NEW WEBSITE FOR THE BLOG!

Hello readers!  

I'm switching blog hosting site to have more functionality, and because things are about to get interesting again with more frequent posts!  

This is now part of a full website which I'm making slowly.  I've learned a lot and spent many hours working on, though it's got a long way to go.  But the blog should be working as I build the rest over time.

On the blog page, you can subscribe (if you are so inclined) on the right hand side.  You'll get an email to verify you want to subscribe. 

New blog site: www.bylandseaandsky.com/blog/ 

Enjoy!

Instrument Flying!

To enter into the clouds is to enter a different world.  This fall, I usually flew three times a weekend, studied for an hour each night, and finally just before the new year passed my instrument check-ride (2 hour oral exam, then an hour flight with an FAA examiner - written test taken the month before).  Getting the rating took a huge amount of work and was quite challenging.  It makes visual flying seem like a walk in the park!  Balancing the airplane, the radios, the navigation and all the rest took some adjusting to.  For most of the training, I wore "foggles," glasses that only permitted me to see the instruments.  I could not look outside of the airplane.  Keep her wings level and going in the right direction all by the instruments!  It's not an easy task.  

As one of the training exercises, my instructor asks me to put my head down, close my eyes and keep her straight and level.  Very quickly I can assume that I am no longer straight and level but the very strange thing is that I have no idea how to correct it.  It's like my sense of orientation in space has been dulled out of existence.  So I must "trust my instruments" as they say.  

Sometimes, IFR flying gets a little crazy!

Foggles (and chicken)!

Concentrating.

Nighttime beauty!

Love these airport lights!

Cockpit instruments!

I missed all of the training sunsets because I was under the foggles.

It all was quite fun and quite a challenge.  I feel like a better pilot and now should have some more flying opportunities when otherwise I would not be able to fly.  It's quite an amazing thing to be flying by a few needles in the cockpit, and then pop out of the clouds to see the runway in the perfect position in front of the aircraft.  Freddy was great throughout the training and liked the attention.  Since then the weather and work has not been cooperative.  Winter means low freezing levels and I want to avoid ice at all costs so I'm looking forward to some warmer weather for some instrument practice.

I've given my notice at my teaching job.  Looking forward to more adventures.  Back to NOLS, Antarctica, sailing and the like.  I'm excited for the adventures ahead!  

All picture credits go to my amazing flight instructor (and photographer) Jason Archer!  Thank you, Captain! 

In NASA news, they've postponed things again, so the waiting game continues likely at least until this summer.  All part of the process!  Hope you are all well!  

Flying Home

 Though there is always some excitement when coming out of the mountains, it is often short lived.  A check of the phone, a calls to family and friends, a check of the news... but then it's often back to logistics, tasks that have been put off or need doing after a month away.  Thankfully, though, this time I had another adventure that awaited me after I left the mountains.  Leaving the mountains was easier knowing it was only a few days until I entered the sky!

Fires north of Grand Junction, CO.

Instead of 100 miles in almost a month, I flew 100 miles in an hour.  I traded the intimate knowledge of the ground below my boots for the intimate knowledge of the air - its temperatures, its winds, its density, its clouds and its wild fire smoke.  

Hazy Grand Junction.

Early morning smoke.

Something happens when I crawl into Freddy's cockpit.  I feel more myself than I often do.  It's like the feeling I felt after my student NOLS course.  Something about knowledge of self.  I learned to fly from a few flight instructors but I fly in an expedition style that's my own.  Not many people fly long distances in small slow airplanes.  I've never heard of anyone else actually sleeping in their plane.  Nor eating breakfast sitting on one of the main gear tires, nor ride a skateboard across the airport tarmac to the pilot offices.  I bet some people shake their heads!  

Colorado mountains.

I love the weather routing, the knowledge of the sky - especially when on the ground, to look up and think, "I was just up there, I know what it's like up there..."  It's maybe a tiny part of a feeling I imagine the Apollo astronauts have when they look up at the moon.  

I love sitting in Freddy's cockpit, after a long day of flying, making my notes, making improvements to my systems, eating a simple dinner, looking at the cockpit instruments.  Man and machine, maybe it just feels like Freddy has a soul.  I look after him, he looks after me.  

It took two full days of flying plus one short flight on the third day to arrive home.  No weather delays, mostly smooth air and a small tailwind got me home.  Met some nice airport folks along the way, as I always do.  

Falls City, Nebraska.

When I arrived back at my home airport, I got out my running shoes and ran the 5 miles home to pick up my car.  It was a fitting way to end.  The legs wanted some exercise after all the sitting.  I arrived home from 5 miles run, four thousand nautical miles flown, and 100 miles walked in the mountains.  I was tired, ready for a rest.  

But how soon things feel strange.  This is the first day in a while that I haven't been on the move or preparing for a move.  There is now time to catch up on emails, pay bills, do things that I haven't wanted to do.  I go back into my home routines so quickly it's surreal.  The patterns and habits make it seem like I never left.  I have to settle into front country life now.  Work, teaching, front country things like To Do lists.  There's certainly some wonderful parts: friends and family, musical instruments, regular exercise... But I know I'll miss the depth of relationships formed in the wilderness and when on the move.  There is something a little more vulnerable while traveling.  It's much easier to build up walls in one place.  

Crossing the Mississippi.  

Small town in Pennsylvania.  

Rolling hills of Pennsylvania.

Beautiful evening in Towanda, PA.  

So thank you to the friendly strangers I hope to see again.  Thank you to my NOLS students and co-instructors for sharing a depth of soul every day.  Thank you to the friends I saw along the way and had such a special time with.  Thank you to Freddy for our partnership and adventures.  Now to see if I can apply the backcountry lessons to frontcountry living!

P.S. No news from NASA yet...But I haven't given up hope!  The first interviews are/were scheduled from September to December.  So I guess if January comes and I've heard nothing, it won't look good.  I believe I heard around 120 will get the first interview.  That's 120 from a reported 12,000 applicants.  We shall see../

For some reason when I turn around and look at the tail while in flight, it makes me think: Holy smokes, I'm flying an AIRPLANE!  Crazy to think that with some relatively simple engineering, things like this are possible!

Back to Berkshire School!

Freddy's like a sled dog.  He just needs a tiny bit of rest and then he's chomping at the bit to go again!  Here's to future adventures!  Thank you, Freddy!

Naval Academy in the Wind River Range

Just back from 24 days in the mountains with Naval Academy midshipmen.  What an awesome time we had.  We climbed peaks, saw the stars and milky way, and the space station fly overhead a few times.  We fished, briefed and debriefed, learned a ton along the way and the midshipmen all have so many leadership lessons to take back with them to their lives in the Navy.  I had wonderful co-instructors and it was a wonderful group of "mids."  I didn't want the course to end.  

We camped and traveled with new COVID protocols, but after two weeks as a family unit with no symptoms, we were temporarily free of the COVID world.  It was wonderful to escape the medical, and political news for a few weeks.  Especially good to be in the mountains after the last two summers of graduate school.  We lived simply out there.  Generally, each day's task was to move from point A to point B in the best style possible, learning as much as we could along the way.  No phones, no computers, no social media.  Just good old fashion back country living.  Lots of lake and river swimming, lots of time looking at the mountains.  I remember at one point looking around in awe of the mountains and thinking, "I don't have this feeling on a daily basis in the front country..."  I've got to work on that.  Many good laughs, new friends and new experiences.   

Day 3: Arrival to LANDER, WYOMING

I made it to Lander, Wyoming this morning!  Had a short 1.5 hour easy flight that I didn't want to end.  I find there's something so satisfying about thinking up an idea, whether grad school or flying out here instead of wasting a day on commercial aviation, and then carrying it out with all the unknowns.  Wasn't 100% sure the weather was going to cooperate - didn't want to get stranded - which makes it all the more sweet to arrive on time!  

For the music lovers: Freddy's engine makes a lot of noise.  I have a noise canceling headset, but I can still hear a lot of the noise.  Over the last few days on certain flights, I've started to hum along to Freddy's noise.  I was hey-ing and ho-ing one repeated sequence for some reason until I realized it all fit within Freddy's background.  So after a little experimenting, I determined Freddy sings in the Lydian particularly in the key of F, with a strong dominant 7th.  Generally the major third works best, but the minor sounds very good when thrown in there once in a while.  The normal 7th is too close to what Freddy's singing so it makes the flatted 7th of the Lydian mode sound so good.  It's perfect for Freddy.  A major chord of fun and adventure - but with just a touch of a minor third occasionally and the dominant 7th for some real character and color.  I sang almost the whole way.    

At one point along the way today I looked up into the blue sky.   I had a sudden flash of once being in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean looking south, dreaming of one day making it to Antarctica and the South Pole.  Now I look upwards, hoping to one day make it to space.  As I looked up again, I spotted a beautiful crescent moon.  Someday I suppose.  

My astronaut application, the first one I'm really qualified to have submitted, was submitted in March.  Now I wait and see.  The first interviews are between September and December.  Not sure what COVID will do to the timeline but we'll see.  I feel confident about getting the first interview.  After that is anyone's guess (there are three interview stages) and a lot of luck.  

That's it for now.  Heading into the mountains in a few day with the Naval Academy midshipmen and really looking forward to it.  And of course, it is wonderful that when that finishes, I still have another adventure flying east with tailwinds!    

Day 2: to DOUGLAS, WYOMING

I'll get right down to it, because I'm exhausted but in a good way:

1. Good sleep in Freddy last night.  Though a few mosquitoes got in before I could rig a bug net over the cargo hatch.  I think I'm developing an uncanny ability to hear the mosquito's pitch.  It can wake me from a sleep.  

2. My dad asked me today (as dad's do) if I'm doing any socializing.  I responded yes in that I met an airport guy who told me he flew for 25 years without a license.  Flew helicopters in Vietnam, then wanted to fly fixed wing aircraft when he returned home, so he bought a plane, and figured it out!  The airport folks are amazing!  Such a brotherhood!

3. I'm managing the mini Triscuits.

4.  Watching the landscape changing as I flew west made me think of what it must have been like for explorers to go west without knowing what was there!  Such adventure!  Then I imagined being on a new planet and seeing it from the air for the first time.  I would want to land everywhere to explore!  

5. I could have made it to Lander today, but I stopped to try to get to sleep early.  No one but me at the airport.  Now typing in the pilot's lounge where I'll sleep on a sofa.  I prefer to sleep in Freddy, but I'll probably sleep a bit better in here.  

6. Three flights today.  On the ground there is chaos - fueling, paying, record keeping, but in the air, things feel simple - I like it.  Made it under a cold front today and otherwise good progress.  Some turbulence the last flight that wasn't so fun, but all others were pretty smooth.  

7.  Less than two hundred miles to go!  Then into the mountains!

8.  I flew over some windy farmlands today (sustained at around 20 knots) and watching the wind blow through the fields was mesmerizing.  From the air, they looked like spirits or ghosts all heading in the same direction.  It was fascinating and otherworldly.  Perhaps there is a spirit convention somewhere.  

9.  That's all, thanks for reading! 

Day 1: to CANTON, ILLINOIS

DAY 1: (WESTBOUND) GREAT BARRINGTON, MA to CANTON, IL

I'm heading west as I unexpectedly got offered a NOLS backpacking contract with Naval Academy students.  My earlier Alaska mountaineering contract with the Navy had been canceled so I was very happy to get the offer for this one.  Starved for a bit of summer adventure since the last two summers were dedicated to grad school, I agreed.  

After much debate and wondering, instead of heading into the world of COVID commercial airline travel, I got Freddy ready for another adventure.  The potential reward is 3 days of flying (the same time it takes to get to the moon) and an adventure in thy sky before the adventure in the mountains.  The potential logistical nightmare is if I get stuck somewhere along the way due to weather or some other thing and need to somehow get myself and my gear to a commercial airport.  I guess it's all part of the adventure of the unknown.  

So now, I've gotten almost half way but some potential weather tomorrow.  Two days to go.  

If there are any aviation buffs out there, you can track my flights by going to flightaware.com and putting in Freddy's callsign: N7202G.  There's even a "Get Notifications" button so you can get emails with each flight if you're one of my parents.  

I had plans of writing with style and grace, but a bad sleep last night and almost 10 hours of flying have me a bit beat.  It's nearly time for bed so here are some memorable moments:

- Making it east past the rising clouds!  It was like getting out past the breaking waves when surfing.

- Feeling so in tune with the motions of the sun.  I was chasing it so time actually went slower today - by a tiny bit.  

- realizing with disappointment that instead of regular Triscuits (my favorite flying snack), I bought Mini Triscuits which are not very conducive to dipping in hummus.  

- Turning on the runway lights (always a favorite task) and landing just after sunset.

- Skateboarding on the dark runway with just the runway lights.  

If you want to see any pics, check instagram or facebook.  Will try to add later but now need to go to sleep.  

Also if you are a subscriber and reply to the email, I won't get it.  To leave a comment (I love comments, as it shows people actually are intersted in what I write), you must click on the link in the email and then add your comment in the comment window.  

That's all for today.  Hope you are all healthy and as well as can be in this crazy time!

Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering, FINISHED!

Two weeks ago, I turned in my last graduate school assignments.  Due at midnight, turned in at 11:30pm.  And with that, I was done.  Arms up in victory, hooting, hollering, singing, fist pumping, kicking, dancing, laughing, swearing, eyes watering...I had finished what many times seemed impossible to me.  My coursework was complete - ten classes plus two prerequisites.  Two and a half years, over 150 week-long modules of work with assignments, discussion boards, readings, office hours.   No more homework, no more assignments, no more discussion boards to participate on.  I feel like I'm being reborn into the world.  

In the last two weeks, I've been transitioning.  It still feels crazy to be done.  Though sometimes I feel like they'll find some small print error and I'll actually have to do one more class.  I still have to wait for my diploma which should arrive in the next few weeks.  I've been cleaning my little home for the past two days - two years worth of unrelenting chaos.  I can't believe I lived within such chaos but so it was when every half an hour had to be accounted for.  I hadn't quite realized the burden it was to always have a task that required so many hours per week.  Always a choice came down to priorities with those hours in mind.  Don't think: just sit down and do the work, and if you're not working, it better be worth it!

Throughout the process, I had some great teachers, patient and interesting.  I had an online meeting with at least one of them almost every week of the last two and a half years.  I learned a ton, did interesting projects and took some long tests.  Some "quizzes" were to be finished within three hours, while I had a number of tests that were to be completed in six.  Though they were designed to not need all six, I used almost every single minutes.  

One of the most memorable experiences was on one of the six hour tests (either Digital Signal Processing or Microwave Systems).  I looked over the test and though, I'm completely screwed.  I don't know how to do any of these problems - the likes of which I've never seen before!  I'm going to fail.  And then I thought, "Well, I have six hours to try not to fail."  Miraculously, in about 5 hours and 50 minutes, I figured them out, one by one.  It was like when Will Farrell debates James Carville in Old School.  It was sort of an out of mind experience.  Not much time to celebrate as there was another six hour test to take that week for another class.

Little by little, with each class passed, my confidence grew.  I knew it would never be easy for me, but I knew that if I put in the time, I could figure most of this stuff out.  My 12 classes:

Circuits, Devices and Fields

Signals and Systems

Digital Signal Processing

Microwave Systems and Receiver Design

Communications Systems Engineering

Modern Navigation Systems

Intermediate Electromagnetics

Antenna Design

Space Weather and Space Systems

Image Engineering

Spread Spectrum Communications

Oceanography

So many people inquired, encouraged, cheered me on and so much more throughout the process.  So powerful it is to know that others believe in me, when I wasn't quite so sure I believed in myself.  If others believed, I'll just keep taking one step at a time.  

A few people have said, "Wow, that flew by."  I just chuckle.  Now I wait for NASA to announce, in hopefully a matter of days that they'll be opening up the astronaut application, as they have been doing every four years since the year 2000.  I'll keep you posted.  It could get interesting!!  

Hats off to all who've been there!  And a huge hank you to all who have believed in me!  

The Adventure of Graduate School

  When I graduated from college, I thought, "There's no way I'm going to grad school unless there's basically a 100% reason I need to have that advanced education."  While for many years, I thought I would never go back to real "school," the time has come.  A growing interest in all things electric, especially radios, and having never heard back from numerous applications to SpaceX, Boeing, and other engineering companies, I figured it was time realizing the answer to "Who takes a chance on a guy who's 15 years out of engineering school, but hasn't really worked as an engineer?"  It turns out: No one.  

So back to school I go to become a "double E" as an electrical engineer, to reopen or open new doors to space, the undersea world or Antarctica.  That's the plan anyway.  

But grad school in electrical engineering has been anything but easy.  Considering I do not have an undergraduate degree in EE, I have a long long way to go.  With classmates who are younger and working EEs, I have even farther to go compared to the rest of the bunch.  I am doing an online program so I can continue my teaching career.  Needless to say, I am the only teacher among the 2 prerequisite classes I took last year and the 3 grad-level classes I am currently taking.  

So far, the pace has been grueling.  I'm taking three classes now, in hopes of finishing my degree right as the next NASA astronaut application opens.  Three classes is a lot, even when I have the summer mostly off.  I spend anywhere from 6 to 12 hours a day, everyday, going through the books, the posted lectures, the assignments.  

Generally I work 8 am to 4 or 5, then blow off some steam, then back at it after dinner.  It's exhausting and is relentless in that if I don't get on each new module right away, it's so easy to slip behind.  Every half hour of my summer is accounted for, meaning basically that if I'm not studying, it's got to be worth it.  The things that are worth it are sleep, swimming, exercise and good friends and family.  I had plans to travel and study, of friends to visit, but those were thrown out the window.  The thee syllabuses combined said the three classes should be about 25 to 48 hours per week.  Being a slower worker, I'm definitely on the slower end of that so that sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the week.  

No big land, sea or sky adventure for me this summer, my adventure is of the mind.  Sometimes, I just laugh when I look at what I'm learning, and then think that I'm in electrical engineering graduate school.  And I often think, "If I can pull this off, it'll be incredible...one of my biggest accomplishments ever!"  But it's a big if!  

In the beginning I was fraught with the feeling that I am not smart enough for this kind of thing.  It was as if a voice was inside my head saying, "You'll never be able to handle all this, you're not smart enough!  You'll put in all this time, energy and effort, and you still won't make it!"  Over and over again.  It was a struggle to not listen to that voice, to not believe it.  

To get through, I borrowed something from a Navy SEAL friend.  When I asked him how he got through "Hell Week" of BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Training), he said something to the effect of, "The only time I would allow myself to quit was at a meal.  If I was at a meal, it meant the exercise was over, I had made it through, and I was more likely to be ready for the next challenge, with food in my stomach."  I adapted this to, I can only quit after my homework is turned in.  It meant that I couldn't even entertain the thought, and so I would just keep plugging away and little by little, I would make progress!

I've now two thirds of the way through the semester and have passing grades in all my classes!  (Communications System Engineering, Digital Signal Processing, and Microwave Systems and Receiver Design)  I wish I could say with confidence that I'm going to pass them all, but I'm going to have to work for it.  Only one grade out of my 10 classes can be in the C range, so I don't want to take my C in the first three lower-level classes.  I do really like what I'm learning, especially when I fully understand a topic.  Then I think of all the interesting things I can do with it: Space communications, antarctic communications, underwater communications and systems.

It's been a humbling experience though.  Again and again, I have to write on the discussion board that I don't understand a certain topic.  I have to schedule one-on-one skype-like meetings with the professors for extra help.  In the class last semester, I was the only student who needed the scheduled "office hours" and one professor even commented, "I've never had a teacher in one my classes before."  

Little by little though, I'm surviving, one homework, or I suppose, three homeworks at a time.  The voices are quieter in my head as I've proved to them, that I can at least get through the material and get my grades above the 80 mark, some even far higher!  As I learn about filter design, I'm learning how to filter out the internal messages, trying to let the good, supportive ones pass, while attenuating those that do not help.  I've become more aware of those voices and have learned to recognize them before listening to them, so that I can try to chose to listen to them or not.  

And I've learned to ask for lots of help - from classmates and teachers.  I've got to keep reaching out for help.  It requires letting go of the feeling that I should know something that I don't, but I've been finding it's often the only way through.  Juggling three classes, my brain often turns to mush, but little by little, homework by homework.  If I don't make it, it won't be because I quit.  Maybe it's true - that I'm not smart enough, but I'm committed to that not being my decision, I'll just keep doing the best I can, and hope that my determination can close the gap.  

That's all for now.  Got to start the week of study, where every minute counts.  

Canada!

My little spaceship has been good to me.  After a few days of fog and friends on Mount Desert Island, I headed east again, so good it was to be on the move again.  Made it to magical Roque Island that night.  A run in the morning on the Great Beach before heading into uncharted territory!  

On the way east, I passed The Brothers islands.  I tried to keep going, but one of the beauties of sailing alone is that I can do what I want and so I headed my inner call to go explore the island.  I turned, motor on, sails down and tied up to the mooring there in about 5 minutes.  I rowed in and had a little run around.  I love these tiny islands, especially those with a little dwelling like this one had, for scientific research.  Magical islands full of boyhood adventures.  

Then back to the boat, set sail again past the Cutler Navy Base where they have the huge antenna array to communicate with submarines, to the town of Cutler.  Got to Cutler an hour before sunset and while there was no place to anchor despite the guidebook saying otherwise, I was invited to raft up with another sailboat.  There was another boat rafted on his other side, so it made three yachts rafted together among huge lobster and other fishing boats.  They were two Canadians and we had a good time sharing stories and local knowledge of our countries' cruising areas. 

I took a run around Cutler before the sun went down and it was a pleasant little place.  I felt I had gone back in time a bit, as I often do in these small Maine communities. 

The next day, I made sure I left early so I would have the flooding current with me.  Up this far north, it is apparently foolish to try to sail against the tide.  So I left in the fog and drizzle, hoping things would clear later on.  It eventually did though for a while I could not see any land.  I sailed up the west side of Grand Manan as I hoisted the Canadian flag for the first time on the starboard spreaders.  The wind had picked up and by that point I was screaming around the northern head at more than 7 knots steady, reefed, sailing through strange and strong currents thinking, so this is Canadian sailing!

I made my way to North Head but when I got there in the 20+ knots of wind, there was scarcely enough room.  There did not look like much room to maneuver so I motored back and forth again and again trying to see if I could make it, it seemed like I'd have one chance.  Eventually as I got closer, I found a little more room than I had initially seen and slowly, but with enough momentum to keep steerage, I made it into the harbor, with its 22 foot tides.  I found a lobster boat to tied up to, as is the custom here, secured the engine and went below for some fist pumps and a sit down.  So psyched to have made it to Canada and Grand Manan Island!  The whole trip, I'd wondered would I really make it?  Or would something turn  me back to the west...so I was so happy to have persevered into the unknown to explore some new territory and a country I'd never sailed to.  It would be dark soon but I felt like Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin having gotten to the moon yet their moonwalk wasn't for another few hours, if I call remember correctly.  They were ready to explore so they asked and were approved for a schedule change.  I didn't have endless daylight on my side, since I wasn't on the moon so I'd have to wait for the next day to go beyond the harbor.  Canada, hot dang!