Finally Revealed!

it's big.
it's coming.

it's grand.
it's open.

IT'S A LETDOWN! Everybody I know has been guessing cell phone company, broadband internet, new football stadium, something COOL. Now, after all this stupid anticipation it's a home furnishing store. DUMB! I'm dissapointed, I wish it had been cool. At least they revealed it though, the anticipation didn't have to last too long. 

It's Big. It's Coming.

it's big. it's coming.
What is it?!?!?!?!? ThisCvexesHme.EICsawKa billboardOforUthisTtoday,TandHhadEnoPideaOwhatSitTmeant. ThatAwasBenoughOtoUbugTme andWmake meEwonderTwhat was bigSandTwhatUwasFcoming.FThen, to add to my frustration, as I was reading the newspaper I saw it again! I'm angry because I instantly fell for whatever-it-is's marketing ploy! I WANT TO KNOW WHAT IS BIG AND WHAT IS COMING! If anybody can help or understands my frustration, please let me know! Also, let me know if you've seen this advertisement around as well.

Poetry

I am writing this blog entry to avoid writing a poem. The poem was assigned during Humanities today. It is supposed to be 20 lines long and in iambic pentameter. It also needs to be "romantic". Not "sappy" romantic, but "about nature" romantic. I am expressing my displeasure in this assignment. Not only am I a bad poetry writer, but aren't poems supposed to be filled with emotion and deep? If I can't write a poem about something I'm passionate about to begin with, how in God's name am I supposed to write a poem about something I could care less? I've got every deterrent there is going at me right now. So, that's why I'm writing this blog. . .I don't want to have to start writing this stupid poem. I'll tell you what though, I'll copy and paste it into this blog for you guys to read, meaning I'll publish this blog, write the poem, and come back and insert the poem. The poem is below:


<><><><><><><><><>26 minutes later<><><><><><><><><>

LAKE

The wind blows through your hair, and through

The trees, making them shake and fill the air

With rustling. The red winged black bird screams

His call in short small bursts that pierce the air.

His home, a lake, lie sprawling down beneath

His nest. Its water laps upon the shore

And then slides back towards its home.

The blackbirds, beavers, trout, and deer all call

The same place home. They drink their fill and sleep

By trees that sway by wind on dark cold nights.

Lake nights, though cold, are calm, serene, but for

The small and loud green frogs that call their own

To gather, meet, and cover all with frequent croaks.

These calls, so loud and oft, keep all aware

Of danger wait. The owls do stalk, the frogs

Call warn, and morning come, the owls return.

The day breaks new with life and song, the song

From blackbirds,taking flight, who soar above

The lake, and watch its waters lap upon

The shore for all to drink, behold, the lake.

<><><><><><><><><>Poem Complete<><><><><><><><><>

Time

Ok, so in case I didn't mention it anywhere, I'm a junior in high school. I remember back in first grade that the school year seemed to take FOREVER to go by! But, on the plus side, summer lasted forever as well. Now, thinks are a little different. In fact, even compared to last year things are a little different. Last year marching band season seemed to drag on and on. Now, this year, it seems as though we've barely started even though we've been at it since mid-August. The season is over in three weeks! It went by in a blaze of marching band glory! Seriously, I don't know where the time goes.

Time goes by so much faster this year than it has in the past. We're a third of the way done with first semester and it feels like it just started. It's nice though, because I'd like to not have to live through ages of my classes. The sooner they're over the better actually. I've noticed that as I grow older, time seems to increase in speed (or velocity, w/e you want). At this rate I'll be dead and will have barely experienced any of my life because it whooshed by. So, this leads me to my final question about time and age. . .

Is time vs. age linearly, exponentially, or power"ly" related? Riddle me that!

So, this is some asian guy holding the PS3. I don't know his name, but I think he's the guy that made it or something, anyways, that's not the point. The point is that, well, would you look at the size of that thing???? O. . .M. . .G!!! That is the biggest thing I have ever seen! It's bigger than a CPU for crying out loud.

Gamecube = Tiny
PS2 = Pretty small
X-Box = Big
Revolution = Really tiny
X-Box 360 = Big
PS3 = FREAKING MONSTER!

So um, why so big? Portability just went out the window. . .bye bye, ciao! That look on that guy's face isn't a smile, he's straining under the weight! OMG Sony, what are you thinking?!?!?

 

Truman

Meet Truman. This photo was snapped of him during a marching band practice. In this picture he is modeling our lovely Sprague Olympian Marching Band jacket and a waterproof hat courtesy of Sportsman's Warehouse. This picture of Truman is being posted because

1. I have it
2. I couldn't think of anything else to blog
3. Truman needs to get his name out there because . .

Truman is a screenwriter. He needs his screenplay to be seen by somebody that can do something with it. It is very good and anybody reading this that would like to read an aspiring teenage writer's screenplay should let me know, I'll put you in touch with Truman himself.

Band Slide Show

So, the last 3 hours of my life have been devoted to a slideshow. I'm sorry to say that I fear for the construction of the Band Slideshow this year so I have taken on the responsibility of producing an alternative slideshow that will make the rounds and hopefully a lot of people will see, even if it isn't shown at the band banquet. On it so far are pictures of our show shirt, the first football game we went to, us marching at sunset, and some candids in the band room. Music is Chrono Trigger, Fantasmic!, and Blue Shades clarinet solo. There are tons of little inside jokes, some P.M.I. (pre-calc stuff), HTML code, 1337, a tri-force, thought bubbles, embarassing faces, and all sorts of goodies! I can't wait to get more material for it, it should turn out really nicely! PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU WOULD LIKE A COPY! I will give it to you! That's all for now, go and make a slideshow, they're fun!

Humanities Test Outcome

Yes, I got a 107% on this test, of which 3 days prior I new nothing about. It just goes to show that studying is so amazingly effective if doen right. I just thought I'd post an update! 

Studying for Humanities

So it is 9:00 and I have been studying for a humanities test since 5:00. That's four hours for those of you who can't count. Anyways, that four hours was probably the most effective studying time that I have ever had. I learned so much just by looking up definitions in my history book and writing stuff down and just sitting and thinking. Why haven't I discovered this earlier? I mean, I can tie The Compact Theory to Thomas Jefferson to The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and actually make sense! It's amazing! I felt so unprepared for this test yesterday, yet with four hours of intensive work I now feel quite comfortable! Colonies don't seem quite as scary now, which is scary in itself. So, I guess the point of this particular entry in my blog is simply to state that I have discovered the path to enrichment, it involves a lot of just "Sit down, shut up, and study"ing. Amazing that I haven't figured this out before. Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!!!!!! If you can tell me who said that and where then you don't need to read this blog because you already know your U.S. History. Adios, study a lot!

A Christmas Dilemma

Ok, so a situation arose today that has left me vexed as to:

What to do
Why it hasn't happened before

My birthday party was September 24th. The week before my birthday my dad said "In all honesty son, I realize you want in iPod nano, but we just can't afford it. Please don't expect one." I said ok, and I didn't mind. They're expensive and I realized we couldn't afford it. So, my birthday comes and goes, no iPod. But, I did get about $150. That got me wanting to save up for an iPod. Since my parents hadn't gotten me one and I had the money then why not? Well, then about a week later I start getting excited about buying this iPod and my parents start saying "You know the rule, no buying anything before Christmas." What?!?!? I mean, yes, that is the rule in my family, but my parents had already shown that they couldn't afford an iPod by not buying me one for my birthday, and that was only a week ago. Had they suddenly amassed enough money to purchase one? If so, why didn't they just give it to me for a late birthday present? I was completely confused, but continued on my quest to earn enough money for my nano. Just today I managed to add $20 to my pot, leaving me only $25 away. At this point, my dad says "Michael, I didn't want to tell you this, but I have an iPod for Christmas for you. I just don't want you continually arguing with us for 3 more months." So now my dad is upset because he had to tell me, and I'm upset because I made him. . .but all of it was completely accidental. How was I supposed to know, wasn't I right in assuming that I was bound never to get one since I just had my birthday and didn't get it? Why not spend my birthday money on it? It's all rather unfortunate, because now I can't buy one and have to wait 3 months to get it, and get to feel bad while waiting for it, and I have to act surprised on Christmas. Sigh. . . your thoughts are welcomed.

 

Blue Shades

Frank Ticheli wrote a song called "Blue Shades". Blue Shades contains the coolest Clarinet Solo known to man. Here is in all its glory. Godspeed to all clarinets that attempt it, it's incredible. 

Fire

Hello world! Today is Saturday, and a productive one at that. I woke up at 8:00 proceeded to prepare for my day. I left the house at 8:45 and dropped my mom off at the FIRE station where my dad works as a captain. Anywho, after that I got a hair cut and then went to a friend's house to do . . . homework! Ah, isn't homework great? Anyways, now I'm home again, home alone! Fun stuff, but it was cold when I got home, so I decided to get a FIRE going to warm up the house, hence the following post:

<<<<<<<WOOD STOVE FIRE>>>>>>>
I will now educate you city folk how to light a successful woodstove fire. Most steps are obvious, but the not-so-obvious steps are denoted by being red.

1. Clean out the ash tray beneath the woodstove (cleaning meaning empty, not scoured)
2. Use some type of cleaning solution (wet wipes, windex, 409, or just water) to clean the glass of the woodstove.
3. Open the damper. The damper, also known as the floo, allows the smoke to go up the chimney. On most woodstoves the damper lever is located on the left. Just pull it until it opens.
4. Turn on the air. The air lever is located opposite the damper lever. The air lever allows air to come from the chimney, underneath the fire, and feed the fire from below with Oxygen.
5. Place 3 wadded up pages of newspaper in the wood stove and light them. Close the woodstove. The purpose of doing this is to flush all of the cold air out of the chimney. Warming up the chimney allows your wood fire to start more efficently and quickly.
6. Open the front of the woodstove and push all of the embers from the warm-up paper to the side. Wad up about 4 full sized sheets of newspaper and place them in the center of the woodstove.
7. Apply kindlingthrough front of woodstove. Kindling is little bits of wood that help get the fire going. I use douglas fir, because kindling is only effective when it isn't a hardwood. In other words, don't use oak for kindling, but pine will work. Anyways, place about 6-9 pieces of kindling around your newspaper pile in the shape of a teepee.
8. Apply wood through front of woodstove. Use softwoods like fir and pine, and maybe maple, but try to avoid it. Don't put on round pieces just yet, only put on split wood. This gives the fire something to grip to. I put one on each side of the teepee, leaning into it, and one larger piece horizontally across the front leaning on the teepee. This front piece prevents flames directly touching the front glass.
9. Light a match. Light the center of the newspaper under the kindling. Light the edges of the paper as well if you'd like.
10. Close the front of the woodstove.
11. Now it's a waiting game. Your fire will either work or it won't. If it doesn't work and it goes out, just try again. Figure out what you did wrong and fix it. If it did work, keep on reading.
12. Wait until the fire reaches 500 degrees F. If your wood is going away before it gets to 500 degrees, put in more wood, only this time through the top of the woodstove.
13. Once the woodstove reaches 500 degrees put in some harder wood and some softwood rounds. Also, close the damper and turn off the air.
14. From now on, whenever you open the woodstove, make sure both the damper and air are on/open, otherwise you'll be filling your house with smoke.
15. From this point on, just continue to feed your fire hardwood. When it gets even hotter go ahead and put in some hardwood rounds.
16. That's it. That's how to make a successful woodstove fire.

<<<<<<<END WOOD STOVE FIRE>>>>>>>

Hope this comes in handy. Bye!

Rain

Hello, I should be doing homework (see last post) but have instead decided to procrastinate and post a blog. It may be brief because of the amazing amount of homework tonight. Now, I will discuss rain.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<RAIN>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Rain is wet. It falls from the sky. I get wet when I stand in the rain. Today, during marching band, it started raining. We marched in the rain. Although slippery, marching backwards in the rain is really easy, as compared to with no rain. Sadly, the rain was destroying my clarinet. I put my clarinet away out of the rain. The rain is good for plants. Plants grow when they get rained on, except for tomatoes. Tomatoes crack when they absorb the rain. Dumb tomatoes and the dumb rain. Are we wondering why the post about rain is in green? Because green things like rain.
<<<<<<<<<END OF RAIN RANT>>>>>>>>>

Ok, that entire post that you may or may have not made it all the way through was fairly dumb. Basically, I was just resetting my brain for the homework yet to come. It's true though, rain hurts clarinets. Just an FYI. . . .comment on rain if you feel necessary, or just because!

First Post: Homework

Hello blog readers! This is my blog. I've never had a blog before, but I'm gonna try this one out. Please feel free to post on whatever the heck you want, the more comments the merrier. This first post can be about HOMEWORK!

<<<<<<<HOMEWORK RANT>>>>>>>
As a freshman I complained about homework. As a sophomore I complained about homework. Now, as a junior, I am complaining about homework. What I have discovered is that as much as any freshman or sophomore may complain about homework, they ain't got nothing on juniors. OMG, it is absolutely insane! Remember in 8th grade when the high school students came and talked to us all about registration? "High school is so much fun, but there's about 3 hours of homework a night." Being the naive 8th graders we were, what did we think? They're kidding. They're just slow and bad at doing homework fast. This is the part of the story where I voluntarily take my right foot and insert it in my mouth. My life now consists of coming home, doing homework, leaving for marching band if I have it, and coming home and doing more homework. I actually have about 4-5 hours of homework per night, no joke at ALL! Humanities, physics, pre-calc and Stats are killer homework classes.
So, for all of those kids out there that say "Why do you stay up so late?" . . . "Why don't you just do your homework during your other classes?" . . . "Why do you make your homework so perfect, that's what's taking so long" . . . . . . . . . . SHUT UP! It's freaking hard as it is, I don't need people telling me it's easy! lol, just wait, you shall see. Take the hard classes, then you can complain about massive amounts of homework.
<<<<<<<RANT COMPLETE>>>>>>>

Have a nice evening, feel free to post your feelings about your homework load, or to post answers to homework if you are feeling generous.