Hey everyone.  There’s a whole lot for me to talk about today.  Firstly, last Saturday I attended a car control clinic which was pretty cool.  People brought anything from BMWs to SUVs and everything in between. There were four evolutions: slalom, skid pad (cloverleaf onramp type thing), braking strip, and a lane change.  The first is self explanatory, but I’ll explain anyway.  The goal was to get to whatever speed you could swerve at comfortably and complete the slalom without hitting any of the bright orange cones.  I actually learned something valuable on that course.  Ordinarily, you would think to look at the cone in front of you to give you the best control, when in fact you are supposed to look at the very last cone and use your peripheral vision to go in and out of the cones.  It helps a lot with handling.  The cloverleaf skid pad was pretty complicated and basically what you do is leave the steering wheel at a certain angle and then just use the accelerator to control swinging outward or not.  When you accelerate, the car takes a wider turn and then when you let off the gas (but not braking), the car will grip the road and make a tighter turn, all without turning the steering wheel.  It’s pretty neat.  The braking strip was fun.  You floor the gas until the instructor (sitting next to you in every evolution) tells you to brake.  When they say that you slam on the brakes and stop as quickly as possible.  That evolution simulates both ABS and lets you know how much time your car actually takes to stop when you’re going at approximately 60 mph.  The last one was pretty intense…there was a line of cones in front of you and then several hundred feet down a guy with a flag.  Right before you hit the last cone, he would through the flag in a direction and you would have to swerve in the direction of the cone (as if making an emergency lane change), regain control and keep going straight.  Many people anticipated the direction of the flag and would end up going the wrong way, but it was tough.  The max speed anyone could get in the distance given was 45 mph which was nearly impossible to turn at.  So that’s first on my agenda for this post.

Second, I hadn’t gone to the beach a single day this summer until Friday.  I guess my story is out of order since the clinic was Saturday, but this was the day before that.  I went with a friend and the water was pretty cold, so we took a break.  After building a 5 foot mountain of sand (for no particular reason), I asked him if he wanted to play frisbee.  He said he was not good, but decided to give it a try anyway.  He through the frisbee to me and the very first step I took, I stepped on a bee.  The bee then proceeded to sting me until it died.  This was my first bee sting (yay), and I guess it wasn’t too bad, but I also didn’t know if I was allergic; luckily I’m not.  I tried hobbling to the lifeguard tower so he could pull out the stinger.  I got half way and then just dropped, so my friend got him and then after he pulled it out he made me sit by his tower for five minutes, which felt like an eternity.  The swelling went down two days ago and you can still see a mark of where the venom (or whatever it is bees sting you with) had spread throughout my foot.  So that was Friday’s excitement, which subsequently affected my hobbling for the following two days, including the car clinic.

I’m already getting tired from writing, which isn’t good since I’m just getting started.  Anyway, I’m in Cancun right now; we got here on Tuesday.  The first thing we noticed upon arrival was the heat and humidity.  You start sweating just standing still.  The upside to this is that, unlike San Diego, the water is amazing! It’s probably 75 degrees, and the same goes for the pool.  No wonder winter is the busy season here; where else can you go and warm up in the ocean in the winter?!

You can see all of my photos in my Flickr album that I’m updating daily: http://www.flickr.com/photos/soccerkingpilot/

I’ll talk about one last thing today.  Yesterday we visited a place called Chichenitza, which was a Mayan village…you will probably recognize the temple from this picture I took.

Chichenitza Mayan Temple

Well we took a four hour bus ride to get there and when we arrived, it was a scorching 98 degrees outside.  Add the humidity to that and it was painful.  On the tour, our guide would have us hop from shady area to shady area.  It was pretty interesting seeing their village being uncovered.  That’s also home to the world’s largest ball court.  They played this wierd game with their elbows, knees, hips, and shoulders to get a ball through a hoop about 20 feet up.  The Mayans were definitely the ultimate basketball players.  They were ingenious engineers though.  At the ball court on each end there were seats for the important people.  They could talk to people at the other end (300 feet away) at a normal tone and hear each other perfectly.  The catch is, however, that the players only ten feet below these bouncing sound waves couldn’t hear a thing.  We actually studied most of this particular village when we were looking at ancient civilizations in 6th grade.  Now it’s all coming together 🙂  I highly suggest you take a look at the link above for some of the other pictures of Chichenitza.  I’m sure I’ll be writing again in a few days before my Cancun trip is over.

Just a quick update on what’s happening with my life.  Firstly, it’s several weeks into June and I haven’t been to the beach once, which is sad since I live less than 10 miles from the beach.  Our JROTC unit took two field trips this year: one to Hawaii and one to Pensacola.  The whole time we were at each of those places we were dying to go to the beach but in San Diego it seems like nothing special.  I guess I just have to wait for Arizona where the beach is slightly less accessible.  Well, right now I’m working at a flight school, which I believe I said earlier.  I go in from 8am to anywhere between 2 and 5pm working on their website, marketing presentations/brochures, and graphic design.  It’s a pretty fun job, but can be sort of confusing at times.  The previous webmaster seemed to have locked all the templates and not labeled them very well so sometimes I’m working in the dark.

It may seem random, but I figured I’d show you all a picture of my dog…he’s a 5 year old long hair german shepherd:

My dog Jetson...our last dog was named Astro

One last item.  Several weeks ago I was talking about the shipment I got from RHL (Residence Hall Linens).  I thought they seemed pretty good at first, but in the end decided to return them.  My biggest issue was the thread count of the sheets (180) compared to what I would normally buy (at least 250 or 300).  I think when target and walmart start having dorm sales we’ll go in and buy all of my sheets, towels, etc.  Anyway, I don’t think the product was horrible or anything, it was just that I think I can do better with the same amount of money.  For anyone who just wants to buy everything quickly and in one place, I think RHL is a great solution.

Man things have been busy around here! I guess I might as well go in order. I think I left off right before graduation day, which was last Thursday. It was the first time in the history of the school where graduation wasn’t scorching hot. Our school wears all black gowns and caps, so needless to say it can get very warm with little effort from the weather. This year we had a nice cloud cover and breeze (although that didn’t help us keep our cords on). I was happy that my cousin and good friend who I’ve known for 7 years (he’s also a teacher at another school) were able to make it to my graduation along with my parents. Right after graduation, I went and got my diploma and then proceeded straight to a friend’s graduation party.

After the party, I headed over to grad nite, which has always been hosted at our school. They use the gym, lunch area, and surrounding walkway. Of course, to make sure no one “escaped’ they put up fences around the whole area and posted security guards. I can honestly say that was probably the most fun I’ve had in a very long time. The moment I walked in, I saw the gym had been split into three sections by 10 foot high walls. There was a massive dance area, followed by an arcade/video game section with pool and ping pong tables, and lastly a casino. They even had a barred dealer area where you cashed out chips. Outside were caricaturists, unlimited coffee and smoothies provided by Maui Wowi, a ton of food including a chocolate fountain, a massive 20′ highx80′ long obstacle course, an inflatable laser tag arena, and a massive palm tree climbing tower. They also had a tattoo and hair styling center outside next some other carnival games where you could win candy. Below is a photo of my “shamu underwater” hairdo. Some friends I was with told the person to make it like Elvis, but also a mohawk. I didn’t quite understand it, but you can see for yourself and let me know what you think in the comments.

Oh, I forgot to mention something else; in case anyone got tired, they had a room set up playing movies with a ton of pillows to sleep. I’ll admit I spent 20 minutes in there relaxing around 2am. I think my favorite part was the inflatable obstacle course, but I didn’t like getting burned by the synthetic material every time I went down the 20′ slide. I must have raced people at least 15 times, about the same number of pina colada’s (non-alcoholic) that I had. I got home around 5:30am and proceeded to sleep for approximately 3 hours; my friends tell me they slept until 4pm that day. I got up Friday morning and spent the entire day cleaning for my graduation party the next day.

On Saturday, I had my graduation party, where we hired taqueros (authentic taco makers who grill in your back yard) who made some awesome carne asada tacos. There must have been about 30 people at the party, all from San Diego or Temecula. I take that back, there was one person who I was very happy was able to make it. My ROTC Instructor from Freshman through Junior year came from LA because he lost his job here due to budget cuts. Being an former Navy SEAL, he always has plenty of stories to tell me and my friends; this visit was no exception. The following day we went on a hike on a mountain called Mt. Woodson in the area and caught up on what had happened in ROTC and life in general. Unexpectedly, I received quite a bit of money at the party which will be stored in my starving student fund for next year.

Moving on to Sunday…I believe most of you are now aware of the fact that I work at church every Sunday, and Saturdays when I can, as an A/V Tech. On Sunday, I started at church at 8:30am, went on the hike with my ROTC Instructor at 12:00 and was back at church again at 3:00pm for a special event. A very talented singer who is in our normal group of weekend singers, Kenny Turner, has a band but had never produced a CD. As a gospel singer, in the past 20 years he has performed on stage with artists including Justin Timberlake, Mariah Carey, and Michael Bolton.  The church staff offered to put on a live concert to produce a soundtrack and DVD for him to sell. It was a hit! We had a full house and after recording the clap track, he and his band blew us all away, literally. We were flying new speakers to test them out and it was a good thing we did because our normal ones would have been killed right away. My job that night was putting lyrics on the screen for both the band and audience. Because we were recording for sale, we had 5 cameras rolling at all times and put extra mics on the instruments to mix later. It was a great success and I’ll be sure to let you know when the CD is ready.

I’m almost done now, so just sit tight for a minute. Last summer I started as a webmaster for a local flight school who puts out some great pilots. After scrambling to put in job applications, I was pleased to find out that they would be taking me on full time again this summer. There’s always something to be done, so I should stay plenty busy throughout the summer and even doing updates during the school year at ERAU. Even though I have this job, I’m still hoping the Apple Store will call me in for an interview 🙂  Lastly, I received my course list this week which includes 17 credits: Military Forces, Leadership Lab (AFROTC), Intro to Engineering, Intro to Computing for Engineers, Honors Seminar, Calculus, Physics, and College Success.  Mondays seem like a pretty heavy day, but luckily Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays are light enough for me to catch up on work.

On Saturday, we took our senior trip to Disneyland. I hadn’t been since around 1999 at Disneyland Paris, and many more since I had been to the San Diego location. I realized that I failed to mention I lived in Belgium for two and a half years when I was in first grade. My dad works for Solar Turbines and his company offered him a temporary position there. It really gave me a different perspective of the world. We traveled to about ten different countries in Europe during vacations and I was able to see their different cultures, and at such a young age, I think it was very beneficial to how I see the world now. Anyway, back to Disneyland, it was a load of fun because I didn’t remember any of it. Probably one of the biggest things was that I hadn’t been on a rollercoaster in probably over a decade. It was exciting to be able to go on all the rides and an added bonus was that lines weren’t long at all. The picture below shows me on Splash Mountain, a ride I went on five times, which caused my right foot and leg to be wet all day.

I'm the second one back

So after we got back from Disneyland at around midnight to a neighborhood in a blackout, I went to bed and woke up early for the next day’s big event. We had our ROTC Awards Night Sunday night which turned out really nice. I’ve posted a link on my website to the newsletter that I made. I started the very first newsletter in our unit three years ago and have been creating/editing/publishing it ever since. You can view the most recent one here: Awards Night Newsletter.pdf (You need Adobe Reader to view the file). This was the first time I used Adobe InDesign to create a publication, which was a huge step up from Microsoft Publisher. The night went well and there were many freshman who were very excited to win some of our special awards.

I just want to mention one more thing; if you haven’t seen the movie Up, please do. If you did see it, but not in 3D, go back and watch it again in 3D. I went yesterday and it was a really neat movie. I love graphics and technology anyway, and the credits at the end told me exactly how much work it took to produce that movie. It’s perfect for parents and kids alike 🙂 Graduation is in two days, so I expect I’ll be writing again in a few days.

Tomorrow is my last official day in class as a senior, but for some reason seniors have to show up for class on Monday.  Anyway, here at Westview it’s easy to tell the year is coming to a close.  Senior pranks are being planned, everyone is relaxed and ready for a good long summer.  Earlier this week we had our Senior Awards Night, where any senior who has scholarships or qualifies as an “AP Scholar” is recognized in front of the rest of the attendees and their parents.  It was pretty cool, and according to one of our counselors, Westview students have accumulated more money in scholarships this year (over $7 million) than the rest of our district (4 other high schools) combined!  It was fun and interesting to see where and how other students were going to college.  This year in our graduating class, we have two students going to Harvard and another to MIT.

This weekend the seniors have our trip to Disneyland on Saturday, and the ROTC cadets (myself included) have our Awards Night on Sunday.  Next week includes all of our senior activities like the senior breakfast, picnic, yearbook signing party, graduation rehearsal and finally, graduation.  That reminds me; our yearbook this year is, well…amazing.  A person can easily tell how much effort was put into making the book with a $90 price tag.  This year it features over 300 pages of full color including 10 glossy pages in the front with awesome photos of the school.

The front cover of Westview's 2009 Yearbook

The ROTC Page in the Yearbook

In regards to Steven’s post recently about whether he should buy a mac or pc, I have been through that.  Last March I purchased a laptop PC.  In the next 9 months, it had been sent in for replacement parts, reformatting and troubleshooting a total of 7 times.  Finally in December, the company (who normally makes great computers) issued me a refund.  In no way am I saying that this happens to everyone, but it really turned me off of PCs.  I believe the main issue was Windows Vista, a common problem by now, along with high process programs I use for graphic design.  Immediately after the refund was issued, I purchased a new 15″ Macbook Pro.  Apple sure doesn’t give their products away…this one cost twice that of the PC, but I have had no problems and am a very satisfied customer.  I think a lot of potential Mac customers are frightened by the thought of having to relearn an operating system.  Apple has now integrated a right click on all of its mice and is easy to get used to except maybe the dock (where programs are kept on your screen).  If you still aren’t sure on what to buy, go ahead and check out the commercials on Apple’s website; they’re at the bottom of the homepage.

I said in my previous post that I thought I was set for the school year.  As of today, I am two steps closer to being prepared for August.  Firstly, I ordered my linens through RHL, which was recommended by ERAU.  At first I was apprehensive about the company because the price seemed too good to be true.  Well, the package arrived today and, for the amount it cost, the quality was great.  Everything looks well made and I think that I’ll be happy with it.  Being able to order all of my bedding and bath needs for at least the first couple years takes away some stress because it’s one more thing I would have had to do later.  Buying a package also ensures that you don’t forget any necessary items.

Secondly, last weekend, I applied for my student loan in about half an hour.  Embry Riddle sent me a letter with all of the information I needed to get started and through the process.  They were helpful in providing the information of various lenders as well.

I’m graduating in two weeks, so things have been winding down at school.  I have been the newsletter editor and publisher in our NJROTC unit after creating the first one during my sophomore year.  I have since published nine issues, each one progressively better than the last.  Over the past couple weeks I have been busy designing and putting together my final newsletter issue which will be handed out at our annual Awards Night.  I also completed a three month internship at Northrop Grumman last week, where I worked as a graphics/print service intern.  I enjoy building websites, graphics, and video production, so the amount of time spent at Northrop, however short, was very beneficial to me and I hope to continue using my skills in graphics at Embry Riddle.

Hi,

This is my first posting on the ERAU Blog, with many more to come.  My name is Austin Troya, and I am currently a high school senior at Westview High School in San Diego, CA.  I am the Admin officer in our NJROTC unit, which will be a good lead-in to my joining AFROTC at Embry Riddle.  Next year I will be starting as a mechanical engineering major at ERAU.  I enjoy theatre production a lot and work at my church for about 12 hours per week doing either audio, lights, or video.  This week and last week, I will have put in about 60 hours as we set up, rehearsed, and produced the Sound of Music.  I am running lights for the show (the picture shows me with my light board).

I’d like to talk a little about my experience with Embry Riddle so far.  I first heard about Embry Riddle at the end of my Freshman year in high school since one of our other ROTC cadets was going there.  My family and I began emailing Doug Dickey not long after I was accepted in December.  He and the other admissions staff members helped us figure out financing, scheduled a visit with the ambassador program, and everything else necessary to prepare me for next year.  I recently found out that I had been awarded an AFROTC scholarship, which is part of the reason I am joining the program.  As of now, I have everything lined up for August with the exception of maybe a few minor details.  I look forward to the summer and especially mid-August when I will move into the dorm and begin my college experience.

When the school year starts, I hope to become involved in intramural soccer and maybe some of the on-campus clubs.  I will also try to take help with shows put on by the Prescott Performing Arts Center.