May Update

Everyone,

Well the snow has slowly diminished here in Cedar Rapids the lilies are blooming, the bugs are out in full effect, and the grass is finally starting to grow. The white faded to brown and is now being replaced by green! Hooray! It has been a busy month for me up here. I am completely immersed in work but trying to stay sane by picking up a few new hobbies. The latest hobby that i picked up in the past few months or so is skydiving. If you have not tried it, look up the nearest skydiving facility and go check out a tandem jump, i swear it is the best minute of your life! I am getting my licence and doing very well in my coursework. I have completed 8 jumps now; four tandems (the first two were in Daytona, Fl. and Monterrey, Ca.) and 4 solos. The first three solos I completed with an instructor holding onto the side of me while the last solo he jumped out and let me fly alone. I have done basic maneuvers (RT/LFT 90 degree turns and Practice Rip Cord Pulls [PCRPs]) and started into some more difficult maneuvers (360 degree turns, back loops, and tracking forward and backwards) in my last two jumps. I have three more jumps to complete my Advanced Free-Fall (AFF) course and hope to complete them this weekend 9weather permitting). I absolutely love it! I have jumped with three different instructors; Matt, Junkyard Dog (more of a drill Sergeant that an instructor), and Jason. I even got offered a job flying jumpers on the weekend for discounts on jumps. They don't pay much ($7/jump run) but it is free stick time and I can bank the cash for jump fees! They will also check me out in a Cessna 182 and Cessna 206 and give me my high performance rating for free. Sounds pretty lucky to me! It will be a good way for me to get back in the cockpit and stay current.

Other than that, Brody is doing fine. We had some issues with the boarding facility that took care of him while I was at an Army conference in Nashville, he got a bacterial infection in between his paws but recovered only to get a bad case of the runs. Kind of messy but we got him some medicine that will hopefully make him feel better. He is a whopping 35 pounds now and still growing at an alarming rate. His training is going good and I couldn't ask for a better pup.

I don't have much else than that but I will continue to keep everyone updated on Life After Florida. One of these days I will have to change it to Life in Iowa but we will see. I hope all is well with everyone and I plan on getting out to MD this summer so look for me in the lists!

Love,
Evan

Brody!

Well by the title of this Blog you might have guessed that I named him Brody. Sorry for not posting the possible names before like I had indicated but It was really chaotic around here. Work is keeping me very busy. But aside from that, Brody and I are doing well. Training is going rather soothly, trying to get in as much training now before he decides that he is going to do whatever he wants. I know it is right around the corner. He was 9 weeks old on Friday and just about 15 pounds. He is slowly losing his puppy breath, I should bottle some of it up and save it or the day he eats the couch so it will calm me down.

Other than that, I travel to Ft. Campbell Wednesday and return on Thursday. This weekend is Easter, happy easter to everyone in advance, and I get to celebrate my B-day as well. looks like I will be closer to 30 than to twenty. I wonder how that is going to feel?

Howdy!

All,

Without getting into the gory details, I am doing great up here in the frigid lands of Iowa. Aside from the excyma that is pealing away my fingertips, all is well. As most of you can see I am purchasing a yellow lab, which is him in the picture. I have been going o see the litter of 4 every week since they were 2 weeks old. I get him on the 9th of March and I predict that will be the date I start o lose sleep. I do, however, need some help with names. So far I have Copper, Cooper, Baxter, Charlie (sorry Uncle Chuck), Chopper, or Hello. It is weird but I did not intentionally pick names that started with "C". Please let me know if you have any names in your back pocket that might suit my new best friend.

Work is going great, I have been doing allot of traveling lately. In the past month I have been to Huntsville AL., Fort Rucker AL., and Fort Bragg NC. (Aka Fayettenaam). It has fallen upon me to lead the flight test team into glory for our latest software drop in the CH-47F Chinook. This will be an interesting endeavor. I do not have any experience with flight testing but I look at it as a learning experience. I believe I will do just fine and everything will work out as planned.

Love to hear back from all of you, I know that I don't keep in touch as much as I used to but hopefully this might help!

Love you all,
Evan

Hi!

Just thought that I might start one of these things up since I am soooo good at keeping up with everyone via telephone. This will be a test blog just to get started. Hi everyone!

Evan