year 2015 caught me running in: Wijchen (10 times), Sevilla (4), Mallorca (6), Madrid (5), Gandia (3), Torrelodones (6), Andorra (1), Millau, Mauvezin plus the tens of times I trained in Toulouse and Blagnac.

2015 running monthly “mileage”.

Other reasons for joy in 2015 have been:

• My family: My sister completed her internship at  the NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence (in Vilnius, Lithuania), then moved back to Madrid and she completed her thesis for the master she did in Odense (Denmark). We had the pleasure to have my mother again for a couple of weeks during summertime, when she found the time among the many clients of her massaging operation (here). My brother switched jobs and is back in Seville enjoying the high pace job at the last stages of A400M deliveries (we both visited him and had him visiting us in September). My father, enjoying is condition as retired, is ever more engaged with luncheons, conferences, reading, re-learning about electrical motors and construction activities at home.
• Some more friends got married: Loreto and Jose.
• And we welcome some newborns from family and friends: Martin (in fact, his was a last-minute arrival in 2014), Tim, Felice, Vera, Amelie, Victoria, Elena…

Now it’s time to rest, celebrate and soon to plan how we want the 2016 to turn out. It will include the welcoming of the baby (“two is more than the double of one” they say), an early trip to Brazil, lots of flying and running, Dutch lessons, some books to read, museums to see, trips to enjoy… For now, I will close 2015 celebrating my sister’s birthday, running the San Silvestre Vallecana in Madrid with several friends and enjoying a last dinner with the family.

I wish you the best for 2016, enjoy it!

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(1) You can see my 2010, 2011, 2012 , 2013 and 2014 recaps.