I earned my private pilot certificate in June 2018, then I began building hours for the required 50 hours of cross country flying required to receive an instrument rating. On Saturday, I went for my instrument rating checkride. First things first was to go through all of the paperwork to ensure that everything was in order. Next we went through the oral portion and it was pretty uneventful.

This year, the wife and I had been discussing taking a trip someone for our anniversary. I had suggested we go on a cruise or travel some where, instead she recommended that I rent a plane and we fly ourselves somewhere. So I was looking for places to go that were reasonably close and that we hadn't been to before.

I decided since I worked on Thursday that I would rent the airplane from Palo Alto and fly to Tracy to pick her up on Thursday afternoon, we would stop for dinner and an overnight at Harris Ranch, then continue on to Catalina Island in the morning.

What an amazing day. Flew from Tracy to Redding (KRDD) for lunch. Had some amazing Chinese food at Peter Chu's Skyroom. Then on the way home, flew a "Bay Tour" over Golden Gate bridge, around Alcatraz then home. 

Ever since getting my pilot's certificate in June, I wanted to go on a long cross country flight to visit my mom near Portland Oregon. My company shuts down the office in Mountain View for two weeks around Christmas and New Years. I took this as the perfect opportunity to take several days to go to Oregon. The flight should only take on average about 5 hours each way if the wind remains the same both ways. For this particular trip since the winds were from the north, I knew it would take longer to get there than to get back. So we planned accordingly.

TL;DR - 11 months, 67.3 hours, 5 CFIs, 4 C-172s I took and Passed my PPL ASEL checkride today.

So I've always wanted to be a pilot as long as I can remember, when I was a kid, I would say I want to be a pilot when I grow up. I enlisted in the USAF with the intention of working airplanes, but I got a computer job instead. In 1993 I took my first flight in a Cessna 172, it was supposed to be a sight seeing flight with my girlfriend. I had every intention of starting training but it didn't work out. Whenever a friend or colleague mentioned they were a pilot, they would recommend having all the required money up front before beginning training so as to not delay the training, since I couldn't come up with all the money at once, I never started.

After 4 months, and 21 hours, I flew an airplane by myself for the first time.

Decided to go for a ride up into the Sierra Foothills and do some fire roads. Had an amazing time.

A lightening storm last night at my house, was able to capture a number of strikes with the camera.

If you have been following my website, which you probably haven't since I don't update often enough to keep it interesting, but anyway; I started to go back to school to get my Bachelors of Science degree in 2011. When I started I knew that the B.S. should only be the beginning, after all, I had been in the technology industry and career field for 18 years. So my intent was to complete the B.S. and go directly into an advanced degree. When I completed the first degree 17 months later in 2013, I wasn't sure which direction to go.