Hey Andree,
I've finally been able to sort through my pic archives. This is my favorite picture of me and Erik. Shot on Catalina island in early '96, it's a beautiful example of a life full of interesting pursuits.
Having just earned his pilots license we'd occasionally skip out for a flight. On this particular day, the inspiration for product design was running on empty. Time for a recharge,...stimulation, inspiration!
We got a plane from the local flight school and headed out over the Pacific. Left turn at the coastline, permission to fly through class B airspace (over and West of LAX) and nothing but clouds ahead of us. The sight of a fully loaded jumbo jet climbing out below you is rare and incredible. On any other day Catalina would sit in front of us like a massive dinosaur turd in the pool. Not the case today. I'd accompanied Erik on only a handful of flights by then, but never one where we couldn't see where we were going. Beads of sweat formed on my upper lip as my voice crackled over the headset, "You sure about this?", I asked nervously. He smiled back at me, pointed at the instrument cluster and showed me that we were locked onto Catalina's VOR ( Catalina's navigational signal). 15 minutes later we were pushing this plane into it's parking spot at the Catalina Airport. With Buffalo burgers on our agendas, we stopped to think of all the suckers back at the office who were either brown baggin' it or crossing Ocean Park Blvd. for a Subway. We paused and laughed heartily at them all. Cory McCullough captured the shot of my professional lifetime. Me and my pal, living the life,...like Indy and Short-Round on another death-defying adventure.
This picture has been with me on every office I've inhabited since going back in-house in '01. (Note from Andree: Yeah, I've seen in it a few of OURS, too, bro.) I look at it every day as I leave my office for Subway. Time for me to go back and get that pilots license I suppose. 
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