Taking Flight


Has it really been two weeks already? Honestly so much has happened in this week alone that I cannot comprehend it all. In terms of highlights: I got to meet Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise, I was hired by the IT department, so I now have two campus jobs (yay?), and my new quadcopter came in the mail.

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The Avion strikes again! *Angerly waves fist in the air*

Meeting Fred Haise was absolutely amazing; words cannot describe how nice and genuinely awesome he is. I was fortunate enough to meet him as well as sit-in on two of his Q&A sessions. As I sat in the audience and listened to him speak, you could feel his enthusiasm for space and aviation. He had a wonderful sense of humor, and he was very honest and open about what he talked about. If any of you ever get the chance to see him, please do yourself a favor and try to. I would like to thank Dr. Kain of the Honors program here at Embry-Riddle for allowing me to meet Fred Haise and my friend Gus Galarnyk for telling me about his session with the honors students.

In addition to applying for a Resident Adviser (RA) position, I also applied to the IT department here at Embry-Riddle. I was extremely nervous because I was never interviewed for a job before and I knew that  there were people who were way more qualified than me. With that said, I was amazed and excited when I learned I got the job. I start work on Thursday so hopefully I can work out my schedule because I’m terrible with time management. Hopefully I have the same amount of luck for my RA interview (Fingers crossed)!

I don’t know if I learned from the Quadcopter Incident of 2015 because almost immediately afterward, I sprang to get a new quadcopter and returning the old one. In terms of practical use aside from “it looks cool bro,” I really want to get into aerial-imaging (fancy schmancy for  footage taken in the sky/air.) With photography and videography under my belt, I need something to challenge myself and since like 5 guys on my floor are RC plane hobbyists, I had no problems getting into the swing of things. One of my suite-mates recently got a new RC plane while the other, who happens to be an RC plane trainer, built one from scratch. Since we all acquired our new gear on Saturday, we all went flying and it was a fun time. RC flying is definitely a hobby I can get into, and since it’s not that big where I grew up, more bragging rights for me when I come back home.

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Soccer fields are amazing great places to fly dangerous precision-control aircraft.

I can’t believe we’ve been back in school for 1 month already. What’s even more shocking is that I have friends who didn’t even go back yet! Oh well, just 3 more and I’m back in NJ. On that bombshell, I’ll see you all soon.

If hyper-linking works, he’s an outtake from our RC flying antics: Whoops

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