Ep 125 Stephen Mintie - Hot Butter Steve - https://www.youtube.com/c/HotButteredProductions
Personal Bio: Air Force Brat. Went to high school in Minot, ND. Was a computer and book nerd growing up and wanted to get into science and engineering. I took an Aeronautics class in high school and took the controls of a Cessna. Also would compete in self propelled balsa wood aircraft building and while my peers would buy kits, I always designed my own and of course never won because of that! I was always more of a rocketry type person. Life took a 180 and I ended up going to the University of Minnesota for 7 years studying jazz performance and music education with the goal of becoming a teacher. I'm a jazz and classical pianist, and I've done a lot of work with steel drums. I don't do much music work anymore, but I do play in a classic rock style band. After college, I did a 180 again and worked for and eventually became a superintendent of a large and busy funeral home and cemetery. While there I skydived for the first time with a coworker who had terminal cancer. I ended up breaking my tailbone on landing. It was a great experience to share though and I actually personally dug her grave and buried her myself. I currently am the account director and Google SEO analyst of a restroom and shower trailer company. My current work has been extremely supportive of my endeavors in ppg and because I can work remote too, they allow me to fly just about whenever I want, and travel often for gatherings. In general I'm kind of all over the place. I read a lot of science, history, astrophysics, and world event type stuff. I used to raise chickens and was into guerrilla gardening (basically planting huge green things all over the place).
Ppg Bio: I got into ppg during a very difficult time in my life. Within a year's time frame, I got a divorce and walked away from my career which I had my entire self identity wrapped into. It absolutely killed me. During that time I followed Trent Palmer and thought it'd be neat to fly the way he did, but never would I have the budget to afford a bush plane. From there I started researching ultralights, and eventually found Tucker. I told myself if things improved, I'd take it up as I could do it safely, and fly without a cockpit which really interested me. Soon after, I found an awesome new job that paid me a lot more, appreciated me and gave me the freedom to pursue it. I trained in April of 2021 with my much younger brother. He wasn't even interested in ppg, he just wanted to share my adventure and turned out to be the best in the class. Training was tough because of bad weather, and I actually got lines in the prop my first take off attempt, and it was my personal wing too. After training, I didn't have a motor for over 4 months so I practiced ground handling the whole time which paid off when I returned to flight, because I didn't have to think about glider control not to mention I can easily launch in nil wind, or reverse in strong conditions. I ended up not returning to the first school and joined the Nebraska Paramotor community. My brother stopped pursuing ppg by that point. I've been flying regularly since last August and during that time I've flown at EFD, Salton Sea including the nearby canyons, Glamis, Arizona Flying Circus, Ak-Chin, AZ copper mine, Dauphin Island, the Florida panhandle, and Bad Apples. My current goal is to fly with purpose and practice and return to the fundamentals. Right now I'm working on landing accuracy and I'll end every flight with a 1000 foot climb up, motor kill, and spot land. Just recently started doing foot drags (which I told myself I wouldn't do, and now......... lol), big ears, and just starting to get into energy management a bit, barely scratching the surface though. Hope to work on my PPG 3 by early next year. I love flying and it's completely changed my life especially since I got into this as a destroyed person. I love the community to. I thought I was going to be a loner, but somehow someway managed to befriend a huge part of the community, by mostly just being my weird self. I'm pretty gregarious, I enjoy laughter and not taking oneself too seriously, and my personality ranges from a quiet active listener to a loud type A personality if I'm in the right environment. I started a Youtube channel prior, Hot Buttered Productions, which is a shared channel with my brother though he stopped making stuff. I enjoy making content because it can be a canvas for many things such as just being weird, funny, expressing something that means a lot to me without words, or creating a window into slice of life segments to show what it's like for someone that has struggled with this too. I openly talk about the struggles with the mental game, preflight anxiety, I was terrible at landings for a long while, just about anything so it's more relatable for your average person.
