http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/ en-us Copyright 2009 Tue, 13 Jan 2009 23:09:27 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss The semester has gone well. All classes are fun, I really like my instructors. Classes though are hard. I'm taking Air Traffic Control, Flight Physiology, Aerodynamics, Commercial Ground school, and Turbine Engines. These are a lot more challenging especially Aerodynamics. The newspaper was off to a great start as we just had production this past weekend and the outcome looked really nice. We are getting better and better every issue. Newspaper conference is coming up and we are selecting the lucky few that will get to go with us. It will be a great learning experience and maybe we'll win an award this year for our continued improvement. I'm finishing Precision approaches and soon will be getting into cross-country flying. Little nerve racking as soon I'll be up for my checkride. Alright, time to go finish studying, talk to you all later. http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2009/01/beginning_of_spring_semester.html http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2009/01/beginning_of_spring_semester.html Tue, 13 Jan 2009 23:09:27 -0800 Breakfast Inn, a great place to eat good, cheap breakfast. That's me on the left and my brother on the right, Katelyn and way left and Taryn way right. That balloon guy was cool, made a couple of hats fr some of my friends. Mike getting his balloon hat That's me, Katelyn, and Shanda A couple of my friends having breakfast with balloon hats. Me and Gaby during New Years Eve. Great night! ]]> http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2009/01/christmas_break.html http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2009/01/christmas_break.html Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:37:49 -0800 It is Wednesday before Thanksgiving and my family has been preparing for one of the biggest meals of the year. This is one meal I am definitely going to gain a couple of pounds. I don't know if it's just me but I;m not a big fan of turkey; always thought it was a little dry. Hopefully my family puts a lot of gravy on that. The Denver Admissions Information meetings were awesome. I got to meet people really interested into coming to ERAU. I didn't do much, I only helped with the check in and answering questions at the end of the meeting. It's cool getting to talk to people and realize that it wasn't too long ago when I was looking for the right college for me. Jeni Borge, the Admissions counselor, and Jared Testa, the Chief Flight instructor, were the ones that brought me along on this trip. I was really grateful as if it wasn;t for them, I would not have been able to come home for Thanksgiving. got to see my family for the first time since June. It was a really fun trip and I am glad I got to go. Jeni and Jared had a lot of fun also. They really liked my mom's home cooking. Anyways, go to clean the house for tomorrow; fun right? http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2008/11/thankgiving_break.html http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2008/11/thankgiving_break.html Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:51:20 -0800 Ok so Halloween was ok. Didn't do much of anything. Went to dinner with a couple of friends then just hung out. Didn't go out trick or treating as I thought it would be a little creepy and weird. It's November already and I just found out that i am traveling with the Admissions office to Denver for their Admissions Information Meetings (AIMs). I will be there the weekend of the 21st of Nov. It's great becasue my hometown is Denver so i am just going to stay the whole week for Thanksgiving Break. It's going to be great. Alright, got to go, talk to you all soon. http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2008/11/halloween.html http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2008/11/halloween.html Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:47:12 -0800 Oh man, producing that paper this past weekend took forever! Using the all flash drive technique was very tedious. Also, we had to use different versions of the software for layout since the computers the paper has were all not working. I really appreciate how my staff used their own computers to read and produce the paper. The end product looked great for the situation. We got our server and one new computer this week so now we can have a much smoother production next time. School is ok, flying is fun and I am getting through it quickly and well. I'm shock myself every time I fly or do a sim doing all the things my instructor wants me to do. I just took a geography test and didn't do so well. I never thought geography was going to be this hard especially since I got an A in High School. But then again it was high school geography. It's funny because I get an A in every single homework but when it comes to the test, I blank out and don't do as well as I would like to. Same story with weather, I don't do as well on tests. I got a descent grade but I would have liked to seen it a little higher. I guess I need to study a lot more, and not put work in front of school that much. Halloween is coming up and I still have no idea what I am going to be. I was thinking either Stewie or Kyle from South Park. The only problem with doing Stewie is I have no idea how I am going to do that football head he has. I guess I have a little while to figure it out. As for now, I leave you and will write soon to tell you all more stories. http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2008/10/oct_1317.html http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2008/10/oct_1317.html Fri, 17 Oct 2008 08:15:20 -0800 ]]> http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2008/10/oct_610.html http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2008/10/oct_610.html Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:14:35 -0800 I can't believe it's already October. It's been hard keeping up with work and school but I am able to manage it...so far. Octoberwest is this weekend which is the homecoming celebrations for student, faculty, staff, and alumni. It is going to be a packed weekend full with BBQs, the traditional alumni volleyball game, and a treasure hunt. There is even a tribute band playing on friday playing songs from The Eagles; can't wait for that. Since it is Octoberwest this weekend, Horizons Newspaper is going to try and come out with a special edition in between regular issues so it will for three weeks, our bi-monthly paper will be a weekly paper. I got a good plan for editors and journalists to work together and get things done a lot more effectively and efficiently. Since I also work also in the admissions office as a tour guide, I can expect to see a lot of industry representatives come and take tours of the school. As part of the Octoberwest festivities, a career expo is held every year for students and recent alumni seeking jobs to connect with the industry. Many engineering and security companies as well as airlines come to represent their company and giving the opportunity to students to possibly get a job. We had ours yesterday and I was please to hear that I was doing all the right things to have a good chance getting an internship and later a job. Since I am still a sophomore working on my instrument rating, there were not a lot of internships that I qualified for but come next year, I should be able to apply for more. I'll write again next week and update you on how Horizons went this weekend for the Ocotoberwest Special Edition. http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2008/10/sept_30_oct_3.html http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2008/10/sept_30_oct_3.html Fri, 03 Oct 2008 08:12:15 -0800 It's been two week since my last entry and several things have happened since. To begin with, flying is awesome! I am doing so well! It's weird, it's like I already know this stuff. I am learning it all so fast and well. I am just learning the basic instrument maneuvers and the control and performance flying method. The control and performance method is using certain controls and instruments for the desired performance. It is a fairly simple concept but applying it takes a lot of practice. For practice, I did a vertical S maneuver which consists of climbing and descending at 400 feet per minute for 500 feet. This one really teaches you to fly the plane by known power settings and and brings out your weaknesses in the control and performance method. For the first time doing it, it was ok. It's just fine tuning all the things is what I need to work on. Horizons came out with a new issue last week and it is the best to date. We had all of our editorial staff there and the editing and design was great. This paper has gotten many compliments and has definitely helped us re-gain some of our credibility back. We also had more people join our team of reporters so our staff now is close to 20. This paper is definitely growing. School is going ok. Weather class is getting a lot tougher as more concepts are introduced and it has been getting hard to keep up with homework with all the work I'm doing. It's all about balancing things out. A system Im still trying to grasp before the end of the semester. http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2008/09/sept_22_26.html http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2008/09/sept_22_26.html Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:46:34 -0800 I finally got my instructor so I began my flight training. He is really cool and a very good pilot. He is part of the Standards team meaning that he is one of the pilots that gives check rides so he can give me pointers on how to be better prepared to pass a check ride. I can't wait until we get to do the actual instrument stuff. School overall, is ok. Enjoying most of my classes but I am seeing that overloading myself every Tuesday and Thursday and having Monday, Wednesday, and Friday off was kind of a bad idea. I work when I am not in school and I fly at night so my time is limited. Also, I am the Editor-in-Chief of Horizons, Embry-Riddle Prescott's campus newspaper, so that takes up a lot of my time. Last Wednesday we released a new issue of Horizons and it did not come out well. Only four out of the seven editors could make it making it very hard to complete the issue. It was rushed and did not get edited as mush as it should have been. Several misspellings, and the design was very rushed. Our faculty advisor told me that this was one of the worst issues he has seen in five years. I was really embarrassed and all these mistake caused us our credibility. It's going to take hard work to get people interested in the paper again. The good thing about the paper is that that staff keeps on growing slowly. We started out with 12 people and have already added 3 more staff writers in one week. There are a couple of people that look like they have editor potential that could help out a lot with the overall product. Let's just hope things get better from now on. http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2008/09/sept_812.html http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2008/09/sept_812.html Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:38:21 -0800 This first week of school is over. It was an overall easy week just getting to know your professors and the course syllabus and getting into swing of things. A couple of classes look like they are going to be challenging. One of these classes is Weather 301. As a Aeronautical Sciences student, I am required to take two weather classes for my degree. In the Spring, it took the first one, Weather 201, which dealt with high and low pressure systems, convergence, divergence and a general overview of the atmosphere and weather conditions. This year in Weather 301, it looks like it's going to be all that and more. Thunderstorms, radar and satellite images, warm and cold fronts, it just looks like a lot more work and memorization, but I have been wrong before. Physics looks like it's going to be ok, I did pretty well last semester so I don't think I would struggle with this course. I started my instrument ground school and this one looks like the hardest. So many more things to learn and memorize make the entire rating look very complicated. We haven't covered much expect instruments and all. Haven't start with flying due to some paper work problems but hopefully it will all get resolved by next week. I look forward to this semester, http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2008/09/sept_15.html http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2008/09/sept_15.html Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:36:41 -0800 Freshman year flew by last year and I quickly found myself on summer break; but just like school, summer flew by as well so before I knew it, I was already back at ERAU for another school year. I had come back at the end of June to take some classes in the Summer B semester and to get ahead in flight so I’ve been in school for a couple of months now. However, summer school did not feel like school at all. It felt more like a summer camp, that is, until the new students arrived. The parking lot was packed again and it was again hard to find a parking spot. Many new faces were walking around campus and now, long lines were all over campus so it took forever to get things done. Despite all these, I couldn’t wait for the school year to start. The people I met and the friends I made were special enough to make me come back. In fact, I couldn’t wait for anybody to come back so we can hang out on the lawn in front of the halls, have BBQs, and spend hours next to the grill making smores. As this year begins, books need to be bought, class schedules need to be printed, scheduling work and flights needs to be complete, preparing for another year of work, a lot of homework, great flying, and more memories need to be made. School has been in session for a week now and so far it looks like a good year. http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2008/08/aug_2529.html http://blogs.targetx.com/embry-riddle/Stephen/2008/08/aug_2529.html Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:16:47 -0800