Category Archives: 2013 – 2014

I graduated!

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I graduated this past Saturday! It is a surreal experience and still feels like I have classes to attend but the reality is that I don’t! I’m done forever!!!! Well that is until I go and get my masters if I so decide to do so. The ceremony was great. It did go a little long because the class of 2011 has been the largest class to gradate ERAU-Prescott in over 10 years and also statistically was the smartest class to have entered ERAU Prescott ever. A total of 268 people graduated, many of them with jobs already. Some are going to get their masters, and the rest are seeking employment. As you know, I got a job with Grand Canyon Airlines and I start with them May 17th. I honestly, cannot wait. Hopefully some day you will be an ERAU graduate and join the just broken 100,000 strong mark network of alumni. Once you go out to the industry, you will see ERAU Alumni everywhere and this I say with certainty since I did meet a lot of Alumni when I worked at Delta Air Lines. Hope you enjoy the pictures below!

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The Pressures of Finals

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Whew!  Finals are ALMOST over.  I’ve gotten the harder ones out of the way thank GOODNESS.  Study time has literally taken up most of my time since last Friday.  Not kidding.  I had a Personality and Profiling final Monday morning, I took my Chinese and Observing Asian cultures final yesterday, this morning I took my U.S. Foreign Policy final, and tomorrow is my Forensics final.  So it’s cram time!  My roommate and I (like every other student at Riddle) have had our moments of procrastination, though.  Such as: watching A Very Potter Musical on YouTube, attempting to flip eggs while we are frying them (which was actually quite hilarious!), singing Disney songs randomly in the middle of the night, and taking random grocery shopping trips to get out of the house.  Ohh, finals.  This is what you do to us.  Sooo, we’re pretty much sleep deprived and can spout out just about anything on any of our study guides.  Which is good, because we’ll do great on our finals!  We’ll only be slap-happy for a little while longer!  Whoohooo.

The egg toss up…

And here’s the miss…

And the SPLAT!!

Oh the pressures of finals week.  My brain feels like that egg: splattered.  BUT, it will all be worth it when I get good grades in all of my classes!  That’s the good thing about finals at Riddle: if you work hard and do your very best, you will be rewarded, one way or another!  So even though it’s tough, it’s a challenge that is so worth it.  I love being challenged.  I love when I overcome obstacles and can say, “I did it.”  Impossible isn’t in my dictionary, and I’m sure that everyone who comes to Riddle feels the exact same way.  We work hard no matter how hard classes get, because we know that someday all of our hard work will pay off.  So, BRING IT, FINALS! 🙂

“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.”

-Peter Marshall

GOT A JOB!!!!

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I got a job flying with Grand Canyon Airlines!!!!! I’m really excited! I start May 17th and am contracted for full-time seasonal, meaning until Oct 31st of this year. If they like me and all, I will become part of their full-time regular staff. I will be flying Twin-otters as a first officer. Here is a link that shows the plane I will be flying. http://www.grandcanyonairlines.com/gca/show_article.aspx?article_id=71&lang=en-US

I cannot wait to start! I am soooo excited! A flying job straight out of school? Man I got lucky! I cannot wait to go and get going! I will either be based at the Grand Canyon or at Boulder City, NV. I will keep you all updated!

Officially a Private Pilot!

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Last Friday, April 22, I had my private pilot check oral.  On Monday, April 25, I had my check ride. Throughout my entire flight course this year, I have been training for the check oral and check ride. All of those activities (orals, sims, and flights) with my instructor have prepared me well. Now, it was my job to review all the information and prepare for the final.

There is something about check orals that make me nervous. Maybe it’s the fact that it is with a check airman, or maybe it’s the fact that you are being drilled on private pilot knowledge for two hours straight! In any case, I was ready. I got to the flight line early, looking fancy for the check oral, and got my cross country flight plan from the flight supervisor, and waited for my check examiner to come get me. I sat there reviewing all of the various line items (things to cover) to make sure I knew the answer to any question he asked. Then, my check examiner came. We went to the oral rooms, discussed everything for two hours and I came out one step away from my license!

After the oral was done, I started studying for my check ride. The way to study for this flight was to review all maneuvers, checklists, and Practical Test Standards (PTS). I can tell you my Easter was different from all other years, as I did not go home and I had my check ride the next day.  I woke up at 0535 for my check ride. When I got to the flight line at 0600, I printed the current weather, filled out the performance sheet and waited for my check pilot to come, just like the check oral. I preflighted, like a boss; flew like a boss; and parked like a boss. Seriously, my parking job was the best I have seen and it was the most perfect on the line. After a 2.5 hour flight, it was time for the debrief. The first thing my check pilot said after the flight was that I had passed, which made me feel better, instead of waiting until the end to find out the result.

The next day, I picked up my temporary license and from that point on, I am a marked man. I am a pilot.

FINALS

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“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

Last week of school…ever

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This is my last week of school…ever! But it certainly does not feel like it. So many things to do and graduation still hasn’t sunk in. Fells really weird think that this i the last week ever but on the other side, it feels great! Summer break coming up with so many things planned. I got a job interview next week so we will see how that goes. For now, I am still working on my CFI to try and get it done and hopefully get hired here at school.

Feels weird that I am writing this blog after my last official class as an undergraduate. The class is not over as I still have my final to complete but as far as regular class times, I am done with all of them. I only have one final but it is going to be a hard one. It is for my Personality and Profiling class, coincidentally the one that I got out of this morning. It is going to be very hard final since we tried to learn to construct a criminal profile. It’s a very interesting class and the professor knows a lot, but for me it is hard. We will see how it goes, I want a B in it. Anyways, just wanted to share some thoughts, TTYL.

Derby Days is over :( but we raised $3800!

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So Derby Days is totally over and we raised a total of $3800 for the John Huntsman Cancer Foundation. We had a nice closing with a nice formal dinner, a Copy Cat competition, and the girls got to do a small pageant. The week was really fun and every brother participated to the fullest. My favorite event, that I got to attend the lat part of it, was the catch-a-sig event on Wednesday night (I couldn’t go because I had the best final ever remember? lol). This event is where girls chase the brothers to try and catch the for points. The team that had the most points accumulated by the end of the week, won $100 towards their team. This year the winner was the Residence Hall Association. Congrats to all who participated. I know I had a great time especially as a judge. Can’t wait until I get to see one as an Alumni, next year.

Preview Day and Derby Days!

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As Cassie already mentioned in her blog, we got to work together on Preview Day this past week which was a BLAST!!  I just loved being able to work with some of the coolest people at ERAU!  Granted my fingers did get a little tired from all the balloon tying, but hey, that’s okay!  I had a great time with Cassie and people I got to meet on Saturday, and I hope that the prospective students enjoyed it almost as much as I did!

Unfortunately I was not awake enough at 6:30 am to grab my camera so I could take pictures with Cassie, but Lauren always has her camera, so this is the Lower Hangar during the Activities Fair after my afternoon shift was over.

This week heralded in one of ERAU’s famous traditions on campus: Sigma Chi’s Derby Days!  Derby Days is a week-long competition between teams of girls (aka sororities, sports teams, etc.) and it is so much fun to be involved in anyway, but it also helps raise money for cancer which makes it about twenty times better!  All week, we’ve been having competitions and dressing up for different days of the week to earn points for our team.  I am on the Volleyball team, and my roommate Lauren is on Alpha Xi Delta’s team, so we’ve been documenting our awesome costumes together!

Sleeping Beauty and Leonardo!

Western Wednesday!

Here’s my Derby Days team (which is most of my volleyball team) with our “Coach” who is from Sigma Chi.

This is my (orange) team and Lauren’s (pink) team playing Dodgeball in our “Decathalon” portion of the competition.  THAT was fun!

Tonight, the activity was “Survival Game”, where Sigma Chi brothers would run around campus with different animal names taped to their backs, and we would have to either tag them or hit them with socks to get points (pretty much like an arcade hunting game, only it took over the entire ERAU campus!).  It was pretty epic. 

There’s also a Penny Wars portion of the competition that raises money for the cure for cancer.  Each team has a jug to put money in, pennies and bills are negatives, so the point is to get as much silver money in as you can and sabotoge everyone else by putting in tons of pennies!  The good news right now is that Volleyball has the most coins in our jug.  The bad news is… they’re all pennies.  We’ve been sabotoged already.  That’s alright… we’ll pull ahead!  And all the money goes for a great cause anyway, so either way, we win!  (However, if you go to Riddle and you want Volleyball to actually win, not just metaphorically… remember: silver coins.  Thanks!)

So the rest of this week will be very, VERY interesting, so I will update you all with the Derby Days winners at the end of the week!

“I am no stranger to healthy competition- working hard and playing hard.” (especially when it comes to working for a good cause! :))

-Richard Branson

Best Final Ever

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So I jut got home from a great final. Yes it’s late but worth it! We had a joint project between my capstone ATC class and the Electronic flight management (EFMS) class. The project was the EFMS class would fly the aircraft as the students in the Air traffic control lab controlled them. We where all hooked up via our very own Embry-Riddle Virtual Airspace (ERVA) so we all were in the same airspace (sort or like an xBox live sort of set up). So what I had to do as a controller was to control aircraft leaving and arriving into Albuquerque. It was stressful at times since you had to sequence the aircraft correctly so they wouldn’t hit each other or the ground. It was the best final I have ever taken. So much fun and the professor is soooo cool. His name is Brent Spencer and he used to work as an Air Traffic Controller for many years and always shares great stories with us while trying to teach us some good points all at the exact same time. It’s a very fun minor. Anyways, it’s late and I just thought I should share that knowledge with you all. TTYL!

Embry-Riddle Prescott~ Preview Day

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I cannot believe Preview Day has already passed by. I remember how stressed everyone was for the weeks leading up to this big day. All the staff members were working their tails off to get work done and to get things setup for Preview day. The students were working hard to get pamphlets put together and name tags organized. The school even bought us all pizza so we would not leave at lunch time. Everyone put in time to help make preview day run smoothly.

For me, it all started at 6am in the morning. I arrived on campus and went into the visitor’s center. I saw that Stacy needed help with breakfast, so I cut fruit and bagels and tried my best to help prepare the meal for the rest of the students and staff. We did not have any napkins or paper towels so I drove over to Fry’s, in the Embry-Riddle  Subaru, and picked up the few items. When I got back, there were SOOOO many employees in the conference room eating breakfast. I finally grabbed a plate and had to eat it quickly in order to make it to my morning shift.

I got to blow up balloons with a handful of people. I was super happy because one of my closest friends was with me, Liesl. And I also enjoyed our supervisors, Bobbie and Gini, since I work with them daily. The helium tank was fun, but tying the balloons was painful! My fingers got sore real quick. After we filled up a lot of balloons, we had to go throughout the campus and tie balloons up in special spots. Liesl and I were balloon buddies and got to work together. It was a blast. Most fun I had on a mandatory Riddle work day hands down. We tied balloons up everywhere!

Afterward, we helped set-up tables and more balloons in the Student Union, where all the clubs were going to be. This was also fun since I ended up starting my first trend ever this day! ERAU has these awesome airplane paper clips, and I got everyone to wear one either on their color or name tag. It was awesome! We all had a blast.

Then it was time for my afternoon shift. I was a driver. Unfortunately, I only got to drive a handful of times. It was pretty quite this semester when it came to tours. (We actually had almost 200 students and 500+ people attend Preview Day) After it hit 3PM Jason and I ran around and popped balloons and cut them down. We had some fun at the end of a long work day.

All in all, it was really long and hectic, but Preview Day was still worth it. We had fun and enjoyed ourselves, and we got to help new students feel welcomed. I would definitely do it again. :]