Category: Personal

Another year is almost over. I have been experiencing life to the fullest this year. I have had so many highs and lows throughout the year that it’s hard to explain it without writing a novel. I want to summarize the year into the following categories: Adventures, Work, and Home.

Adventures

The first adventure of the year brought us to the Big Island of Hawaii. We flew first class and stayed for a week in a resort. The environments of the island varied so greatly that we initially thought the island we went to was an apocalyptic wasteland. The island was alive with an active volcano! It was not erupting when we there, but as of the time of writing, lava is currently flowing there. Val and I had so much fun on our first vacation without Alan.

Our next adventure brought us to Thompsonville, Michigan yet again for the traditional Memorial Day fishing extravaganza. We flew the Tri-Pacer up early in the morning and it was smooth as could be. We caught a LOT of blue gills and ate well. Alan enjoyed catching fish as well with grandpa U. The flight back was the real treat. We went IFR to Grand Haven (instead of Jackson), then IFR back to KOSU. The controllers routed us around precipitation cells and we flew right over Lake James on our way back home. It was stunningly beautiful. It felt so satisfying being able to understand weather, plan safely, and fly safely to get back home.

North Mrytle Beach came a few weeks later; we took a Spirit airlines flight down there, which is perfectly fine with a 2-year-old. An hour flight sure beats a 7-8 hour drive. We all enjoyed the beach together with our friends.

Another trip took me to Aurora, Colorado where I got to learn all about class Piper aircraft restoration. It was a great opportunity to learn from Clyde Smith, the “Cub Doctor” about how to keep these wonderful aircraft flying.

We took several trips out to the Shack this year as well. The family floated in the pond in the summer, and I went back in November to hunt. The Lord provided for me, and my arrow flew true-enough to take down my first-ever buck. It was an exhilarating experience. Our family will be eating well for the next year or so.

The final adventure bled over with work, so let’s move on.

Work

I had the privilege of getting to go to DEF CON 32 in Las Vegas this year and work with the AI Cyber Challenge project. A ton of work went into pulling this off, and our team worked and worked up to the last possible moment to pull it off. They built a “city” to show off the challenge. It was so crazy cool to see a real-life visualization reflecting the work we did. Here’s hoping we can pull it off again next year without the overtime. It will be fun to see.

Home

Alan is now 3 years old. It has been so fun watching him grow up and learn and be a fun-loving kid. We love going to City Egg every Saturday on a daddy date. We started reading the Jesus Storybook Bible this year, and I’m hopeful we’ll get to finish it next year, and that he’ll start to understand it more and more. He did say that “Jesus died so that I can go to heaven” and that’s really sweet. My prayer for him is that he’ll really understand this more and more clearly. Something I really love about Alan right now is that he says “Thank you” a lot. I hope this continues! Val is continuing on her art journey. She’s an amazingly gifted artist, and I can’t wait to see what this upcoming year brings for her.

A lot of things didn’t go the way we wanted them to this year on a personal level, but we did stay close together and fought through challenging circumstances as a team. I am so thankful for a partner to share life with, and for that to be the example that Alan sees of a loving marriage. Thank the Lord.

This year brought about tons of adventure for our family. We took trips to Wolf Run State Park (to camp), South Myrtle Beach, Oshkosh, Lake James, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. And nearly all with a 1–2-year-old. Whew! We had a ton of pictures and memories that were made on these trips that we will never forget. One thing that I can note — we go hard. As an example, we flew Alan to Toledo, spent 3 nights at Oshkosh, flew back to Toledo, then drove to Lake James for a week of vacation where we rented a Ski Doo. We go hard, we took a 1-year-old to Europe and survived in record-setting heat. We certainly enjoyed all these adventures, but they are way more work than the previous sets of adventures due to keeping a child happy.

It has been a real joy to see Alan grow up and learn how to use words to express himself. He went from practically 0 words at the beginning of the year to well over 100 at the time of writing. He’s running around his grandparent’s home and generally quite a happy kid. I can’t wait to see how he develops even more dramatically over the upcoming year! I am confident that there will be many great family memories to come.

As I sit here on the couch, I am reflecting on the wondrous joy it is to be a father. Watching Alan running around the house exploring brings joy to my heart. There is not anything special about what he is doing, but the mere experience of watching him learn makes me happy. We have gone through so many milestones compared to last year! Last year around Christmas time, he took like 4 naps a day and wasn’t sleeping through the night. Thankfully he’s been sleeping through the night for a while now. I am grateful to get to support Valerie and am so grateful for her hard work as a mother while I am at work. We have a great family, and we have wonderful grandparents who love us and Alan so tremendously. It gives me confidence in moving forward as a parent knowing that we have so much support. We have babysitting and can go on dates together. Of all the things going on, having my family life in order makes me excited for the future. God has been very good to us. A few other things of note happened in 2022. I went hunting with my father-in-law and was able to take down a button-buck with a cross-bow. I will never forget how beautiful the sky looked after we got out of the hunting blind. So far we’ve eaten deer tenderloin and it was amazingly tender, and the rest is in the freezer.

We took a few trips this year, to Lake Norris, Lake James, Boston, San Antonio, and Ft. Lauderdale, all with a baby! I’m glad we have been able to have fun experiences and vacation even with the challenge of hauling a baby around. We flew the Tri-Pacer up to the Shack and mostly around the Columbus area. It’s been hard to find time to fly, but thankfully not too hard! Inflation knocked the gas prices through the roof for the earlier part of this year. Alan has been flying in the Tri-Pacer and on an airline and seems to handle it well enough. He really doesn’t want to sit still, but he does love looking out the window.

This year has been such a blur, going from sleep-deprivation to chasing around a curious, and now walking, child. We still get to go on adventures together, and that has been a great thing to get to experience. Perhaps as a reason of, or motivation from sleep-deprivation, my coffee setup has been taken to new heights with the new Fellow Ode grinder and V60 pour-over. I’ve gotten to take a lot of time off at the end of the year and finally unwind from everything. I am grateful to get time to relax and look forward to jumping back into the fray in 2023.

This year has been one of the most joyful and life-changing of my entire life. My son was born this year in October. Val and I spent so long reading books, preparing the house, and going on adventures until the day of delivery. This post describes some of these adventures and how I have felt being a dad so far.

Early in the year we got a positive pregnancy test and decided to go on tons of adventures as a “baby-moon”. We went to Zion National Park and then stayed at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. I really would not have taken myself as someone who takes “outdoor national park” vacations, but since we went to Acadia last year, we got the itch. We hiked up Angel’s Landing and saw some of the most beautiful geography. The Overlook Pass was also a fantastic experience to look over the small town of Springdale. We had such amazing food at the King’s Landing Bistro after a long day of hiking. We couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend a Memorial Day weekend.

The next adventure for me was flying to Oshkosh with my dad for the weekend. We had some special moments sitting under the wing of the airplane drinking coffee and reflecting on life. At 78, he’s slower than he used to be, but boy did he have a blast just being there. It feels like a great gift from God that we got to go there together. We got to park next to 50 other short-wing Pipers! We had a grand time and a safe flight with beautiful weather. What more could you ask for? We went on a few more trips during the summer, including Florida (to fail to watch a rocket launch), and to Michigan for an Urbanik family vacation. We had all the adventure we could ask for prior to the adventure of bring a baby boy home.

I remember when our son was born, I was in tears. It was so miraculous to witness, I can barely put it into words. I was so happy to finally meet him. I was happy that he was healthy, and mom was healthy. Whew! I love him so much. I remember sitting in the hospital room cuddling him on my chest and just talking, saying whatever was on my mind. I am a different person having gone through this. I feel more able to be raw with my true feelings and want to share my whole self in love for my son. I’ve been learning some really interesting things about God as well. I love my son so much with a deep burning love. God loves me that much and more. I understand that in a tangible way that I haven’t before.

He’s 9 weeks old now and we’re about to start many more adventures in the coming year. I can’t wait to see how it plays out.

 

 

Another year is almost under our belts. This year brought forth adventures, trials, and joys. We went to Oshkosh in the Tri-Pacer and had plenty of maple-bacon ice cream. This is one tradition that I hope will not fade away. That ice cream is delicious. It’s been fun to get to fly as much as I did this year. Val and I flew to Thompsonville, Michigan amongst a sea of trees and deepest blue lakes. With the afternoon sun glinting off the lake, I don’t think I’ll ever forget the scene. Flying to Sylvania during the sunrise casting its long shadow over the ground was also such a memorable experience.

Having these experiences are awesome, but it is even better to have someone to share it with. My mind is up in the clouds, and it is a great privilege to get to share that with other people. We went on a cruise earlier this year down to the Bahamas and Key West during the middle of winter. That was a smart move. I hope we do something like that again.

Every year there is something exciting, and this year is no exception. I get to help out with Friends of Fountain of Hope and continue to support the Christians in Cambodia. The other exciting news is that we bought a house! We got to put a lot of equity into it already with a new water line, furnace, AC, thermostat, garage door, and garage door opener. Whew! It was the first house we put an offer on. We didn’t get it initially, but the previous buyer fell through.

Nothing is more awesome than following God alongside my wife Valerie. I am so grateful to have a partner! I am so grateful to get to use our house to serve people. It is time to hibernate for another winter.

I am thankful for time off work around the holidays, and it feels like I have time to be clear minded and rested. This time of rest certainly restores me to come back and hit the ground running into the new year.

I suppose that it is time for my once yearly blog post. A lot has happened over the past year, far too much to explain. I am still alive, and I have made it through college. I am now an alumnus of The Ohio State University. Since last time, Soulfire Software has released onto Xbox Live Indie Games. We are all hard at work on our next game, Project TP (super-secret 🙂 ). We have now released two games onto Xbox Live as Soulfire Software. It is an incredible feeling to be able to work with a team that is so passionate for crafting a quality experience for players. So much polish went in to our last game, and that’s really what made it worth a dollar.

In other news, I started full time work at Battelle Memorial Institute, and am enjoying it immensely. I just so happened to stumble onto a ‘Googlesque’ environment where everyone is nice, professional, and super smart. There are also free snacks and drinks to keep up the productivity throughout the day.

Working is far less stressful than school is. I actually have time to do what ‘I’ want to do after work. I usually work on our game for Soulfire when I get home. I am trying to balance working on the game vs. playing them. Zelda: Windwaker is taking up a great deal of my time at the current moment.

Overall, I can say that I am quite happy. Next on the horizon consists of obtaining my IFR rating and getting the Garmin 430 installed in N41AH. Blue skies are certainly up above.

My blog has now turned into a once yearly blog.  As it so happens, I seem to post something about 1-2 a year.  The reason?  I would attribute this to being “busy.”  What does “busy” mean?  Well, I’d say, but I don’t have time.  I’ll give it a go in one sentence.  Mainly stuff related to school at The Ohio State University full time, working with enflight.com (awesome web-based flight planning software), flying to Oshkosh, working with Soulfire Software on an XNA animation tool and game, the Ohio Aviation Association website, fixing and building various computers, and working at OSU Airport maintaining their intranet site,Osuairport.org and the Aviation Department website, both in Silverlight, and ASP.NET versions.  I do pretty much all of this on a daily basis.  To say that I have bitten off more than I can chew is an understatement.  It’s a challenge, certainly, to keep it all straight in my head.  Languages needed for the above projects: PHP,HTML, CSS, Javascript, ASP.NET (built my own CMS), WPF/Silverlight (XAML), XML, C# (XNA Framework), VB.NET, and C.  Oh, and flying airplanes is cool too, I guess.  I’m still working on my IFR rating amongst other things that are missing from this short list.

I’m going to go to bed now.  I think I need it pretty desperately at the moment.

Yes it is true; I am alive!  I cannot possibly sum up all of the things that I’ve been going through since the last post because that would be a waste of time.  A short synopsis in one word: busy.  I am now taking classes at The Ohio State University and have been in a generally good mood, not having to wake up early anymore.  I hate waking up early with a passion.  It may be because I enjoy staying up all night.

The most exciting thing going on this coming week is Microsoft PDC out in LA.  I look forward to having a whole week of pure techawesomeness (is that even a word?!?!).  While in LA, I will get my hands on a pre-beta version of Windows 7!  I am looking forward also to using the Microsoft Surface while I am there.

Lately I have been too busy with classes to handle many other projects.  I am currently working on an XNA project with a friend up at Bowling Green who is doing all of the artwork and modeling for the game while I do the programming.

I simply can’t believe that we are nearing the end of October already.  It is getting quite a bit colder outside, but that’s okay, I like it cold.  It’s 43degrees outside yet you’d see me in shorts and a T-shirt.  Along with other ramblings, Top Gun in Bluray with 1080p is amazing.  It was quite a brilliant idea to include a Bluray player in every PS3.  I would expect it to be a pretty well-selling item this Christmas.  In Apple’s infinite brilliance, none of their computers have support for Bluray or even HDMI for that matter.

I will likely update this blog a bit next week with all of the coolness going on at PDC, so yea, back to coding like a good little boy for me.