Life is too short

I learned Friday morning that my company lost two employees as a result of the crash of Continental Flight 3407. One was returning home to Buffalo after a meeting in our divisional office in NJ and the other who works as an engineer at our manufacturing facility in Buffalo died when the plane came crashing through his house. What are the odds???

Friday was a tough day not only because of the loss of 2 co-workers but because I live on airplanes and fly anywhere between 75,000- to 100,000 air miles a year. In fact, I was in NJ all week and flying home on Continental out of Newark when they were experiencing wind gusts of upwards of 75mph.

50% of my division's employees are virtual - meaning we work from remote locations such as our home and of the 50%, 40% do the majority of their traveling by air. This easily could've been me. When you fly on imperfect machines, flown by imperfect people in imperfect conditions, you must expect the worst. I think Will Frischkorn of Garmin Chipotle said it best when he was blogging about the death of fellow cyclist Frederiek Nolf, 22 of Team Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator who died in his sleep at the Tour of Qatar earlier this month:

"It’s truly amazing how fragile we all are, and how much is taken for granted. A powerful reminder to live every day with passion, love, and enjoy it all, for one never knows how long it will last."

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends who lost someone in the crash.