First Blog, sorta

I have been doing a manual blog of sorts on our own family home page and a page more dedicated toward flying stories and thoughts. But this interface seems quite a bit easier than manually making your own home pages. So... I think it is time for me to try an official BLOG. Maybe it will get me to write down more information which is fun to look at myself and hopefully for others.

There are probably three types of things that I have always liked ever since I was very small. Computers, Nature, and of course Planes.

Computers.... This ended up turning into a career and I now work as an SoC Product Manager for STmicroelectronics and work with ASICs for Seagate hard drives.

Nature and the outdoors... I have always loved nature and doing things to be around it. That includes hiking, climbing, backpacking, mountain biking, ice climbing, mountaineering, snowshoeing, skiing (downhill, telemark, backcountry), caving, just sitting and enjoying the woods, etc. And of course photography of all those items.

Planes... One dream I have had ever since I was small was flying. I thought about applying to the Air Force Academy at one point. That did not happen, and I always wanted to somehow get into it. Later after college, a friend got into flying small planes. He asked if I wanted to go up with him some time. I was a little worried in a strange way about this. I knew if i went up, I would be hooked. And I was. Shortly afterwards in 1993, I worked towards and got my Pilots Certificate. Due to the cost of flying and money situations, I had to take a break from flying. Later on, I met my lovely wife. She grew up with flying with her father in small planes but had not been in a small plane in years. When we had our son in 2001, she actually twisted my arm to get back into it. Amazing! Not many wifes do that I hear. She wanted our son to experience what she experienced as a child. That did not take much arm twisting. We first rented to make sure the interest would continue and it did. I got my IFR in 2004, we bought our own plane in 2004, she got her pilot certificate in 2005, and we continue to fly frequently.

We decided to combine our interests and expertises into a side business for me and a main career for Debbie. We now have an aerial photography company, Colorado Aerial Photography that we are building.

Some of this is probably a typical story, but it is ours.

I look forward to telling more tidbits that I find and stories.

/Brian