About me and my blog

For those who don't know me, my name is Steve and I live near Dayton, Ohio working for Kodak as an Imaging Scientist in research and development on commercial inkjet printing technologies. While my job is great, what do I really love when I leave the office? Probably the two things I am most passionate about are photography and aviation. Interestingly enough, I don't really know how I became so interested in either.

I have always loved taking pictures. Growing up, my parents and relatives liked to tell me that I had an eye for great photos. Whether or not that was true or they were simply being supportive of little Steve, I can't say for sure. But it is something I have stuck with and developed as I have grown older. Why do I love photography so much? Maybe it's capturing a unique moment or a tiny piece of the natural beauty that surrounds us in each corner of the world. Whatever the case, I enjoy it immensely and delight in working to improve my skill. Since I love traveling so much, many of my photos on Flickr and articles in my Kodak Blog come from my adventures across the continents.

Since I was a little kid aviation and airplanes have been something I could never learn enough about. Nobody in my family is a pilot, nor has anyone even taken flying lessons as far as I know. My best guess is that I got some of the aviation bug from my grandpa - we went up in a helicopter when I was probably five and watched plenty of airplane and airshow videos when I was growing up. The whole airline pilot thing is a career I was dead-set on back in high school but in the end I didn't go that route and, aside from a few lessons about 6 years ago, the flight training got put on hold. Fast forward to today and I finally have the time and money to work on my Private Pilot Certificate.

So what will I be sharing with you in this blog? My main goal in the beginning is to chronicle my flight training, which serves a couple different purposes. One is for friends and family who are interested along with other student pilots who might be able to glean some information from my experiences. The other is for me to keep a record and hopefully enhance my own learning. I know that one of the ways I learn and retain things best is by writing them down, and that is exactly what I will be doing here.

Aside from flying, I will still be blogging for Kodak about travel and photography but I might start linking to those posts on here to better organize things. Last but not least, as time goes on and this blog evolves with me who knows what rambling thoughts might end up out here for you all to read... but until then, thanks for reading and take care!

Two notes: I am posting this on June 10th - the first four posts are backdated since I didn't get this blog up and running as early as I had intended. I also would like to thank Matt for the use his photo of the windsock at the airport where I am doing my flight training, which I made into the background image for this site.