So I flew over Santa Monica yesterday in an SR20 plane. It was an awesome experience as I pulled the controls and pushed the throttle which lifted us off the ground to a gradual ascent. I climbed higher and higher white I released on the power. As we headed towards the ocean, I banked right and banked left guiding the plane as I trailed the coast of the beach. Then I flew to the right of the mountains to bring us into the path of the airport landing strip.

Checking the controls

control tower

night sky view from the plane

On Thursday I went to check out an SR20 and talk to some flight instructors regarding pilot lessons. It ended up being busy that day and pretty windy as well so I ended up coming back the following Monday (yesterday) to take my first flight lessons. It was pretty exciting learning the whole process of how easy it is to lift off the ground just by picking up a little speed and getting a little lift in the wings. I learned about taxi-ing, banking, the controls, and how to keep the plane level and all that.

In part I took flying lessons for my own education and also in part to get over my anxiety of turbulence. I fly all the time for various tournaments or events and understanding the plane helps me feel more comfortable with what’s going on behind the pilot seats.

Anyways, that was a highlight of my week.. but I’ve been doing other things as well.

I went to the griffith observatory and got to look at the moon close up with my own eyes (well with the help of a telescope). They also had a bunch of interesting space facts and exhibits inside. I love thinking about space and the universe because it makes us realize that there is more out there and that little insignificant annoyances shouldn’t matter when compared to how vast world/space/universe is. There’s all these interesting things out there that I won’t really go into.. but they touched on things like dark matter, the expansions of the universe, solar systems which make up galaxies and that we once thought our galaxy was immense until we discovered we were merely a galaxy among millions of other galaxies.

I also got more super powers from this meteor.

That was an actual meteor. It was pretty heavy for its size.

Here’s the view from the griffith observatory looking out at LA.

Back on land…. that same day I also test drove an Audi TT because I think they look cool.

and now… to business.

Workwise I spent the past week cleaning up and improving the ecommerce. I added extra layers of security such as SSL security, moved the site to a dedicated IP, added an authorize.net safety seal, cleaned up the logo, modified the CSS so that fonts were easier to read and the footer looked more professional.

I also went to visit my friend marc and richi’s office where they work on online business as well. They had this cool photo booth device that helped me take some awesome product pictures. Here is one of the many pictures I took with my SLR camera.

I also put together some more pictures that I’ve been meaning to get up. You might recognize this guy.. he’s a China National Wushu Champion and World Wushu Champion many times over.

If you know wushu you know who he is. If you don’t you really should. He is Zhao Qingjian – gold medalist in changquan, broadsword, and staff.

I will leave you with this ultimate ZQJ compilation video.