Looking Back. Way Back.
Starting from the beginning, heh, I'm quite thoughtful tonight... I can remember when I was three of four, possibly five... nah not that late... my mom introduced me to my first chemical reaction. Mixing baking soda and baking powder together then adding water, I would watch in amazement as it fizzed and bubbled. Being young I called it "Making a chemical". When I was six I got the notion that there must be a book on how to make more of these chemical reactions. Surely there was a book that told you how to combine household items to make interesting and unique reactions. My friend Simon McGregor and I used to turn his kitchen upside down combining sugar and other random stuff to see if we could get a reaction to occur... no wait, that was Hunter. This kid with this nasty little rat tail on the back of his head. I didn't meet Simon until I moved to Short Pump. Hunter and I went to Elwood house (day care) together...
Anyway, being six and in the first grade with access to a library I found this book called "Chemistry". Surely this book would have a list of cool stuff to mix together. I opened it on the playground there at Luther Memorial School... no wait, it might have been third grade, because I can remember that was the same year "Grey Grey" died, my neighbor's cat and I was upset about it and because I was upset I got teased... odd now that I think of it. But I also remember Haywood, this black kid, one of my friends, I don't remember if he was at Luther or Short Pump... So, sometime between 1'rst and 3'rd grade I pick up this book. It would have had to be between 1'rst and second grade because Short Pump's playground layout isn't like the layout that I remember reading that book in... And I've always remembered it being 1'rst grade that I read the book... I know Short Pump's playground layout and it's distinctively different from the one I remember... anyway the book had nothing to do with what chemicals to combine to make a cool reaction but rather it started talking about these things called atoms, combinations of protons, neutrons, and electrons. As I read the 16 or so pt font little hard back blue cover book on the sunny playground (on a bench I think) I didn't realize it then but later on in life that was my most significant turning point.
Almost in parallel I was gaining an interest in flying. My parents would take me to the Oceana Airshow where I was introduced to the Blue Angels, Patty Wagstaff and Sean D Tucker as well as Charlie Kulp "The Flying Farmer". When I was in the 4'th grade I took my first flying lesson with the EAA's Young Eagles Program, another turning point in my life. I wrote a journal entry (to be inserted here in a year or so) that still exists. I think I wrote it in my writing/reading class in 6 grade in one of those cow pattern black and white composition notebooks. I still have it. I still remember looking out the window on downwind and seeing that red tailed hawk, sitting in the front of that J-3 Cub feeling on top of the world.
Meanwhile I was hanging out with one of the most important influences of my life at the time, David Beasley, my next door neighbor. I was learning about electronics and computers. We would play on our Radio Shack Electronics Project Labs, these cardboard things with resistors, IC chips, transistors, buzzers, LEDs, ect pushed in them connected to springs. You would read the instructions by the numbers such as connect spring 7 to 43, 44 to 90, 90 to 6 ect... there were instructions from everything from a night light that came on when it got dark to a radio... We would also swing on his swing set and pretend we were in space ships and also play with MicroMachines having all kinds of mega wars and combat scenarios limited by only our imagination...
7'th Grade rolled around and while what most of what I remember from middle school from getting beat up, to some of the worst teachers ever, mainly the worst time of my life, I can remember 2 major events of my life. I can remember seeing hovercraft plans in Boy's Life Magazine, the BSA's official magazine. Not wanting to buy the plans (in which the picture was to make one believe they would be floating several feet above the ground) I performed my first ever internet research. My first hovercraft was made from a trash bag, duct tape, a boogie board, and an old vacuum cleaner motor. I spend about 4 hours making it, skipping out on my homework to my mom's dismay, and watched in awe as the thing slid frictionless across the concrete garage floor. A small while late I upscaled to a 4 ft diameter circle of plywood, a sheet of 6 mil gardening plastic, a leaf blower and, still, duct tape and I made the later named "Hover Bud", My first and to this date only ridable hovercraft. It was noisy and only went downhill or as fast as it was pushed as it had no propulsion but it worked. And I can remember getting made fun of for making it from the kids at school... I've never understood. That was the first life changing event that year. The second was going to the FIRST robotics competition at VCU and watching as these high schoolers robots battled it out in these competitions... I so wanted to do that. My friend, David, was involved which made me want to do it more. I went again in 8'th grade. During the same time I also gained an interest in astronomy and later radio astronomy after visiting the Greenbank Radio Observatory in west virginia. I remember in middle school asking my math teachers how to make a parabola because I wanter to make my own parabolic dish. One teacher was able to give me the equation but being in 7th grade I hardly understood it. Around that same time I had also picked up a book called "Particle Mechanics" and learned about everything from what I already knew about atoms to antimatter/matter annihilation, electron/positron time disposition, the angstrom unit of measurement and quantum tunneling and leaping as well as schrodinger's cat, and the strange world of quarks and neutrinos. I often feel a lot of these times were missed opportunities for me and were often overlooked because of my bad grades and "Learning disorder". Now that I think of it I'm pretty upset I never finished those projects nor was any teacher brave enough to step up and help me at that point. Here I was able to comprehend these subjects and nobody helped encourage it but rather told me I should be studying my schoolwork.
When I finally got to hight school I joined the astronomy club as I had gained an interest in astronomy which had set its roots way back when I got the book "The Universe" an illustrated guide that talked about the 9 planets of the solar system, stars and the universe. I also has my own red Casio reflector telescope. I would look at various stars and saturn's rings and jupiter's moons... David would bring his telescope out, this white refractor with "precision controls" we'd both sneak out in the middle of the night to look at the moon and other things... got me very interested... So I join the astronomy club an to my luck, Jim Lehman, (enter another important figure of my life) was not only in charge of the astronomy club but also the robotics team. Through all 4 years of high school I was involved. Starting out by supporting the team all the way through being a robot designer and driver by my senior year. Nothing, and I mean nothing can match the techno pumping, adrenaline rushing, high energy atmosphere of the VCU Segal Center during a FIRST competition. And there I was... doing at the time, the thing I most wanted to do in life. I was a part of something I had always wanted to do up until that point. During this time I had also started to make videos in iMovie. Robotics videos at the time.
Meanwhile in high school, I had defined my music style of choice as electronic after coming tot he realization of such after connecting the dots between mannheim steamroller's music, and the iBook's iTunes sampler's electronic selection of Symphonatic by Infected Mushroom, Someone by Paul Oakenfold and Tyrantanic by breeder. My 9'th grade year I bought my first electronic music albums "Tsunami" "Radikal Techno vol 4" and "Techno Vibes" by Mello Trax... Throughout high school I was introduced to everything from Paul Van Dyk from Melissa Lauer and Ultra Trance and Above and Beyond from my good friend Tenshi. J pop from Kiwi and Mars Lasar from Pat Black. DDR and Final Fantasy music and Happy Hardcore from Bobby and Phil. My musical awakening if you will.
Also during that time I had really increased my interest in flight taking 2 flight lessons which stopped due to a downfall in grades, which I was never strong at. I would always be caught making airfoils out of any paper that ended up in my hands (something I still do today) and in 11'th grade biology class during class movies I'd be making motorized airplanes at which at the time I was experimenting with circular airfoils. in 12'th grade chemestry was ruined for me by my teacher so much that I can barely remember the class. I was so angry. I can remember being so angry at the school system and its mainstream version of "education". I remember and extend my gratitude to the few teachers that broke the mold such as Jim Lehman and my algebra 2 teacher Mr Yarts, who, instead of giving me the algebra 2 exam that was such the standard, gave me my exam assignment of planning a flight from one airport to the next and to give distance, fuel burn, time enroute to each point, how many lbs of fuel to get to each point and how much I could carry aboard given a max gross weight, weight and balance ect... All requiring the math I had learned in algebra 2 but in a form I could use and understand, thus still meeting the requirements of an algebra 2 exam.
Then college. I started flying. I got my private license friday april 13 2006, two semesters worth of flying. Most of this is recorded in this journal. Starting out, I wanted to become a test pilot and venture into space tourism having watched spaceship one make a successful series of flights. Oddly enough I moved the other direction towards low and slow flight when I got into hang gliding. Getting a job at kitty hawk kites was another major life changer, learning to hang glide and tow gliders became my life. Enter influences like Jonny Thompson, Andy Torrington, TJ, Bruce Weaver. I moved away from college and more towards hang gliding and glider towing. I had made the dragonfly my aircraft of choice and the first one I performed aerobatics in. That aircraft became an extension of my body. I used to pretend to be in a little fighter plane and loop and spin and crank and bank back to the ground after each tow... then I got tired of pretending.
I had always known I wanted to at least serve in the military in some shape or form. I had always entertained the thought of the national guard or reserves... never active military. Driving to work, 6 in the morning listening to the Ace Combat 4 soundtrack song Aquila in my white ford focus I made up my mind. Right then and there I wanted to go fly army helicopters and learn the arts of combat form the air. I called my dad from the car telling him I had made up my mind to be an army helicopter pilot. I went to the recruiting center, I went through the warrant officer board, I got approved. 2 out of 60 some odd slots were picked. I wasn't one of them. I was told about being a blackhawk crew chief and then going warrant once I was a specialist and between my experience there and as a fixed wing pilot I would get picked up for warrant. Fortunately for me I ended up liking the crew chief slot more than I would have liked the warrant office position of flying the damn things. I still get to fly and I am also learning aircraft maintenance. I get to still make awesome videos. Once I'm out of the army I'll have my airframe and powerplant license and I'll have the money to finish my commercial license and finish my degree. Then I'll go back to where I was happiest last, hang gliding and towing. Then End... mainly because I'm tired...
Anyway, being six and in the first grade with access to a library I found this book called "Chemistry". Surely this book would have a list of cool stuff to mix together. I opened it on the playground there at Luther Memorial School... no wait, it might have been third grade, because I can remember that was the same year "Grey Grey" died, my neighbor's cat and I was upset about it and because I was upset I got teased... odd now that I think of it. But I also remember Haywood, this black kid, one of my friends, I don't remember if he was at Luther or Short Pump... So, sometime between 1'rst and 3'rd grade I pick up this book. It would have had to be between 1'rst and second grade because Short Pump's playground layout isn't like the layout that I remember reading that book in... And I've always remembered it being 1'rst grade that I read the book... I know Short Pump's playground layout and it's distinctively different from the one I remember... anyway the book had nothing to do with what chemicals to combine to make a cool reaction but rather it started talking about these things called atoms, combinations of protons, neutrons, and electrons. As I read the 16 or so pt font little hard back blue cover book on the sunny playground (on a bench I think) I didn't realize it then but later on in life that was my most significant turning point.
Almost in parallel I was gaining an interest in flying. My parents would take me to the Oceana Airshow where I was introduced to the Blue Angels, Patty Wagstaff and Sean D Tucker as well as Charlie Kulp "The Flying Farmer". When I was in the 4'th grade I took my first flying lesson with the EAA's Young Eagles Program, another turning point in my life. I wrote a journal entry (to be inserted here in a year or so) that still exists. I think I wrote it in my writing/reading class in 6 grade in one of those cow pattern black and white composition notebooks. I still have it. I still remember looking out the window on downwind and seeing that red tailed hawk, sitting in the front of that J-3 Cub feeling on top of the world.
Meanwhile I was hanging out with one of the most important influences of my life at the time, David Beasley, my next door neighbor. I was learning about electronics and computers. We would play on our Radio Shack Electronics Project Labs, these cardboard things with resistors, IC chips, transistors, buzzers, LEDs, ect pushed in them connected to springs. You would read the instructions by the numbers such as connect spring 7 to 43, 44 to 90, 90 to 6 ect... there were instructions from everything from a night light that came on when it got dark to a radio... We would also swing on his swing set and pretend we were in space ships and also play with MicroMachines having all kinds of mega wars and combat scenarios limited by only our imagination...
7'th Grade rolled around and while what most of what I remember from middle school from getting beat up, to some of the worst teachers ever, mainly the worst time of my life, I can remember 2 major events of my life. I can remember seeing hovercraft plans in Boy's Life Magazine, the BSA's official magazine. Not wanting to buy the plans (in which the picture was to make one believe they would be floating several feet above the ground) I performed my first ever internet research. My first hovercraft was made from a trash bag, duct tape, a boogie board, and an old vacuum cleaner motor. I spend about 4 hours making it, skipping out on my homework to my mom's dismay, and watched in awe as the thing slid frictionless across the concrete garage floor. A small while late I upscaled to a 4 ft diameter circle of plywood, a sheet of 6 mil gardening plastic, a leaf blower and, still, duct tape and I made the later named "Hover Bud", My first and to this date only ridable hovercraft. It was noisy and only went downhill or as fast as it was pushed as it had no propulsion but it worked. And I can remember getting made fun of for making it from the kids at school... I've never understood. That was the first life changing event that year. The second was going to the FIRST robotics competition at VCU and watching as these high schoolers robots battled it out in these competitions... I so wanted to do that. My friend, David, was involved which made me want to do it more. I went again in 8'th grade. During the same time I also gained an interest in astronomy and later radio astronomy after visiting the Greenbank Radio Observatory in west virginia. I remember in middle school asking my math teachers how to make a parabola because I wanter to make my own parabolic dish. One teacher was able to give me the equation but being in 7th grade I hardly understood it. Around that same time I had also picked up a book called "Particle Mechanics" and learned about everything from what I already knew about atoms to antimatter/matter annihilation, electron/positron time disposition, the angstrom unit of measurement and quantum tunneling and leaping as well as schrodinger's cat, and the strange world of quarks and neutrinos. I often feel a lot of these times were missed opportunities for me and were often overlooked because of my bad grades and "Learning disorder". Now that I think of it I'm pretty upset I never finished those projects nor was any teacher brave enough to step up and help me at that point. Here I was able to comprehend these subjects and nobody helped encourage it but rather told me I should be studying my schoolwork.
When I finally got to hight school I joined the astronomy club as I had gained an interest in astronomy which had set its roots way back when I got the book "The Universe" an illustrated guide that talked about the 9 planets of the solar system, stars and the universe. I also has my own red Casio reflector telescope. I would look at various stars and saturn's rings and jupiter's moons... David would bring his telescope out, this white refractor with "precision controls" we'd both sneak out in the middle of the night to look at the moon and other things... got me very interested... So I join the astronomy club an to my luck, Jim Lehman, (enter another important figure of my life) was not only in charge of the astronomy club but also the robotics team. Through all 4 years of high school I was involved. Starting out by supporting the team all the way through being a robot designer and driver by my senior year. Nothing, and I mean nothing can match the techno pumping, adrenaline rushing, high energy atmosphere of the VCU Segal Center during a FIRST competition. And there I was... doing at the time, the thing I most wanted to do in life. I was a part of something I had always wanted to do up until that point. During this time I had also started to make videos in iMovie. Robotics videos at the time.
Meanwhile in high school, I had defined my music style of choice as electronic after coming tot he realization of such after connecting the dots between mannheim steamroller's music, and the iBook's iTunes sampler's electronic selection of Symphonatic by Infected Mushroom, Someone by Paul Oakenfold and Tyrantanic by breeder. My 9'th grade year I bought my first electronic music albums "Tsunami" "Radikal Techno vol 4" and "Techno Vibes" by Mello Trax... Throughout high school I was introduced to everything from Paul Van Dyk from Melissa Lauer and Ultra Trance and Above and Beyond from my good friend Tenshi. J pop from Kiwi and Mars Lasar from Pat Black. DDR and Final Fantasy music and Happy Hardcore from Bobby and Phil. My musical awakening if you will.
Also during that time I had really increased my interest in flight taking 2 flight lessons which stopped due to a downfall in grades, which I was never strong at. I would always be caught making airfoils out of any paper that ended up in my hands (something I still do today) and in 11'th grade biology class during class movies I'd be making motorized airplanes at which at the time I was experimenting with circular airfoils. in 12'th grade chemestry was ruined for me by my teacher so much that I can barely remember the class. I was so angry. I can remember being so angry at the school system and its mainstream version of "education". I remember and extend my gratitude to the few teachers that broke the mold such as Jim Lehman and my algebra 2 teacher Mr Yarts, who, instead of giving me the algebra 2 exam that was such the standard, gave me my exam assignment of planning a flight from one airport to the next and to give distance, fuel burn, time enroute to each point, how many lbs of fuel to get to each point and how much I could carry aboard given a max gross weight, weight and balance ect... All requiring the math I had learned in algebra 2 but in a form I could use and understand, thus still meeting the requirements of an algebra 2 exam.
Then college. I started flying. I got my private license friday april 13 2006, two semesters worth of flying. Most of this is recorded in this journal. Starting out, I wanted to become a test pilot and venture into space tourism having watched spaceship one make a successful series of flights. Oddly enough I moved the other direction towards low and slow flight when I got into hang gliding. Getting a job at kitty hawk kites was another major life changer, learning to hang glide and tow gliders became my life. Enter influences like Jonny Thompson, Andy Torrington, TJ, Bruce Weaver. I moved away from college and more towards hang gliding and glider towing. I had made the dragonfly my aircraft of choice and the first one I performed aerobatics in. That aircraft became an extension of my body. I used to pretend to be in a little fighter plane and loop and spin and crank and bank back to the ground after each tow... then I got tired of pretending.
I had always known I wanted to at least serve in the military in some shape or form. I had always entertained the thought of the national guard or reserves... never active military. Driving to work, 6 in the morning listening to the Ace Combat 4 soundtrack song Aquila in my white ford focus I made up my mind. Right then and there I wanted to go fly army helicopters and learn the arts of combat form the air. I called my dad from the car telling him I had made up my mind to be an army helicopter pilot. I went to the recruiting center, I went through the warrant officer board, I got approved. 2 out of 60 some odd slots were picked. I wasn't one of them. I was told about being a blackhawk crew chief and then going warrant once I was a specialist and between my experience there and as a fixed wing pilot I would get picked up for warrant. Fortunately for me I ended up liking the crew chief slot more than I would have liked the warrant office position of flying the damn things. I still get to fly and I am also learning aircraft maintenance. I get to still make awesome videos. Once I'm out of the army I'll have my airframe and powerplant license and I'll have the money to finish my commercial license and finish my degree. Then I'll go back to where I was happiest last, hang gliding and towing. Then End... mainly because I'm tired...