RobertSchapiro.net

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Whoo hoo, ROAD TRIP!

Three days prior I received a phone call that changed my life. I was offered a job as a helicopter flight instructor, a commercial helicopter pilot, and a college instructor in Hibbing, MN. They asked me to start immediately.

With no regard to the distance, weather, temperature, and salary, I took the job. I arrived home at around 08:00 on Sunday, November 18, 2007 from my trip to Los Angeles and by 20:00 that night I was packed and ready to go.

Read the whole story and see the photos.
(Posted: 20071207)

November 11 - 17, 2007

Since I've been back from the Marines, there has been a lot of pressure on me to get a civilian job. My mother has been pushing me to get a cubical job working for NSA or Booz-Allen Hamilton. Steve Helschien has been grooming me to work with him in the field of Digital Pulsewave Analysis. I, however, had other plans. I wanted to be a commercial helicopter pilot.

In order to get any sort of helicopter job flying Robinson helicopters, I needed to take the safety course. Unfortunately there is a nine-month wait list to get in. I was registered for a class in April, but I knew I couldn't go until April without employment, so I made a phone call to the factory and spoke with a very nice woman named Nancy. I explained to her my situation and she was happy to put me in a class only two weeks away. So I booked an airplane ticket and I flew to Los Angeles.

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(Posted: 20071206)

Mirit was in town for the week and we decided to go up to Atlantic City and meet Sabrina and her boyfriend for the weekend. Unfortuantely I had to work the entire weekend, so I tried to coordinate both at the same time...

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(Posted: 20071104)

Monday, August 27, 2007

Everytime I go into The District I tell myself that I will never return. This time was no different. I hate that place. It's a shithole. And here is a list of only some of the things that are wrong with it:

• Too much traffic
• Nowhere to park
• Taxi cabs stop in the middle lane to pickup passengers
• Pedestrians walk right in front of you while you're drive 40 MPH
• Speeding cameras
• Residents are not allowed to own a firearm in the privacy of their own home
• Too much crime
• Too many lefties
• Federal tax dollars pay for the local transportation system
• Traffic circles
• Traffic circles with 6 lights just to go around the circle
• Concrete roads
• Potholes
• The Flight Restricted Zone
• There are five different police forces that have juristiction in The District.
• One-Way streets
• Streets that have the same name are not continuous
• Roads that are completely shut down to traffic as a matter of "national security"
• Taxation without representation

Read the whole story and see the photo slide show.
(Posted: 20071104)

Sunday, August 19 - Friday, August 24, 2007

As a gift for not killing Jean during our trip to Israel in July, Jean's parents invited me on their family trip to Big Bear, CA for a week in August.

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(Posted: 20071103)

This year, due to scheduling, I only had one beach trip (discounting Marissa's birthday weekend because that was a different crowd). Lori flew up all the way from Atlanta just to come to the beach for the weekend.

Thursday night Darian, Bryna, Michael, Lori, and I drove up to Atlantic City. We didn't arrive until around 03:00 on Friday.

Read the whole story, see the photo slide show, and watch the video.
(Posted: 2007/08/15)

Twenty five days in a foreign country with my best friend Jean - "Someone's going to come home in a body bag" I thought. "You are going to sleep with her," Michael (Gastfreund) told me. "She is going to cock-block you," Darian said. "You two are going to kill each other," Bryna commented. In the end, all of us were wrong. The two of us wanted to recreate the amazing trip we took on Birthright during the winter 2003/2004 session and that we did, plus so much more.

Read the whole story, see the quotes, photos, and video footage.
(Posted: 2007/08/06)

Friday, June 22, 2007

Rich has been inviting me to Porcupine Festival (PorcFest for short) for three years but this is the first year I was actually able to make it. Porcupine festival is a gathering in NH every year where people who believe that the ONLY role of government should be "life, liberty, and the protection of property" gather together to discuss politics, shoot guns, hike, camp, and discuss how to better this country by electing more pro-liberty politicians into office.

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(Posted: 2007/06/25)

Friday, June 08, 2007

Friday began the first of what will hopefully be three beach trips this summer. This time it was a different crowd. Marissa was celebrating her 21st birthday earlier in the week so we took the trip to celebrate. She invited everyone, I just went along for the ride.

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(Posted: 2007/06/15)

Every year for the last three years I take a road trip to visit my friends at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA (near Boston). This year was no different. On Wednesday night Darian and I packed up the car and headed up the road for a seven hour journey up the east coast.

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(Posted: 2007/03/12)

January 01 - 16, 2007

This was my third trip on Birthright Israel, the second time as staff. This was also my last vacation before shipping off to the Marines. While unintentional, most of this trip was a comparison to the last one in June 2006.

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(Posted: 01/17/2007)

November 17 - 19, 2006

Friday night Jean and I drove up to Atlantic City. We met David up there. The three of us headed right to the casinos and jumped right into roulette. Jean didn't gamble, David broke even (which he was angry about), and I won $260. After we got back to the apartment we decided we wanted to go rent some movies. We ended up buying Thank You For Smoking (greatest movie ever), The Ringer, Spanglish (which later turned out to be the case for Spanglish with The Grinch Who Stole Christmas inside), and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. When we got back, Darian, Dee, Michael, and College Park Rachel were back at the apartment. We spent the rest of the night, all day Saturday, and most of Sunday lounging around the apartment, playing DDR, watching movies, eating, and getting plastered. Fun for all!

See the photo slide show.
(Posted: 11/20/2006)

Friday, November 10 - Tuesday, November 14, 2006

What a weekend! I don't think I've ever crammed more fun, more excitement, and more happy memories into an entire weekend ever before. I have been looking forward to this wedding since August 2005, and my expectations were well met. Mark and Holly, while they live 700 miles away, are two of the greatest friends anyone could ask for, so needless to say, I was flattered to be invited and delighted to make the trip down to Florida for the wedding.

Back in April, I made the decision that I was going to get my airplane rating, get my instrument rating, and rent an airplane to fly down to Florida for the weekend. Around mid-September I came to terms with the fact that I wouldn't have my instrument rating in time and I feared that I would have bad weather the weekend of the wedding and would be unable to make the trip. Rather than run the risk of getting stuck in Maryland without a flight and having to drive down to Florida, I decided that it would be best to go with a flight instructor and turn the flight down and the flight back into a flight lesson (which I need towards my instrument rating).

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(Posted: 11/17/2006)

Sunday, October 01 - 04, 2006

Never in my life have I experienced so much comradery than I did spending four days as a Marine. Not in high school or college, not working as a camp counselor, not even at the firehouse. Going down to Pensacola Naval Air Station to take my flight physical was probably the best experience to get me hyped up for the Marines that I could have had.

Against my wishes, I had to fly down to Pensacola on Sunday evening. It was against my better wishes, not because I wasn't looking forward to the trip, but because it was during Yom Kippur, which started Sunday at sunset. Since there was no way I could reschedule the physical, I took it as incidental to my job, and did the best I could to observe the holiday considering the circumstances.

Read the whole story and see the photo slide show.
(Posted: 10/05/2006)

Friday, August 18, 2006

It was the last beach trip that ever was, and as it was, it was the best. Okay, so maybe it's not the last one, but chances are, it is. Lucky for me, I got to spend it with those who mean most to me.

The trip started on Friday morning. I woke up at 05:00 and drove out to Frederick. Originally I had wanted to fly an R22 helicopter up to the beach, but because the helicopter school was limited on helicopters, I couldn't have it for three days. Even so, I was at least able to fly down to Manassas to pickup Dee.

Read the whole story and see the photo slide show.
(Posted: 08/22/2006)

Friday, August 04, 2006

On Friday afternoon, some of my closest friends and I drove up to Atlantic City for a weekend at the beach. New Jersey Rachel, Mara, and Yaya drove to my house in the early afternoon because I wanted to leave early. Unfortunately I had to change oil in my car before leaving, so we were a bit late getting out. The drive up was stop and go in some areas and smooth sailing in others.

Read the whole story and see the photo slide show.
(Posted: 08/07/2006)

Friday, July 28, 2006

Every summer I like to take at least one camping trip, which is why I was more than happy to go when Kristin invited me on her trip. She planned the trip for the entire weekend, but because of my busy schedule, I wasn't able to stay longer than mid-day on Saturday.

Friday night I met Kristin at her house and she and I drove up with Kelly and Sean to Rocky Gap State Park. She had wanted to go camping at Cunningham Falls State Park, which is where we went on our trip in 2004 and I went with my other friends last year, but unfortunately they were completely booked for the weekend.

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(Posted: 07/30/2006)

Friday, July 21, 2006

I had spent all week trying to find people that wanted to go to Atlantic City. The trips are always fun no matter how many or few people we have, but I figure with only four trips during the summer - my last real summer break, I wanted to try to fill it with as many people as possible. By Thursday night, I knew that it would be myself, Dee, Darian, David, and Natalie that were going.

Read the whole story and see the photo slide show.
(Posted: 07/24/2006)

Friday, July 07, 2006

One of my favorite things to do over the summer is to take groups of people up to my parents' place in Atlantic City. The beach isn't bad, there's plenty of casinos to go around, and it gets us all away from home and the parents. This trip was a little bit different than all the others though. How? Because instead of driving, I flew up in a helicopter.

Read the whole story and see the photo slide show.
(Posted: 07/14/2006)

June 12 - 30, 2006

Two and a half years ago, I went on a trip to Israel with a program called Birthright Israel. It's a program that allows any Jew between the ages of 18 to 26 who have not been on an organized trip, the gift of a free ten-day trip to the holy land. Up until now, that was the most exciting trip of my life. Three weeks ago, I got the privilege of having that experience again.

Read the whole story, see the photos, and watch the video.

(Posed: 07/13/2006)