My name is TJ Shembekar and this is my aviation blog. I’m a US commercial pilot (with instrument rating).

Like many people, I thought about flying off and on my whole life ; but never did anything about it.  There seemed to always be an excuse.  When I was in college, I didn’t have the money.  Later when I started working and having a life, I didn’t seem to have the time.  Then in 2005, I woke up (on my birthday) and had an epiphany.  If I was ever going to fulfill this dream, I needed to “just do it”.  That day, I started looking into the process and it has been an extremely rewarding experience ever since.

When I’m not flying, blogging or dreaming up some new travel adventure, I work for IBM as the CIO leader for  the Global Financing division.  This is a very cool job,  which allows me to work with some really talented people from around the world and challenges me every day.