Ok, I know it has been a long time since I’ve posted. I can only plead incredible busyness. Of course, those who accept the busy excuse will have to ignore all the time I’ve spent playing Company of Heros.
Assuming you accept the busyness (or perhaps I mean business) excuse, here’s what I’ve been up to. First and foremost, I finally got out of my apartment and bought a house . I might not have done that quite so soon (even though I really wanted to), but my little brother has moved out here to Phoenix after finishing up grad school in the last month or so, and I figured it would be cool if I had a house and he could stay with me. The house is in Ahwatukee (or as Brent and Barry call it, the “Shire”), in a pretty nice neighborhood. There is a golf course close to our new house (can’t afford to live ON the golf course though, not that I would after hearing other people’s horror stories), and we back up to a preserve area (which is a nice way of saying an undeveloped hill). The hill has a great variety of desert wildlife, including quail, jackrabbits and little squirrel things. The rabbits and quail just come right into the backyard like they own the place. Needless to say, Zachary (the cat) is enthralled. He can’t wait to get out and “play” with the quail and rabbits. Not sure the desire is mutual though…
Other than the house (which has sucked up most of my spare time for the last 2+ months), there was also Christmas, which we spent back in Florida with the family. Amy got to meet the gang and flee screaming in terror… ok just kiddding, she actually got along quite well 🙂 It was beautiful in Florida for much of the time, although New Years was kind of gray (but still fun). Check out the photos from Christmas and New Year’s in Florida.
Lastly, the other blog thing I’ve done recently was go flying with my little bro. Now that he is out of school and making some dough, he has decided to get his private pilots license. He is supposedly doing very well and his instructors are taking bets on whether or not he will be a 40 hour pilot (for those who do not know, the bare minimum number of flying hours necessary to get your VFR private pilots license is 40 hours). Judging from my flying with him at hour #6, I’d say he could do it. I only felt like I was gonna die once or twice in the flight, which isn’t much different from a commercial aircraft 🙂
We went up one overcast weekend day and flew all over the far south Valley. We spent a lot of time over or near Maricopa, Arizona and I got a lot of photos, including some of my buddies houses from the air. I bet they love that their houses are right underneath the SouthEast Practice Area…not!
Anyway, we did 3 touch and gos and the airport we were landing at got bombed by a B-17 while we were trying to land. I kid you not. Well, it was a simulated run, but it’s still very whacked out to be bombed by a B-17 (they aren’t exactly ubiquitous). However, there is one at Falcon Field, and I think that this was the plane that bombed us.
Photos of our flight are here. Little bro’s account of our flying is here.
I will close with the obligatory comment about how I will try to post more, etc…. But by now you know better 🙂
Wow! Great pictures, Chris.