The penultimate challenge for Army ROTC students here at ERAU is the JFTX we embark on tomorrow. It comes right after the dreaded Record APFT (final pt test) and before the even more dreaded finals week. We leave tomorrow morning and expect freezing temperatures, frigid wind chills and possibly even some blisters. All in all, its no big deal compared to the real training and hardcore tactics that the Army really does, but for us juniors this is a big test before our final test at LDAC this summer.This whole week has been devoted to preparing for it and trying to cope with all the other schoolwork we are dealing with. I tried discussing with Liesl Hall about some topics in our class but by this time in the semester the competition in classes becomes rather intense, so Liesl and many others become more introverted so as to protect their grades and dignity while studying for finals. It’s a nature cycle of the ERAU college student, but by now I am used to it, and used to Liesl’s sly and silly behavior. We have just finished numerous papers and projects and I even took part in helping some friends with a project about a female terrorist group. My friends Gianna, Casey and Teri were working on a project for the best class ever, History of Terrorism, taught by Professor Austen, and I helped a bit on their project and watched them present.
Now it is getting late and I planned on writing a lot more, but its time to prepare mentally for one of the last challenges of junior year. I can’t believe I’m almost a senior. I am going to say right now that next year my academic schedule will be more relaxed and I’m gonna have all the fun I couldn’t have the first semester of this year and all the other times school and other stuff got in the way!

I completely forgot to post about the events that happened before the much needed Spring Break. My friends Emily and Rachel came up to visit me from Tucson and wanted to explore Prescott and especially Whiskey Row now that we are all 21 years of age! Following a rather ridiculous stressful week of school and ROTC the girls came up in the afternoon and I showed them my new and much-improved awesome living arrangement. I showed them around the school and although I feared it would only take 15 minutes because it is not that big, it took awhile because I gave them the whole tour of everything our campus has to offer. Admissions would have been proud because I was able to show them all the major sites of ERAU except the Ops Lab (which is the best part) because it was closed. We see ACI, the Library, and our Student Union everyday but when you show these buildings off to incoming students or friends/family they seem much cooler than we actually perceive them because we see them everyday. After I showed them the campus I drove them around the city to get a premature look of what Prescott basically has to offer. We ended up eating dinner at the newest and most delicious site Prescott has to offer, Chipotle, and I got free chips. This may be because I had two beautiful girls with me, which is a rare site in Prescott, and even rarer for a Riddle guy to be hanging out with, except of course for the Queen of blogging Ms. Liesl Hall and our friend Lauren.
We came back to campus in time for casino night where we met up with Liesl, Lauren and our crazy friend Anna and joined a blackjack table. We didn’t leave that table the entire night and had some fun faux-gambling these colorful chips away (I didn’t know what each of them was worth at first so I just bet whatever chips seemed best at the time). I didn’t win anything, as usual, and Liesl didn’t win an iPad like she did last year, so we left before the crowds rushed the exits and went back to my dorm where we had a mini-smorgasbord with the Party Pack of Lime Eegee’s that the girls brought up. Ahh Lime Eegee’s is the 2nd best flavor, second only to Watermelon. Peach & Berries comes 3rd now. The school hosted an event called Spring Fling and it was held in the Student Union. It was packed and a lot of students came. I hope the school provides the dance floor, beverages and fun that it did this year because it was really a good idea.
The next day I took the girls to Chartwells and for them it was a new experience but for me it was another day in the Dolldrums. Chartwells is great, but like any dining facility you can’t help but get used to it after awhile. We went into Prescott again and explored downtown taking pictures everywhere and touring Whiskey Row. There was this shop inside Whiskey Row that lets groups of friends or family take silly picutres of Western times in which they dress up in costumes and pose for these ridiculous and in some cases, lewd, shots. I dressed as an outlaw, Rachel dressed as a cowgirl and Emily of course dressed as a loose saloon girl. We took tons of shots and had a blast doing so but only could keep a few. We eventually chose a few and took them home. That was by far one of the most enjoyable moments I have had in Prescott.
Every time people come to visit in Prescott I take them to Zeke’s because its the best restaurant here. The food was awesome and then we dared to eat The Brownie. It was massive but we did it after dying through a mountain of chocolate, a moat of hot fudge and a whole avalanche of whipped cream. We visited Buddy’s Casino right after just to look around and since we had just seen Contagion we, at least I, were afraid to touch anything. We met up with some of our other 21 year old friends and eventually went to Whiskey Row. Our friend Soren met us there and we had a really good time checking out Whiskey Row for the first time and just hanging out. The girls left the next day but it was by far one of the best weekends ever.

At Casino Night with the infamous Liesl Hall

The Zeke's Brownie

Prescott Shenanigans

Best ever

So fun!

I went to France for spring break to visit my little brother Michael that lives there. The week and a half that I spent there was a lot of fun and filled with French pastries, cheese and wine along with the sights of France. My Mom brother and I visited all the normal tourist haunts such as Paris, including the Eiffel Tower, Parisian Catacombs and the Arc d’Triomphe, as well as Normandy where Michael lived. We saw several historical cities and the American Military Cemetary by Omaha beach. Unfortunately we had to return to the States to come back from Spring break and the semester kept going as if nothing had happened.
The first week back was already filled with presentations, papers and book reports that were due. It seems like the work all piled up because the weeks prior to Spring Break were filled with fun and a rather relaxed attitude. The first day that I was back Prescott was covered in snow that fell for about a day straight. It was funny watching some guy from the school shovel the paths and lay them with salt and then not 30 minutes after he was gone the snow would already have covered the paths he just cleaned.
Right now I am taking a break (actually procrastinating reading another book) and dreading writing yet another book report. Oh well, better get back to work, but hopefully I’ll find another moment to procrastinate very soon.

American Military Cemetery

The Embry-Riddle Catholic Campus Ministries started three years ago with one girl named Astrid offering surveys in front of Charwells to anyone that would be interested in joining or starting up a Catholic club on campus. The Ministries has since grown to dozens of students joining together every Sunday night and many other off-campus activities to celebrate their faith. During Freshman year I searched for a Catholic church and somewhere where I could worship with or without school involvement. There are several Campus Ministries on campus that cater to all walks of life and are accepting of everyone.
Last Semester was kind of rough and although the Catholic Ministries has been extremely supportive and active in my life, I decided to check out this group on campus called Chi Alpha, or XA. I had heard about this group since freshman year and several of my friends were involved in the group. Initially hesitant, I checked out some of their meetings and events in order to see what Chi Alpha was really about. My first adventure with them was the trip to Lake Powell in late September, during which some 40 students, some XA and some not, went to Lake Powell for a weekend of adventure. We met up with the XA from ASU and got to meet a bunch of people. I knew almost nobody in our own group but as the hours went on and the more fun we had tubing, cliffjumping, playing on the beach, exploring the island on the middle of the lake and getting launched fifty feet into the air by a device know as the the Eviscerator, I got to meet a bunch of new friends. The Lake Powell Adventure was a blast but the people that I got to meet then got me interested into going to some of their other events. I have been to several of their events and am glad that my friends got me involved in them. I highly encourage them to any wanting to pursue any sort of religious involvement with a group willing to accept anyone.
The Catholic Ministries here are open to anyone that wants to attend Mass or get involved with their community.

Lake Powell with XA

This year has been hectic so far. Not only am I now an MSIII in the Army ROTC program here at ERAU, I am taking some difficult classes and trying to adjust living in a new apartment with two of my friends. I feel though that despite the heavy workload, jam-packed schedule and copious amounts of reading I have to do, this year will get even tougher. So far the other Army cadets and I have been placed in charge of leading Eagle Company under the supervision of our cadre and MSIV’s. So far I have been the platoon sergeant and squad leader but my toughest role is going to surface when the most difficult part of our semester rolls around, the Fall FTX. I’m a bit anxious for that but I hope it will be alright.

Classes so far are great, I am taking History of Terrorism (been looking forward to this since freshman orientation), Studies in Global Intelligence I, Information Protection and Computer Security and some more classes. They are all interesting and I can’t wait to take my Counterintelligence course next year! Because this year has been so jam packed I haven’t had much time to do many social activities. My friend Angelo and I managed to take a break in our schedules and visited our friend Anna and the notorious Liesl Hall in their volleyball game last week. Our team did a good job and it was inspiring to see all the freshman taking in interest in the many extracurricular activities we have offered here at ERAU. Last week we held our Activities Expo or whatever they called it when all the clubs and organizations presented booths to attract new members. I found myself convinced into signing up for several groups but I don’t think I can make them fit into my schedule just yet!

Last week all the MSIII’s and the Ranger Challenge cadets (I’ll post about this soon) went to Fort Navajo up by Flagstaff to conduct the Eagle Raider FTX to prepare us for Warrior Forge 2012 in which we will be attending LDAC. Several important informative classes were taught to us by the MSIV’s and we got to go on the Night LandNav course and to the firing range the next morning. I admit I need some practice with both but I plan on improving myself over the course of the semester in both categories. Well, this has been the start of the Fall Semester, hopefully the level of difficulty peaks soon so we can roll downhill to easy street……(This is ERAU, never gonna happen, but it can’t hurt to hope right?)

About to learn how to apply camouflage

Cadet Salas on the Firing Range

“Stress + chess = chress” says my roommate Joshua Ann Dray. For the last two weeks we have been studying like no other and devoting time to our studies because that is our job.        Lame.  I hate studying, its a common feeling and we all know it!  We found a way to divert our stress into a game that has been played for hundreds of years, CHESS! I was one of the chess nerds that was on the chess team in middle school and you know what, those Tuesday afternoons with a bunch of super-smart kids in a swamp-cooler room made it worth it because I tell you, beating people from France on online chess during Finals week (as nerdy as that sounds) is a great way of releasing much needed endorphins. I mean sure, endorphins result from binge eating of chocolate, Oreos, mounds of goldfish, killing Nazi zombies and yes, chess. As good as playing chess has been, it’s getting bad in Room 113. We must have thrown away hours of study time just to play people online and of course those wretched computers. Computers should not know how to play, they are so demoralizing because they know Every move!  Computers are cocky and are cold machines that have wasted our time! My own laptop mocks me as I write this so time to transition to a new topic.

Time for the stress part of chress. I still have four finals left, Personality and Profiling on Monday, Humanities on Tuesday, Social Psychology on Wednesday and U.S. Foreign Policy. Ughhh I have a lot to do so I better abandon the chess-filled fun of my room and head to that cursed library which is about to explode because so many people are crowded in there!

>Chess has taken Joshua over to the dark side

So for Easter Break I went back home to Tucson with my friends Joe and Josh so that we could spend some time with my family and most importantly, so that they could experience Eegee’s. Unfortunately only a few people here at Riddle know what Eegee’s is and they are all from Tucson except our very own beloved Queen of Blogging Liesl Angelique Hall, and Tucsonans Daria and the vindictive soccer girl Whitney. April’s flavor of the month was Orange Dream and I usually am not a fan but this year it was better than I remember it. It was kind of strange seeing my school friends in a place that I have grown up around but it was cool at the same time. We just got to spend time around the house and then came back here to continue our studies. Studying ruins everything!!! Next year is going to be worse though so I guess I shouldn’t complain now. Oh well, Good Luck everybody!

I hope they liked it

Military Ball:

Last night on the 8th the Eagle Company of Army ROTC here at ERAU held its Military Ball at some Prescott casino. We had been hearing about this Ball coming up for awhile so our Company Commander Cadet Welch had to get lots of information out to us and pretty much had to organize the whole thing so that it would be a success, which it was. I asked my friends Lindsey and Rachel from ASU to come up and accompany me and my roommate Joshua to the ball and we all went together. The girls came here and we all got dressed up ready to go (I had previously had a minor crisis in finding a proper black jacket to go with my getup and thanks to my friend Jake I managed to find one and not appear like a fool) and we drove there in Joshua’s truck. The first few minutes were strange because I had never seen so many girls in the same place in Prescott (they were all dressed up too so it made it easier to identify them as girls). We got in line and mingled a bit and it was fun introducing Rachel and Lindsey to all my Army friends here. They even got to meet some of the cadre and I’ll admit that was a bit strange because I never imagined friends from back home crossing paths with someone as influential as the cadre.

By some act of God the four of us got seated together with possible the best table there and the ceremony started. Dinner eventually came along and the entire time I was just talking to two of the most favored MS-IVs and joking around with everyone as we ate our steak and salmon. Salmon was delicious, I ate fish because it was a Friday during Lent and it was not some cheap salmon that casinos serve, it was actually very good. The raspberry tart thing they gave us for dessert was amazing, here’s a picture of it, all the desserts were amazing as they were possibly the most important part of the evening! Dinner concluded and then dancing started for everyone because after all it was a ball. I’m not the best dancer and of course didn’t spend too much time on the dance floor. We went back after that and some of my roommates wanted to watch some movie. I figured that was too boring so I decided to take the girls over to our other friends’ room where we had a few exciting expeditions during the night. We played indoor Capture the Flag, went on an ice cream run, watched Night and Day and had some more mini-adventures while it snowed outside.

SNOW

Great, now we have a PT test on Monday and it is going to be freezing!! The girls left this morning and I went out to buy a bunch of stuff in preparation for Mark’s wedding in a month. There is still snow everywhere and the JFTX is coming up but at least we’ll be in Fort Huachuca this time instead of the frozen tundra known as Fort Navajo in Flagstaff.

Some pictures from the Military Ball: