Current Event #2

Drug Wars in Jamaica

Over the past few days in Jamaica police and military forces have been battling against gangs of drug dealers led by a man named Christopher Coke. The violence has spread from the capital city of West Kingston into outlying slums. So far, there has not been reports of violence spreading to the northern part of the island where all of the resorts are located. Jamaica is the largest producer of Marijuana and also has one of the worlds highest murder rates. Gangs have grown into organized crime networks that are involved with international gun smuggling. According to the article from the AP, the weapons arsenals of the gangs rival those of the police power, making it difficult for them to put an end to the violence. These gangs are also tied to the governering political party, the labor party.

I think it is sad that all of this violence is happening in Jamaica. When most people think of Jamaica, they think of the beautiful beaches and resorts, but they do not realize that there is another completely different atmosphere surrounding the other side of the island. I hope that the police and military forces will be able to stop the gangs and that the violence will subside before it reaches the northern part of the island where all of ther resorts are. If the violence spreads there, tourism will come to a halt and that is a major factor of their economy.

Senior Reflection #2 - College

As high school begins to wind down, I am becoming more and more excited to go to college. I will be attending Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. This means that next winter, while everybody in Virginia is freezing and shoveling snow, I will be in warm 70 degree weather. :) The campus is located right in the heart of Daytona and is right next to Daytona International Airport and only a five minute walk to the beach. I am planning on majoring in Aerospace Engineering with an area of concentration in propulsion and minoring in homeland security. I will also be doing Air Force ROTC in the hopes of becoming a fighter pilot in the air force after college. That has been my dream since I was little. If that doesn't work out, I would like to use my engineering degree to design engines for jet aircraft. What attracted me to Embry-Riddle the most was the community and the atmosphere. Pretty much everything there is centered around aviation. It is also a small campus with only about 4000 students, which I preferred over larger campuses like Virginia Tech.

Current Event #1

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37176269/ns/technology_and_science-space/
On Friday afternoon, the space shuttle Atlantis launched from Cape Canaveral on it's last mission before it is retired. The launch went off without a hitch and the shuttle made it safely into space. Today, Atlantis finally arrived at the International Space Station, where astronauts will be delivering equipment that will help keep the station running after the shuttle program ends. There will also be three space walks made by the astronauts during their week-long stay. There will only be two more shuttle launches before the program ends: Discovery is expected to launch in September, and Endeavor in November. This is due to President Obama ending low-Earth orbit expeditions and focusing instead on asteroid and Mars expeditions.

I am glad that Atlantis made it to the ISS without any big problems. I watched the shuttle launch on friday afternoon on TV and it was pretty cool to see. It's kind of dissapointing that Obama decided to end the shuttle program. American astronauts will still be able to travel to the ISS, but they will now have to hitch a ride on russian shuttles. However, I understand that the program cost a lot of money and it might be better to focus our efforts on Mars expeditions, etc.

Senior Reflection #1 - Air Show

Today I went to the air show at Andrew's AFB with my family. It is a really great event and I always look forward to it every year. Unfortunately we got there kind of late because of the traffic, so I missed the Army Golden Knights jump and the F/A-18 Superhornet demo, as well as some other performances. However, I did get to see many other awesome things like the F-16, the F-22, and the AV8B Harrier. The Harrier was probably the coolest because it can take off and land vertically, but my favorite plane is the F-16 so it was fun to see it actually fly. Of course the main attraction was the Blue Angels performance at the end. They were amazing, as usual. They perform maneuvers with extreme precision; there is only an 18 inch seperation between the wing tip of one jet and the canopy of another when they are in the diamond formation. My favorite part of their performance was when the two solo jets did a high speed, low altitude pass. They were going over 600 mph! Anyway, overall it was a really great day and I look forward to attending the air show again next year.