L'Shana Tova

Well it's been a long couple of weeks around here. Work has been kind of slow the last week and oddly enough that seems to make the week go by slower and seem more tedious. I haven't gotten to fly much though because it seems like the weather decides not to cooperate when I have free time. Oh well, will keep trying for this week.

To all you jews out there l'shana tova and I hope you all have plans for Erev Rosh Hashanah and Rosh Hashanah. I know I plan to enjoy some apples and honey this week, it's one of my favorite things this time of year.

I think that's just about all I have got for now. The folks will be in town next weekend so I look forward to showing them around Duluth. Oh yea, I will be making a trip down to Daytona Beach at the beginning of November (5th-9th) so I hope to see some friends while I'm there.

Good night, take care.

Graduation Week

Wow, it has been quite a week down here. Last Friday my parents flew into town for graduation. My aunt and uncle joined us on Saturday, and there was a surprise appearance from my sister on Sunday morning!!

Sunday afternoon was my Graduate Hooding ceremony. There were only about 70 students graduating with Masters degrees this spring so that was a nice short ceremony (about an hour). I asked Pat to hood me, which he did very well, although I bet he was thinking about pulling tight after putting it over my head! We got some nice pictures afterwards with everyone outside (it was a gorgeous day) so I will post some of those as soon as I get them off the cameras.

Monday was the actual graduation ceremony. While nice, it was very long and tiring. Grad students went before the bachelor candidates so we had to wait quite a while for them to get through all 700 some odd graduates. The keynote speaker was Florida's own Senator Bill Nelson, he gave a very good address that I very much enjoyed.

The rest of the week has been a crazy balance between spending time with my family before they left town, starting to pack and getting things ready at work for the FAA visit on Thursday. Well the folks left town on Wednesday and Thursday to return to the rainy north and the packing is well underway.

The Orlando MIDO was at the hanger on Thursday to put the King Air C90 into Experimental Category so that we can execute our Flight Test Plan (FTP). The visit was a success and she signed off and we have our special airworthiness certificate, now we are just waiting on Atlanta ACO to sign off on the FTP and we can start flying. Hopefully that will be in time for next weekend.

I will be departing Daytona late next week, so mostly packing is on the agenda for the next few days. Dad is coming back down on Wednesday to help me pick up the moving truck and finish up things. I am planning on do a moving party on Thursday and need able volunteers. That's about it for now, should get back to work so that I can finish things up and go golfing this afternoon with Kevin.

Take care.

Moving Plans Finalized, Finally!!

Well it certainly was not the easiest thing to get done, but I finally have all my plans laid out for the move in a few weeks. The moving companies kept saying that there was a week window for delivery and that just was not going to work with me only being in tow for three days. So we are going to rent a truck here in Daytona and a car carrier and drive up to Duluth. That way I can get there when I need to and I have hired some guys in Duluth with the unloading of the truck. Speaking of loading the truck, I will need some help on Thursday, May 15th loading the truck up in Daytona.

I am thinking like 10:00 am or so will work well, and if I can get a handful of people over it should not take more than a few hours. I will order some pizza and beer if that helps entice you to come over and help. Let me know if you can help, I really would appreciate it.

Well that's about all that is going on around here. Graduation weekend is coming up and family will be in town for the weekend which should be fun. Oh yea, and finally after to long of talking about it Kevin and I got out to the range this week and have a tee time tomorrow at 2:00 pm, so I will let you know how that goes!!

The End!

Well after nearly five full years it has come to an end. At approximately 2:00 pm today I handed in a take home final exam and essentially ended my tenor as a student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. While graduation is not officially for another week or so (May 5th), I am done with all my finals, class projects, assignments and labs. I leave here with a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering with a Minor in Mathematics and a Master of Aerospace Engineering degree, not bad for only five years!

I do not think that it has really set in yet that this phase of my life is all coming to an end. It hardly feels like the semester is over, the time has really flown by. There is still some work to wrap up on the Hillsborough project but nothing that should be too stressful over the next few weeks.

For now, all that is left is to turn my attention to packing and cleaning up the apartment for the move on May 16th and to try and enjoy my last few weeks in Daytona Beach. Hopefully I'll be able to fit in some golf in the next few weeks, as I have not had much luck in getting out to the course this semester. We'll hopefully also have some time to do some flying, something that has also been sorely lacking this semester.

I can already tell that I will look back fondly on my years in Florida and at Embry-Riddle. Both the state and the school and the residents of both have been so nice to me during my time here. Thank you all for you love and support these past five years.

Last week of college...

Well, I thought it would never come but alas it is here. My last week of college at Embry-Riddle!! While it is not without a lot of things to do, I am definitely going to try and enjoy it some. I don't think that it has really sunken in yet that by noon on Friday I will be completely done with college, no more classes, no more projects and best of all no more exams.

There is still some work to do on the research project, but based on the timelines getting pushed I probably will not be around for the flying part. That basically just leaves me with getting all the documentation in order, which I do not think will be much trouble.

Graduation is officially on May 5th and I'm looking forward to seeing my parents and my aunt and uncle, who are all coming down to celebrate with me.

Changing gears here, the move to Duluth is coming fast but all seems to be in order. Once I am done with classes and such this week I have packing boxes to look forward to and starting to clean up around the place. Since I have only been in this apartment for 10 months I do not think the move will be as stressful as the one last summer. So we will cross our fingers and hope for things to go well!!

P.S.  I have signed up for a social networking site called Twitter, I guess it's kind of like Facebook but more focus on what you are doing now. It seems kinda neat so take a look at their site. I have added a cool little widget on the left column of the blog to show my updates on the site.