November 2025
Why? “Daddy, why don’t we swim in the lake?”“Because the lake is full of crocodiles.”“What’s wrong with crocodiles?”“They will eat you.”“Why will they eat you?”“Because you’re tasty.”“Why am I tasty?”“Because you eat too much chocolate.” (finally, no more whys) I am the father of several small, purebred Martins. Martins are great at many things. We…
June 2025
Ants in my coffee I, like most unsophisticated swine, love instant coffee. It is cheap, fast, and when done right, has its own unique flavor. Some lovingly compare the flavor to that of various manures, but I find the flavor closer to heavenly raindrops. With great delight, I discovered instant coffee was readily available in…
February 2025
Driving on the Moon It is now common knowledge that the moon is in fact not made of cheese. But if I were ever chosen to participate on one of the future NASA missions to the moon, I would take along a charcuterie board just in case. Lately, I have been hardcore nerding out on…
December 2024
above: A picture of the radar right when Isabella was born Overdue Much like the unreturned books I borrowed in the eighth grade, this newsletter is overdue. If you receive this newsletter and know my elementary school librarian, then please tell her I’m sorry… and I think my dog ate my books. I apologize for…
Unlucky
Unlucky “I would rather be lucky than good!” This is fine to hear from a janitor, but less so from a neurosurgeon. Some would say “If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.” This, again something most surgeons should try to omit from their lexicon. Luck is that feeling that something…
August 2024
above; The “father of the faith” and his wife catch a ride to Tepic Airplanes, Babies, Etc. The next newsletter will have a picture of a baby in it, I PROMISE! Okay now I cleared that up let me catch you up to where we are currently. Over the last several months a few large…
April 2024
above: my copilot needed a nap 🙂 Montezuma’s revenge I once ate ice cream from a sketchy street vendor in Mexico. Though this treat was delicious, it was not my best idea. The rest of that evening and throughout the entire night, Montezuma was avenged. I survived with the help of friends, docs, and Pepto-Bismol,…
Smooth Brain
I have been called many things over my short time on this earth; “handsome”, “intelligent”, “professional”, “your highness” and the much more common, “dummy”. By far and wide the largest commentator of the adjective “dummy” is my internal monologue. Have you like me ever looked high and low for your sunglasses only to realize that…
FEBRUARY
I originally called our newsletter “Preparing for Impact”. I thought it was a stroke of pure genius, as we are preparing for Kingdom impact. But my dear helpmeet correctly foresaw that folks may be nervous to fly with a pilot with a dark sense of humor. Through the course of naming the newsletter, something I…
Why are we here?
“Where are you going?” Believe it or not, this is a question I have been asked and have even asked myself a lot lately. Currently, I am training for my instrument rating, a rating that will allow me to fly confidently in clouds. Clouds are great, and I am told they are important, but…
August 2023
above; My beloved “Shark Tank” “Bryan, could you park in the back corner, I don’t wanna be seen in that thing.” This is what my true love said about the mechanized contraption that I have grown so fond of. This hurtful statement was uttered on our way to church in Ohio one summer morning. “Why?”…
Driving fancy flying lawnmowers in puffy floating ponds is Christianity in a nutshell.
Due to the overwhelming outcry by whiny pilots, Cessna aircraft company designed windshields for their new model “172” in 1954 so pilots could see what was in front of them. They designed an amazing piece of crystal-clear acrylic that protects the pilots from high-flying bird droppings and prevents damaging their all-important hairdo. I have enjoyed…
The overwhelming blessing of G.P.S.
Look admit it… you would be hopelessly lost without GPS. You might be of a certain generation and think “How dare this youngin’ write ‘I’m hopelessly lost without GPS’?” You might have warm and nostalgic memories of being completely lost and opening that trusted and stained 8-year-out-of-date atlas, only to discover you still don’t have…
January 2023
above: It’s not gold but she’s happy. Christmas travel woes Several thousand years ago a newlywed couple made a cross-country trip to their ancestral land. Today we like many others, make a similar trip. This is the story of our 2022 road trip up to PA.Our journey and the aforementioned trip by Mary and Joesph…
November 2022
above: my first day at Missionary Air Group. I love random facts that most definitely will never improve my life. When I share some fact with Maria she will often answer with a half-hearted “interesting” and then yawn. I will communicate to Maria interesting stories of spacecraft orbital mechanics and the crazy way Bernoulli’s principle…
September 2022
Above: Aria enjoying a carousel. Between eating Elmer’s glue on a dare (little boys are gross) and making leaky clay “bowls”, art was easily one of my favorite classes in school. I am not a natural artist, and I am constantly amazed at the beauty others can produce with a simple pencil to paper. My…
Motorcycles are awesome and I nearly died on one.
above: I got to ride a Harley on highway 1 in California in 2018 and yeah it totally makes you cool.. Here is a love story to all motorcycles, a defense of why I think they are awesome, and a short story of how I almost died on one. So first the short story of…
July 2022
above: the “ham-mock” The Hammock Let me tell you of a controversial word that could divide your family loyalty in two. This word may drive brother against brother, and may even make fathers disown their very children. The word is hammock. No, you didn’t read that wrong. Stop and say the word “hammock” out loud.…
May 2022
above: Elon Musk and his son X Æ A-12 X Æ A-12 If you are like me and are mildly obsessed with the future president of our solar system, Elon Musk, then you know that his son has a very odd name. X Æ A-12 or Ash for short, is not yet soaring to the…
March 2022
Above: Cozy even on a cold day at the zoo. Hurry up and wait I am a patient man… HA! If you know me at all, you know how ridiculous that statement is! I am about as patient as a Spanish bull when a bright crimson cloak is waved in front of him by a…
January 2022
above: Aria “helping” daddy rake leaves The decade after the end of the world With the dawning of the year 2022, it has now been ten successful, not world-ending years after those ancient Mayan calendar makers wrongly thought the world would end (losers). With any new year, there will be vows made that will most…
October 2021
above: something beautiful Something Beautiful Removing bandages from hairy arms is considered a war crime in most countries. To all my unhairy readers that have never experienced this, go and stick some duct tape to your head immediately. My tolerance for pain is comparable to a balloon’s tolerance to needles. I neither enjoy pain, nor…
August 2021
Above: Chuck Egbert looking pained at my attempts at riveting. Things I am bad at. After much consideration, I could not think of a single thing that I am bad at. But in an effort to make a longer article, I asked my lovely wife, and she gleefully started writing on a notepad with such…
June 2021
Above: One of the many creepy crawlers in Zambia. These spiders were called flatties and they lived in every nook and cranny of your room. Flying Bryan Went Flying Time flies when you are having fun, and it is hard to believe that we are already approaching July! The past two months have felt like…
A night at the police station in Zambia
Above: a truck like the one I rode in. Weird things happen constantly on the planet earth. This makes sense in that there is after all 7 billion of us humans, and every human I know is weird in their own unique way. This is a short story of a weird event that happened while…
April 2021
Meeting needs without SPAM (above) day one of hiking, before our smell caused social distancing. Hiking is overrated. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy hiking, but I just find it overrated. Hiking is just walking on dirt for hours on end with little water, TP, and way too much SPAM. I know that there…
God Story 2
What do you do when your village is already flooded, and there is a cyclone headed your way? This picture (above) was taken in January, just two days before Cyclone Eloise dumped more water on Mozambique and Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland). No-one slept the night of Cyclone Eloise. Roofs blew off, and rain poured…
Past Project #AssemblyRequired
One of my first projects at MMS was an airplane called a Bearhawk. I do not know what a “Bearhawk” animal is and it is my belief that the inventor was stumped as to what to call his new aircraft, and after a trip to the local zoo came to the cages for the bears…
Update on #Doctorkiller
#doctorkiller’s engine is getting assembled!! Engine assembly is a long, tedious, and sometimes delicate process, much like cleaning an angry lion’s teeth. The crankcase and cylinders hardware is all torqued to the required specifications. Finding the proper torque specs can be difficult at times, but with enough patience, the info is there. So much of…
Current Project: #Doctorkiller
Currently, I am overhauling an engine installed on an airplane called a Beechcraft Bonanza. This aircraft is owned by a ministry called “Pilots for Christ”. Their ministry focus is to offer free flights to those that are sick and are in need of transportation to and from distant clinics. This lifesaving aircraft is a model…
Death of me.
above: the clearest picture of my Chevy Corsica I am not perfect. If you know my wife she will somewhat gleefully attest to this. So not being perfect there are of course stories that I would rather not tell you, skeletons in the closest. What I write in the next few paragraphs is not to…
February 2021
Above: One of my many trophies MAN I am not a hunter. To those that know me, this is not a surprise. I like the concept of hunting; being alone in the woods, holding a gun, quiet, still. But I find myself quickly bored, wondering where the deer are. It seems like I can be…
God Story 1
(above) Dano as an MMS apprentice around 2007 Elizabeth Maddux from MMS is writing stories about what our great God is doing in the world, and below is her first one. When available I will post more. Enjoy! February 2021 Dear Ones, Do you have time for a story? From time to time, we’d like to…
December 2020
What am I doing here? Rain is terrible. Yeah, yeah, farmers may say it’s important, because without it food “doesn’t grow” blah, blah. To which I ask, “have you ever ridden a motorcycle in the rain?” It’s terrible, just terrible. A long, long, time ago when I was a teenager, a friend and I rode…
October 2020
Your life is like diet decaffeinated Coke In a dark woods, an evil man mixed Coca-Cola and Nyquil and invented diet decaffeinated coke. Growing up I drank large quantities of the coke-like substance because I did not know better. I thought all coca-cola tasted like old, fermented mouthwash. My family drank diet decaffeinated coke out…
August 2020
Bent Mufflers I was once a bodybuilder. Let me clarify…I used to do bodywork on cars, trucks, RVs, and anything in need of several inches of body filler. I really enjoyed applying mud (what the cool kids call Bondo), sanding, and painting cars. Plus, as an additional benefit, I ended up marrying the cute secretary…
June 2020
Fallen, But Hopefully Not Falling Safety wire is Biblical. Safety wire is a metal wire that aviation mechanics use to secure anything in need of securing. Think of it as the elastic waist in pants, it’s there, just in case, to prevent a disaster. Safety wire is Biblical because in Genesis 3 God says ”cursed…
April 2020
Stinky Diapers, The Sun, COVID-19 Children stink. As anyone that has ever raised a smaller version of themselves will tell you, children cry, stink, sleep, and are happy equal parts in one day. It is a constant balancing act to keep any one of those verbs/adjectives from overpowering the others. Sometimes if they are happy…
February 2020
Things That are Important My name is Bryan. Not Brian, Bryon, Bryen, Byron, Brain, or Bry3n. It warms my self-conceited little heart when I see my name spelled right on some invite, email, or official US document. Look, I don’t blame you for spelling my name Brian, there are almost a million more people named…
Flyin' Bryan 