I come to Heathrow often. Today is likely somewhere close to 60 trips to this airport in my lifetime. After over 19 years of working with Redgate (plus a trip in college), this is the airport I’ve visited most outside of Denver (my home).

This is the view outside my hotel window. You can see an A320 (or a Boeing 737) taking off. This is a good sized plane I fly all over the US. It is about 35 meters (100ft) wide and carries 150-180 people.

As it took off beside the A380 pulling into the terminal, it looked like a toy plane. Those things are massive.

I’ve stayed here a few times after landing to try and get some work done, and to check in early to take a nap. I landed at 10am after flying all night, and I could use some rest. Rather than heading into London and getting stuck sitting in a restaurant waiting to check in, I booked a room here. Already had a nap and ready to work.

Thinking Time

This is good thinking time, which is sometimes rare to get. Years ago on one of our multi-times-a-week SQL Server Central calls, Andy told me that he needed time to think about his work as a DBA and manager of others. Time to just consider how things are going, why things are going well or not, and which direction to go.

Time just thinking about a topic.

It has stuck with me all these years that time to just think is important, and it helps me clarify how I view things.

It’s often how I get editorials written. Turning vague ideas into something concrete. I’ll look at a note I’ve made or re-read something and think about it. When inspiration strikes, I’ll start writing.

Today I was thinking, watching planes take off when I realized I hadn’t seen a plane in awhile. Normally they take off around every 45s at LHR. Then I saw this little vehicle doing down the runway, something I’ve never seem.

I watched for a few minutes and realized there was another one coming the other way. They met in the middle and circled a few times before leaving the runway.

I’m sure this is some FOD (Foreign Object Detection) process looking for pieces that might have fallen off planes (yikes) or vehicles, or somewhere. A pilot friend said that this is something that is done in the military, sometimes by grunts walking the runway looking for something that might get pulled into a jet engine.

In any case, it was something new and unusual and inspired me.

I don’t know that everyone needs thinking time, but if you manage or lead or are trying to develop strategy, I do believe you need some quiet thinking time when you’re not really getting anything done, but just thinking about work.

Glad that I took the time today and grateful to have the opportunity.

Now back to writing about AI and other things impacting the data professional.