Stranger Things

So I was folding and putting away the two weeks worth of laundry I'd spent the last two days cycling through the washer and dryer, with my MP3 player plugged into a spare set of computer speakers in my room.
Then I notice something else...like a radio...I search my room, and it takes only a few seconds to become certain that the sound was coming from my speakers. I listened closer. Behind my Relient K, I could hear some old guy singing 'Walking In A Winter Wonderland'.
That's a feature I can do without. Perhaps the MP3 was made by a madman? Perhaps Relient K is composed of madmen? Perhaps I've skipped taking my medication for so long that I forgot I have any medication? I paused the MP3, but the old guy kept right on singing.
I've got it! The MP3 player has a built-in FM tuner. It's defective and playing both at once! I turn off the MP3 player. 'Later on, we'll conspire, as we dream, by the fire...' I unplug the speakers from the player entirely. I now have a pair of speakers plugged into the wall, with NO SOUND GOING INTO THEM. The song keeps playing.
I asked around, and checked on the internet, and apparently this is a sign that you either need to A: buy a thirty dollar radio frequency shield for every set of speakers in your house, or B: Have someone remind you to take your medication. (I don't really take any medication. I think.)

True story. I have a third theory, which I label 'C'. It goes like this: C: The intergalactic werewolves are coming to get me. I need to buy lots of canned foods and board up my windows before hiding under my bed with a shotgun.

We got the goats today. They're in the barn being goats I think. Or werewolves. Also winterized my pond thingy with a couple of gallons of antifreeze and a garbage bag. Made lots of bean dip, re-covered the ceiling in the suburban, and that was it.

SOTD: Ellen McClane - Still Alive

Mythbusters

So according to Mom, dryers emit 'positive ions'. I'm guessing she read a health book written by a psychic or something. Anyway, positive ions are supposed to make you tired. Fluorescent bulbs emit the things, as do clothes dryers.

What the heck?! Positive ions? Clothes dryers emit WARM IONS and fluorescent bulbs emit LIGHT ions. How's that for science?

So I tested this by cramming myself in the dryer and bringing a specially converted fluorescent flashlight with me to see just how long I could stay awake. There were a few problems. Firstly, fluorescent bulbs need some kind of converter/activator box thing to work, and I'm not sure if they can be converted to DC power. (the kind you get from batteries, which is different than the kind that comes out of your wall by magic) Also the dryer settings can not be manipulated from inside, as the thing won't turn on unless the door is closed.

So I actually didn't test that.
*pulls lint out of hair*

I got to skip my government/economy class today. Bethany was having real trouble understanding how a bank works. Originally, Mom asked how Switzerland maintains such a stable economy. From what I could tell from the book,s it's because they are the nation of banks.
Switzerland has been a neutral country for eight hundred years. Stays out of everyone's business. It is also an incredibly defensible area, surrounded by mountains and the entire male population excluding the psychopaths are in the Swiss equivalent of the National Guard. This makes them and ideal place to stick money, especially in times of war or other dangers.
So people and companies and countries with a lot of money stick it in Switzerland where it will be safe.
The magic of Switzerland's wealth is that money is coming into their country without inflation. There is more money all the time, but since the Swiss aren't creating it, the value stays good. (This is just my interpretation)

Anyway, Bethany wanted to know what happened to the American dollars if an American put a bunch of money in a Swiss bank. The American obviously can't keep his money, but the Swiss could only spend the American money in America. (and Mexico ;) )
But not so. I explained to her about exchanging currencies, and after trying a few different wordings, she got it. Also debunked the myth that in the back room of the bank is a little safe with her name on it where all the money she deposits goes.

Mom counted it as a government/economics credit hour.
Yeah, homeschooling.

Perfect time of year to take pictures, but the camera is slightly broken. It's fixable, Bethany just never takes the time to do it. And while we're gossiping about Bethany, it's been taking her two hours or more to get going in the morning lately. Homeschooling is perhaps offering her a little bit too much freedom. The least she could do is get started at five or six AM so she could be ready at a natural hour.
So that's why there aren't any pictures.

But Dad is buying a fancy digital camcorder, so maybe I'll start making weird movies in my spare time.

What I do during math class: ...a lot. But the funny bit was a comic a few days ago. The Persians invading Teletubbyland, with one of the Teletubbies (Popo or something gay) shouting 'Tonight we dine in hell!'.
Maybe homeschooling offers me too much free time as well.

So talk about pointless! But school work is boring to tell about mostly, and yardwork for neighbors is also pretty boring.

SOTD: Skillet - Savior

HOTD:
Some haikus make sense
This ain't one of those poems
I like fried chicken

QOTD: "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." - George Carlin

Other QOTD: "Think of how many rhinoceroses can fit in your back yard, and realize half of them potato-eating cracker salsa." - Me

Ebay Google Ads

Apparently Google no longer has the spontaneously generated Ebay ads in their sidebar. This afternoon I wanted to check to see if Ebay offered the best prices on children, and they were gone! I tried various other search queries (even some that probably really ARE on Ebay) but to no avail.

It's like the internet has suddenly become a bit darker.

Platform Jousting Video

The fourth pair in, my sister is the one in the white. In the fifth pair, I'm the one in red. I kept swinging at his feet because his defense was too good to hit him any higher, and I had to apologize constantly because I naturally wanted to jab him, which was against the rules.

Funny Things

Because nobody cares about the rest of it anyway. :)

First off, the short one: I wanted to check up on two TV shows to see when they would be on next, Prison Break and Jericho, but I kept forgetting, so I wrote a note. I was feeling a bit lazy, and the note was for me, so there was no danger of forgetting what it meant, so I abbreviated everything. After writing the note, I realized I had written to check up on "PB and J".

But what happened TODAY was even funnier. Doctor's offices are generally really boring, and getting the employees to do anything in a timely manner seems to require you to either die on the premises, or take hostages in one of the waiting room, and cut off their fingers each minute that your name doesn't get called.
Such measures aren't necessary at the chiropractor, people get in and out more quickly and the mood is generally more helpful. Also the waiting room has a large window facing the street, making it easy for snipers to shoot you if you try to take a hostage. However, sometimes they're still not as fast as they could be...

When you're in the waiting room, there's not much you can do about it but glare at the secretary and insist that 'that's all right' every time she apologizes for the delay, but when you get sent all the way down the hall to the back room to get a scan, there are more options.

Thermal scans check muscle tension in your back to see where there is strain or imbalance so the chiropractor can adjust you accordingly. Though the scanning process seems quite simple, it is actually incredibly difficult and all the nurses do their best to get out of it. (This is only a hypothesis, based on the amount of time it takes for a nurse to come to give you your scan, and may or may not accurately represent the opinions of the nurses.)

So you go back to the cold, quiet room at the end of the hall, exchange your shirt for your hospital gown, and wait after opening the door. (They tell you at the front desk that opening the door signals the nurses that you are changed and ready for your scan) They let you keep your pants, which makes sense, because most people don't keep their spine in their thigh.

Anyway, you change, sit down on their little wheeled swivel stool, and wait...I am a patient person, and when someone whose job it is to know these procedures tells me to do something, I do it, but after a while, I started to realize that nine times out of ten, the nurse at the front desk would neglect to tell the other nurse to go back and scan me, or they would just forget I was there entirely. I only came to this conclusion AFTER they sent some strange woman in while I was waiting, apparently so SHE could get HER scan. Rather than changing and sharing the stool with me, she elected to go back to the front desk and ask them why there was a boy in a hospital gown in the scanning room.

So I decided to stop being patient. I'd go back their, change, open the door, and start being cold until about five minutes were up. Then I would get creative. While waiting, I noticed that the phone in the scan room had many different lines within the office, including on labeled 'front desk'. As I expected, when I picked up the phone and pressed this button, the echo of a ringing phone came to me down the hall, and it was answered by the nurse at the front desk, telling me that it was: 'a great day at House Family Chiropractic' and asking me: 'how may I help you?'.
I explained that I was feeling cold and unappreciated in the back room with no one but the x-ray machine for company. She sent someone back and got me scanned.

But alas, this immature and lazy behavior didn't stop. Their lazy and immature behavior. Mine didn't. Because the next time they left me back there, which happened to be the next time I was sent back there, I called them again. This time they noticed the flashing red light on the desk phone that told them that they were being called from the back room. (I wasn't being super annoying, this was a few months later) They answered in a rather annoyed manner and sent someone back.

So now we finally get to today. I was feeling a bit random, so I dug through the pile of clean hospital gowns and chose a rather nice pink one, put it on, and sat down on the wheeled swivel stool. Much to my non-surprise, no one came. I was bored with phones, so I began to wonder to myself, what would happen if I rolled the stool out the door and down the hall, out into the waiting room and asked the nurse face to face why I was being neglected. The office had such nice wooden floors...I thought about it...ran it through in my head...double-checked to be sure the gown I was wearing was in fact, pink, and set off. Out the door, down the hall.

The doors to all the adjustment rooms are left open so people can watch each other be adjusted, so all the patients saw the kid in the pink gown scooting past. I stopped by the room my parents had been sent to and explained my plan to them, then off I went. The people in the waiting room all started laughing a bit, and I pulled around behind the desk right up to the nurse there. "You forgetted me." I explained. "I forgetted you?" she asked without looking up from some paperwork. (this was a different nurse than last time, and I must say, she has a better sense of humor) "You forgetted me." I repeated, then turned and started wheeling back to the scan room. She turned and caught just a glimpse of the pink gown before I was gone.

Back in the scan room, a few seconds later she sticks her head in. "Were you really wearing the pink gown? Oh wow, you really are..." and she left again, laughing.

Within thirty seconds the nurse showed up to give me my scan. Apparently she'd been 'on the phone'.

Later as I was getting my adjustment, the chiropractor said I could roll in the hall any time I wanted to. Then he said "And I thought I was going crazy."

"Sometimes you just need a crazy kid in a pink gown to put things in perspective."


In other news, the Michigan government shut down on Monday from lack of funds.
Seriously. They ran out of money, so all the officials are just staying home.
The sad part?
No one can tell a difference.

I'm curious as to what services will remain and which will disappear. Are prison inmates being fed? Are there still 911 dispatchers waiting to answer my call and send the fire department to the next street over if my barn explodes in the middle of the night?
Will they still be expecting the state taxes? Will all the toll roads be free?

Does Michigan even have any toll roads?

SOTD: Er...hadn't thought about it really. How about: Dierks Bentley - Long Trip Alone (not linking anymore for now, router being a pain)

The Flags And The Sheds

Why bother writing constantly...with school most things have gotten both predictable and busy.

The highlights of the week have been painting the garage floor with rubber paint so it won't leak and building a garden shed.

I got to use a roller. Plus I was just getting over my cold, so I couldn't smell the paint fumes at all. Some might consider that a bad thing, but I was alright with it. Plugged the trusty MP3 player into some speakers and Dad asked a bunch of questions about my trip to PA next summer. He seems to fine with everything.

As for the garden shed...can you ever have too many outbuildings? We'd made a model of the framing on the computer, but then Dad changed the dimensions and threw off the roof angle, so that became pretty useless. We spent the evenings all week preparing the foundation and floor frame, then over the weekend we built the walls. Our loft is like a Home Depot lumber warehouse, we were able to get all the wood we needed from there and barely made a dent in Dad's stash. Got lotsa blisters from hammering.

Then they all got popped in a very energetic game of Capture The Flag at youthgroup Sunday night. Was a junior high/senior high collaboration, and those events are generally very cool.
The junior highers are all really slow, and my team had more adults. Adults like to pretend they're planning war offensives, and they actually listen to each other and work together. Me being the speedy one, between a group of maybe four of us we could stage a run all through their territory without getting caught, and did so probably five times. Couldn't find their flipping flag. We got it in the end though.
What made it interesting was instead of tagging someone to capture them, everyone had two flag football flags on a belt that they wore. If both their flags got ripped off, they were out for the rest of the game. It was alright for the 'dead' players too, 'cause they could take a break.
The downside was the playing field was narrow, so getting through their borders was a trick.

Played percussion at church this Sunday. Small congregation, most people seemed really bored, but it was fun. Got to play more than I usually do. Bongos, clicker sticks, shaker, tambourine, tom, and xylophone. And a stool that sounded cool when hit with a drumstick.

Two weeks until my PSAT. Going to take the practice test this weekend, then the real deal next one. Good luck to me.

SOTD: Mathew West - You Know Where To Find Me (Don't listen to Mathew West a lot, but he's got some really great songs)

The Goats And The Skids

Last blog was...Friday, so picking up on Saturday. Built a goat-milking stand, and a very sturdy one it is. Mom got some measurements and left 'em with Dad, and he made some upgrades...when he builds things he tends to make them at least 75% stronger than they need to be. If we ever decide to try, say, milking dwarf elephants, we won't need a separate stand. I'd bet money that you could drive on the thing if it were big enough.
Then Mom showed up with a window that she wanted put in the goat barn. (that's ex-horse barn, by the way) So Dad put that in whilst everyone else helped restack the hay that had been unstacked after being...stacked, because apparently it wasn't dry enough and so the bales needed to be spread out.
I sort of ran between everyone, as, with the allergy medicine that I am now allowed to take, I can be in the barn with the hay for ten or fifteen minutes without trouble, but after that it gets uncomfortable.

Did a lot of recording, but didn't actually get anything we were happy with. I need drum heads, and our recording equipment is lousy, add to that the fact that we can both sing, but neither very well, and the fact that with one mike, we can't actually play the song together, we have to play it track by track, one instrument at a time, which ruins the rhythm. Ah well. It's a start, and it is fun to be able to hear ourselves played back.

Sunday...Church. During the Sunday School hour was a ministry fair in which all the ministry groups at work in the church tried to get volunteers. No one actually signed up for anything, as the percussion and sound equipment teams table can attest.

Sunday night was a visit to Peace youthgroup. Don't know if it's for me yet or not. Definitely fun, the lesson got really long though...sitting on the floor for an hour is rather uncomfortable, especially with the trusty back. It doesn't like to stay in one position for a long time, sitting or standing. The platform jousting was great. I might go so far as to say that mine was the most spectacular. While everyone else would just whack each other repeatedly in the same spot, the kid I was battling had a bit more variety in his style. The secret seems to be to hold the...thing near one end, hitting with the long end and blocking with the short one. Did all right. He fell first, and that's the point, so I'm told. Was surprised when the Sentry lost so quickly to some skinny girl.

Tuesday Dad brought the company truck home with a bunch of rejected wooden skids, picked me up and took off to some guy's house to drop it all off. Skids are interesting because they're all different sizes and different kinds of wood. The pine ones you can just snatch up and throw with one hand, but the oak ones take a lot of effort to get over the sides of the truck.

I think fall officially starts today.

Political Rant
So in my government class, I came across a rather long quote from Abraham Lincoln, the shortened version of which says that because the US is big and rich and populated by free people, the rest of the world combined couldn't take it by force, and if destruction be our destiny, then it has to come from the inside. We have to weaken and destroy ourselves.
So then this morning on a political blog that I read regularly there was a bunch of info that the media neglects to mention, basically how an Islamic brotherhood, and a rather large one...basically sounds like every Islamic terrorist in one big convention, released plans fifteen years ago to infiltrate our nation and our government with their people.
We're not known for our ability to prevent unwanted immigrants from...immigrating, and we ARE known for the ease with which a foreigner can climb the ladder of power by screaming 'racism' at everyone who gets in the way.
We saw the results on 9/11 when the hidden terrorist cells living in our country started joyriding airplanes into buildings and lonely Pennsylvanian fields.
It's just scary to see it all put together like that...we're being weakened and destroyed by foreigners...from within.
Governments like money, and immigrants will give it to them if the politicians make laws to make life fair or even more than fair for immigrants.
End Political Rant

SOTD - Nickelback - Far Away

Minesweeper: The Movie

Friday seems to be movie day. Today was 'Apocalypto'. About Incas or something. Very long, very boring. I realized quite quickly that if I put the movie in fast forward I can still read the subtitles, and since everything is in whatever it was the Inca spoke, there was no point in listening anyway.

'Red' is still growing on me. Friday is also 'commandeer the stereo' day, so I listened to that for a bit. Cleaned the pond pump again.



SOTD: Red - Already Over (Yeah, I'm gonna go back to linking songs. It's not as if this page is read by the masses...and it's not as if the masses don't have plenty of better places to download music. The links will die automatically after a while anyway.)

The Wind And The Echo

I think is was Tuesday that was really windy...bike riding was interesting into the wind. Even when coasting down a hill, the wind could bring you to a standstill. I love it. Fall is the perfect temperature, the days look warm, but not glaring, there's always a breeze, the colors are nice, but I like the green part of fall best. Don't get all technical and tell me when fall starts. I say it's fall.

Bethany and I have been recording some music. Right now having a mike on her guitar makes her nervous and she exchanges her sense of rhythm for some sort of temperamental roller coaster. It's getting there.

Other than that things have been pretty routine. Started science this week. It's not bad. I'm not enthralled by it, but it's necessary, and I don't know nearly enough about it. I'm dreading the PSAT.

Went careercruising. There is no such occupation as a voice actor, and I'm not stupid enough to try to get a job as an actor. There are plenty of wannabes standing in line for that as it is. Looks like my second choices are recording technician and chiropractor in that order. As a recording technician I could still possibly get a chance to do some voice work, but I can do what I already know and am good at: mix audio. Would also be involved in the music industry without being in a band, because, as with actors, their are enough bands lined up wanting to be famous as it is. As a chiropractor I could go to school for eight years and then become a doctor without being in intense or high-responsibility situations. I don't want to have someone's life in my hands, and eye/ear doctors and other things like that seem pretty boring to me. Chiropractors basic job of adjusting backs and necks is pretty simple, really, but it counts as a doctor, and everyone loves doctors.

So the point is, I can't voice act to put spaghetti-o's on the table, so I'll never be truly happy in life. :-)

And now I'll just stop because none of us keep up with these things as closely as we used to be able to.

SOTD: Red - Breath Into Me (Wow, these guy remind me of Skillet. They grow on you and they scream with style.)
Honorable mention: Trace Atkins - Every Light In The House Is On (Same old country song. Guy loses girlfriend and complains for a few verses, with a chorus stuck between them.)

The Spartans And The Persians

You'll never guess by the title what I'm blogging about...

Watched the movie '300' today. It wasn't what I had expected, but that's all right, because I had expected far less. It was a pretty cool movie, though not for the usual reasons. As a sort of opening comment though, I'm not recommending it. Whenever there was blood, there was a lot of it, and whenever there was a beheading (and there were a few) you get a very gruesome angle of the inside of their head, with their jugular spurting blood everywhere. Also, whenever they can think of a reason to flash boobs, they do so; when they can't think of any reason, they flash them anyway. It's hard to tell for sure whether that's a problem or not, as most of the men look very womanly with their long curly hair, black leather panty-things that seem to make up approximately 10% of their uniform (the other 90% are their capes), and beards. Plus they call the queen a warrior all the time.

It's a historical movie, so the plot's no secret. The directors waste no time on it. They just start out with some killing and keep cranking up the size of the opposing parties until everyone dies. It's a war movie. That's what they're supposed to do.

But at about this point, whoever was in charge took a look at the list of things a historical war movie was supposed to contain, said 'What the...', and beat it senseless with his shield.

The music in the dramatic bits is some sort of overdriven guitar and drum kit rock music. Which is sweet. I've had enough of the whiny Arab-sounding music that usually go into the dramatic parts of such movies. (though they gave in and played a bit at the end)

There were virtually no sets, the entire thing minus the actors (and not even all of them) was pretty much computer-generated. The only color ever really used is brown. Everything is always brown. The rocks, the sky, the grass, the water, the elephants, and the beards. Except for that guy who got his eye stabbed out, his was more of a yellow-ish tan color.

The combat scenes switch in and out of slow-motion rather quickly, but it's a cool effect overall. I've always liked action movies that mixed high-speed and slow-motion shots. Am I the only one who starts laughing in 'The Patriot' when, after ten minutes of dramatic battle, Mel Gibson is still running and screaming and killing and waving flags about in slow motion? Quite.

And there's blood everywhere. Lots and lots of blood. No more of this whimpy 'stab people and the camera conveniently misses most of the gory bits', every time someone gets maimed again, you get to see it in detail. It was kinda cool.

The best part of the entire movie was the sarcasm though. Sure, everyone saw the bit on the commercials where, after a Persian Emissary says 'Our arrows shall, like, blot out the sun and crap, yo?' one of the soldiers (no one every remembers the names of anyone in war movies) says 'Then we shall fight in the shade', and it's generally outrageously cool, but they say stuff like that all the time in the movie.
After battling since sunrise, the two generals meet:
Xerxes: "I find Spartan culture so fascinating. We could be great allies, and share much with each other. Join us. It is your destiny."
The Spartan King Feller (Leotardis or something. All Greek names sound the same to me): "Haven't you noticed, we've been sharing our culture all morning."

It really is quite funny. Sentry especially, you'll get a real kick out of all the sarcasm.

Oh, and the Persians had grenades.

Nothing I can say would sound cooler after that.

What I did today besides watch 300: Play Skillet on the big stereo while everyone shopped. The kitchen floor isn't nearly as stable as I had previously believed it to be.

SOTD: Skillet - A Little More

The Wheelchairs And The Hills

School has gotten almost as difficult as it's going to get all year. Still don't have my science books yet, but otherwise, everything's going smoothly. I've got lots more free time than I've had in previous years.

Math hasn't bothered with reviews this year, which has been slightly difficult, but it's coming back pretty quickly. Trigonometry. It's like an old friend. The kind you hope doesn't recognize you.
Classical languages is both fun and easy. Learning Latin and Greek roots is really useful, because with them you can work out the meaning of just about any big word you come across. Any English word anyway. You can also make up words for things that sound real and have actual relevant meaning.
I don't care for the History book's slant. If Christians were terrorists who killed everyone who didn't believe, the author would be their king. A tad too fanatical for me. I'd rather have an objective history book than a Christian-biased one. Just as with any biased history book, they tend to go overboard and only tell half the story.
Drumming is drumming. Getting fast on the bass-pedal, which always sounds sweet, and usually makes up a good portion of professional drum solos, but losing a bit of coordination with fills and time-keeping.
Government and Economy is crazy fun. That's my summer subject. Bought the books for myself and read many of them on my own time. Now I get to keep doing it and get credits for it. How cool is that?

Hair cut on Wednesday morning. Decided I've always wanted to try shaving it all off and going Vin Diesel. Perfect time of year for it, won't get sunburned, won't freeze.
So I did.
So far I really like it. Not so warm, though if I plan to sweat I need to definitely wear a hat. It'll grow back before the winter gets really cold, unless I decide to keep it this way, which is quite likely. It's great.

Stopping by the neighbor's every afternoon after school to push their daughter's wheelchair up their driveway. Sentry, you remember the McBrides, right? They live right next door, see, and I'm not sure what was the deal, but their daughter is growth-stunted, can't talk, and doesn't seem to have a whole lot of motor control. One of her parents is having back problems and the other has had some sort of massive triple-hernia surgery, so neither of them can push her wheelchair up the hill to her house. It's fun to wait for the bus with her dad though, he's really smart. Showing me how he built the hydraulic lift for her wheelchair to get into the house, or explaining ways to make environmentally-safe insecticides, or giving examples of different systems of well-pumps. It's cool.

Then yesterday Tim called up and wanted some help moving. I'm not even going to try to make sense of the mechanics of his life, but from what I could pick up, we were moving his hunting and fishing stuff from his old girlfriend's house to his new girlfriend's house, who lives across the street from me. Other than all his landscaping equipment, pretty much all he owns is hunting and fishing stuff, but he's got boatloads of it. Luckily he packs things mostly in plastic tubs, so it was really pretty easy. Hour and a half later, ten bucks richer, plus ten from last time I worked for him. He pays sporadically.
The most exciting bit was when I was backing his truck up. Was doing just fine, going slow because he loves his lawn, had it all under control, he decides to start directing me. Okay, fine, it's his house, his truck, he says keep going backwards I'll keep going backwards, it looks all clear, though one of his side-mirrors has been broken for months. So up into the garden I go, and he's still nodding like a bobble-head and waving me farther back.
Then I hit something.
He keeps directing me back for a second, then stops, smiles and nods, and starts unloading.
What the heck?
So I jump out and head to the back...he directed me directly into a large rock in his garden. Luckily for him it was the tire that hit, so no damage was done to the truck, the rock just got shoved back a bit.
He's not the sort of person I would hang out with by choice, but I don't mind his money. :)

Skipping back to Monday, drove into town to pick up some huge lava rock a guy from Dad's work wanted to be rid of. Well I've never seen a lava rock this big. If it was hollow, you could probably fit two people in it. Or one average American. It was heavy, and sharp. Dad, being the maniac he is, had to be reminded by someone to put on gloves so he didn't slice his hands apart. No one else was around to do it, so that was me. Lava rock is sharp. We still both ended up with some scraped-up arms, Dad's being by far the worst, because the guy who lived there kept trying to help and getting in the way. Between Dad pushing as hard as he could and this guy sort of stumbling around, I felt safer and more useful clearing stuff out of the way as they rolled it to the truck. The guy who lives there is cool, and really nice, but not much good at moving rocks, it would seem. Big chore getting it into the truck, ended up using ramps to roll it on.

Then once we were one the road Dad got down to the trivial business of figuring out where he's going to put it. lol. Stopped for Frosty's at Wendy's on the way home. We picked out a nice spot by the hot tub for the rock.

I'd post the really good stuff, but I'd rather y'all just be driven crazy with suspense wondering what it could be.

FTTDOTD: Walmart undercuts the American economy by carrying merchandise manufactured entirely overseas, which it can then sell for lower prices than other stores whilst still making a profit. Great idea, business-wise, but screwing the world's greatest superpower while they're at it. (Mom is a major conspiracy theory hunter, and she dug all this up) Anyway, so here's what you do. Walmart carries everything, right? So put on a black coat and sunglasses, grab a cart, and fill it with wire, wire-cutters, needle-nosed pliers, clocks, rubbing alcohol, toilet-cleaner, bleach, duct-tape, light-switches, and remote-control car parts if you can find any. Wheel the cart over towards the checkout, but don't get in line. Start digging conspicuously through the cart and fiddling with things. Make sure that at some point you start a nice loud clock ticking. Then yell 'CRAP!' and run out the door, abandoning the cart where it sits.
PS: Don't really do this, unless you LIKE jail.

SOTD: Deirks Bentley - Long Trip Alone (Cool song, sticks in your head.)

The Shooting And The Camping

Friday, brought a bunch of books to Grandma's. Had to go. Apparently her answering machine was full. She kept asking if she needed to buy a new tape. It was digital, of course, and had far more buttons than any answering machine has any business having. Had to explain to Mom that I can't tell her how to do it, because I don't know how, and I'd be figuring it out as I went.

She had unplugged it to use a different phone. I don't know why. Being unplugged for a few days had successfully wiped all the messages, so after plugging it in and recording a message on it, I was done, with seven hours ahead of me to fill. Finished 'The Good Old Days: They Were Terrible' All about...er...the good old days. Victorian-ish. Late eighteen hundreds mostly. Little House On The Prairie, etc. All the reasons people idealize it and all the horrible things about it. 'Twas actually a pretty sucky time to live, if I may say so. Sorry Laura. Was a pretty cool book, but only because I'm slightly interested in government, and because it added lots of arguments for me to use on people who are in love with horses.

Replaced the radio in my truck. Something was wrong with it, don't know what, but we keep a pile of Chrysler spare radios because they generally don't last, so now I can play all my favorite cassettes when I'm driving...My favorite is the one with a cord coming out of it. The cord that plugs into my MP3 player.

Saturday we went to a sweet new junkyard Dad's been hearing about. All cars up on blocks organized in rows by make. Just find a car similar to yours with the part you want and pull it off. They charge virtually nothing for the parts. It's kinda neat to see some of the cars, and work out why they were scrapped. Usually it's pretty easy. They've been rolled, or set on fire, or rammed or whatever. Saw a Porsche and a coupla BMWs, but no American sports cars. Boatloads of Chrysler Minivans. We were looking for hubcaps and speakers for the convertible. Ended up with seventeen hubcaps. (Yeah. That's an odd number, in case no one noticed. Dad collects them and hangs them in the barn still. Speaking of which, I need to get new pictures of the hub cap wall.) Something like ten speakers from various cars. Spent a lot of time peaking under the trunk of each car to see if they had aftermarket speakers. (aftermarket being anything but the standard ones) Also ended up with two more spare radios. It was pretty fun. Lots of people climbing around the wrecked cars taking parts off of them. The place must've covered six acres or more.

Shot the .22s. Had a bunch of old ammunition that Dad got from Grandpa. They're older than Dad. Just a tiny bit corroded. They sound different, they smell different, they're very individualistic when it comes to deciding which direction they go in after they leave the barrel. Translation: "I hit the paper again! Sweet!" They also jam a lot. Only in the semi-automatic rifles of course. Translation: (sister) "Kenny has to pull that lever after every shot? That's weird...Dad, my gun won't shoot again." Bolt-actions don't jam, boys and girls. Semi-automatics jam a lot. It was mostly the old ammo, but still. With practice I can shoot almost as fast anyway. Then we oiled them all, 'cause being stored in the basement, mine rusts fast.

Getting up at a different time than I did over the summer for school has had a rather interesting side effect. Since I always go to bed at nearly the same time, every morning I wake up during the part of the sleeping cycle where I'm dreaming, so my brain is a total mess as to what has actually happened this week and what hasn't happened. No real nightmares, but there have been a disturbing one or two. Gonna have to get up later I think, 'cause I end up being tired and confused all day.

Other events just add to the swirl of 'did that really happen?' thoughts. :D

What I've done is taken to wearing a rubber band on my arm. That way when I start wondering what's happened and what hasn't, I can snap myself. As a bonus, I get to toy with it constantly. I've already lost one and broken another, but hey.

Camped out on Saturday. Had beef hot dogs for once instead of turkey. The turkey ones are cheaper and healthier, but they generally taste pretty nasty. We didn't play 'spoons'. We always play spoons when we camp, but this time they skipped it.

Made pancakes in the morning. Had the griddle too hot, had to toss the first few. Lovely burnt shell on the outside, nice, gooey pancake batter in the middle. Also made a small batch without an egg. They looked and tasted pretty uncool. Always put an egg in the pancake mix, if for no other reason that coloring. I broke it with one hand without even thinking about it on the main batch though. :)

Took a really long bike ride with Dad this morning. The poor guy is a bit out of shape I think. Less than halfway there and he was telling me how his legs were rubber. Went all around the lake, even up a new road I haven't been on, but definitely need to take pictures on.

Then had an extreme superfast drum session toward noon. It was sweet.

SOTD: The Calling - Wherever You Will Go

FTTDOTD: Grin manically for any reason you can think of.

That Altar And Door Again

So school started. That's how all the stories start, isn't it. With school.

Pretty easy selection of classes. Some copywork for handwriting, then an hour for history or science, depending on the day. Science is anatomy (again...bleah) and history is Renaissance. (...eh...it beats cave men) Then there's math. Algebra 3, which is a sort of geometry/trigonometry highbred, only without all the useless stuff I learned last year skipped over...which is geometry and trig, so it's pretty much pointless then. Ah well. Beats history. With math I can be right or wrong. History is just there. Then there's government/economy, which is by far my favorite. It's interesting stuff. Everybody should be learning it. Then drums, and a pathetic first-grader-style Greek/Latin class.

It's getting lonely, but with school starting up, the other youth groups ought to be getting under way, so it won't be for long.

And with the start of school things have stopped happening. Trimmed back the moss roses in the garden. They've gotten huge. Everything seems to have taken hold well, except for one of the phlox plants, which is looking slightly deceased.

Taking longer bike rides, as long as possible anyway. Today's was quite sad though. It's always interesting to wave at everyone or at least nod and see how many wave back. Today, none did.

Picked up the Casting Crowns CD today.

This weekend ought to be fun. Family shooting party in the backyard, and a bit of camping.

SOTD: Casting Crowns - East To West

The Guns And The Wine

Wednesday Grandma decided she wanted to move back to her condo. It hadn't sold yet, which with the current real estate market is no surprise, and her brothers and sisters have all been saying she needs to move back and stay there for a year to complete the grieving process. Supposedly they've taken classes that tell how to deal with losing a spouse. I say everyone's different and they ought to let her do what she wants to, but she listened to 'em and packed everything up to move back. Called up my uncle to have him helped since we moved her last time. More much of Wednesday, though, she and Mom wandered around the house arguing. Grandma insisted that she had brought a case of wine with her when she moved in, and seemed to be of the mind that we had stolen it. (A case of wine? We moved her, and we saw no wine. Since when does Grandma drink wine, anyway?) So she would keep looking and saying things like, "It's so easy for things to get...misplaced when...so many people are helping you move...no, no, that's alright. God knows." Meanwhile, Mom follows her around repeating: "Mom, I didn't take your wine."

This went on for hours. It was raining (Finally! Awesome!) but I went for a bike ride anyway. Weekend before last Dad went through the bike collection and pulled out a bunch of Schwins he'd gotten from someone we helped move last winter. Now we've all got different bikes. They're very quiet, and when you coast it feels like you're being pushed. Anyway. Had to go slow so as to not get mud everywhere. Went for something like a forty-five minute bike ride. Apparently they'd worked out what happened to the invisible wine when I got back, though I did find a green worm on my arm. He must've been busy throwing himself out of a tree when I rode by.

Thursday went for another bike ride and took some pics on a new road. Yeah, fresh material. Cheers.

Almost 108th Street(5)

Aug 16, 2007

Nifty.
So skip ahead to Saturday, because besides praise team practice, nothing really happened until then, and since I didn't get to play drums, praise team practice doesn't count. The rain clouds still haven't cleared up as I write, so by Saturday it was getting to be downright chilly. Slept with winter blankets and a sweatshirt and even a nightcap. I never wear nightcaps. Especially in August. They call me cold-blooded, sure, but that's downright frigid. :)

Helped Uncle David load up Grandma's stuff. She insisted that she wanted her old TV, not one of our newer, simpler ones that we had ready to go. So I had to pull the entertainment center apart to get the TV out. The DVD in the player was a rental and it fell off of the tray inside the DVD player. Couldn't leave it in there, so I got to do some quick tech-surgery and open it up to get it out. Pretty simple inside there. Nothing like a VHS player. Anyway, got all that put back together and her TV loaded. No way Uncle David could unload that furniture himself, especially with Grandma trying to help, so I came along and we got all her stuff back into the condo. She was really confused, telling us to where to put pieces of furniture that she'd watched us bring in and set up minutes ago. She's getting to the scary forgetfulness old people get when they get put in senior homes.

We got out of there so she could unpack, and Uncle David took me geo-caching before dropping me off at home. What it is is someone will go to a park and hide a box somewhere, then they'll hide GPS coordinates around the park that lead to each other, and eventually to the box. Then they post the coordinates of the first stage on the geo-caching website. You can set up your GPS to download the nearest fifty or so, then whenever you're bored you can look up the nearest one, drive to the park, and use the GPS coordinates to find the first stage. The GPS can get you within about fifteen feet, but then you have to find it...whoever made it hides the coordinates for the next stage somewhere in the area. Carved in a tree, in a hollow log, written on the bottom of a railing, etc. It's a lot of fun. Then at the end there's a box where everyone leaves notes or business cards or whatever.

Monday there was so much rain Travis didn't go to work, so he came over and we watched movies and played video games. It's kind of a tradition to make a huge lunch and eat it downstairs too, so we made burritos and stuffed jalepinos and stuff. It was cool.

Then today I decided the router's day of reckoning had arrived.

To get warmed up, I took a shot at an old CD with the BB gun.

Didn't expect it to explode so violently!

Here's a picture of the scrap of CD that the BB actually hit. Nice dent, eh?

These are the plastic soldiers I've been shooting at with the BB gun over the summer. Collectively they've probably taken around five hundred shots. Some introductions, from left to right. Man whose abdomen is gone. Subsequently, so is everything that was attached to the top of it. Man with no head. Man who can no longer have children. Man with broken arm. Man with leg and arm shot off. Man from 'Saving Private Ryan' with a dent in his helmet. Sniper without a head.

This is a fuel canister from a framing nail gun. I was told they make a nice 'pop' when thrown in a fire or shot. He's gonna take a .22 bullet sometime today.

The router, ready to be dragged behind wild horses. Sadly, all of our wild horses are in New Zealand filming 'The Hobbit' right now, so I used the moped instead.

Post-moped. A little scuffed and muddied, but I didn't expect much more. If I'd gone any faster it would have lifted off the ground. Can't have that. Oddly, it survived a mile and a half, then fell off as I pulled up in front of the barn to untie it.

A CD after being shot with the .22. Apparently since a .22 bullet flies so much faster, the stress is gone so fast that the disk has no chance to shatter like it would with the slower-moving BB. I was hoping for something a little more dramatic. Ah well.

The fuel canister after being shot with the .22. Nothing really pyrotechnical. The bullet went in one side and out the other, there was a hiss and a small cloud of smoke, and the can flipped and flew a few feet. The can was cold to the touch afterward.

After what the BB gun did to the CD, I'd really expected a big more carnage from it against the router. Just some holes, and once the BBs got through the cover, the circuit board stopped them dead. If you shook it, they all rattled down at the bottom.

The .22 wasn't much more impressive. The holes are about the same size.

However, this time they did make it through the circuit board. The exit hole is rather shredded-looking, meaning though the bullet punched through, it slowed down a lot. Circuit boards are tougher than I'd thought.

Took a few shots with the .22 at the soldiers. This guy is lying out there somewhere with no legs.

And this guy flew backward so hard the tack tethering him to the board ripped out. Rather forcefully I might add.

After tossing the router up in the air and hitting it with a baseball bat. The front cover popped off, but that was about it. Not enough resistance I guess. Dang this thing is sturdy!

After lobbing the router off of the roof. The back cover came off. Now we're down to just the circuit board.

Sprinkled a few tablespoons of gas on it, used a lighter to light one of those 8"-long matches (the long ones don't light on the striker 'cause they're too old) and ignited the gas that way. I don't play with gas often. It keeps me cautious that way. It was pretty fun to do though.

All I get in return. A lightly charred circuit. Last time I burned plastic (the old vacuum) I couldn't put it out. Whatever they make circuit boards out of, I intend to line a coat with two layers of it. I'll be impervious to small-arms fire, fire-proof, and it won't weigh much at all.

After burning it I was feeling kind of down. Not nearly enough destruction to pay for its crimes. Then I thought to myself, hey, we DO have bigger guns. Went up to Dad's gun cabinet and selected this break-action 20 gauge. I was too chicken to touch his precious 12 gauge, besides, it's scoped for a hundred yards or so, so hitting something this close without iron sights would be difficult. In the picture you can see two shotgun shells, the yellow-tipped one is rabbit-shot, something like thirty-five lead BBs packed into a shell along with a bunch of gunpowder, designed for shooting a spread of small shot at fast-moving critters so if you're not a professional sniper, you can still kill them. The second, gray-tipped shell is a slug, meaning it's a big-butt bullet with a boatload of gunpowder. It's the kind of bullet that makes a real mess when shot at something.

I fired the rabbit-shot first. It was louder than I remembered a 20 gauge being. Should've worn my eye and ear protection I guess. It did do quite a number on the board though, sheared it right in half. At least I think it was in half. I could only find these two pieces, as the entire thing was blown away into some tall grass nearby.

After lining up the two pieces on in front of the other, I shot them with the slug. Pretty anticlimatic after the rabbit-shot. Punched a hole through both boards big enough to stick your thumb through. I was hoping for an explosions with shards of plastic flying every which way, but I called it good enough.

I must be some sort of redneck/geek hybrid. That was fun. The whole process took about two hours.

SOTD: Skillet - Savior

FTTDOTD: Save interesting things to shoot at and/or blow up. Then shoot at them and/or blow them up. Take photos.

The Altar And The Door

So my passport came yesterday. Yeah. It's like a book with my picture in it and lots of patriotic pictures and scrawls that I'm guessing are supposed to be inspiring quotes by the founding fathers in a classical handwriting style. It's only five weeks after I needed it...and two months after I was supposed to have it. Ah well. I guess I know to get a passport a year early if I need one again. This one will be outdated by the time I need another. Was pretty funny.

Then I cleaned out a really nasty trash can we had in the garage. Pretty boring day, overall. Most of it was getting Dad's computer sped up. He goes on about how the computers at work are...*snaps fingers and says 'bang'* this fast, and how ours are ridiculous. Theirs also cost over a half a grand more than ours did, but that doesn't get figured in. Anyway. It's a special challenge to make relics smoking fast.

Today did a bit of weeding in the garden...wrapped up the computer maintenance. Now I'm off on a bike ride, I think. Added some power steering fluid to my truck. Overfilled it. Oops.

The new Casting Crowns CD comes out in two weeks. So how did it end up on the pirate music networks? I don't know, but Mom's had a copy reserved all summer, so technically I own a copy already, meaning I can download it and not care.

As always, it's amazing. The title track is my favorite so far.

SOTD: Casting Crowns - The Altar And The Door (It's about how inspired and excited and empowered and broken you can feel in a church, and how fast it can disappear...between the altar and the door, see? It's awesome.)

Bonus Awesome Thing Of The Day: A preview video on Youtube with snippets of some of the songs and an interview with Mark Hall, the lead singer of Casting Crowns.

Morning Bike Trip

143rd Street(18)

Aug 10, 2007

The Last Little Frog

Wednesday started off with a visit to my Grandparents' house in Grand Rapids. They've been cleaning their basement, and there was a big pile of old tools and stuff for my dad and I. It was fun to go through them with Grandpa telling stories about everything. He worked at Learjet a long time ago (Learjet is basically the standard for rich peoples' private planes) and so he has some very interesting precision tools.

Then trimmed a few branches with those saws on a stick. They're okay, except they're never long enough, and you get small pieces of trees falling on you all the time, with a few not small pieces of trees thrown in to keep you on your toes, which is difficult to do on a ladder. Which is also always just a little too short.

Then we stopped by a cell phone joint to buy minutes for Dad's cell phone. It's cheaper to buy phone cards than to buy in on a network, apparently. Much cheaper. If you need your phone to check emails and take pictures and open garage doors and make strawberry pie, it doesn't work, but if you want to, I dunno, call someone or something, it works out alright. So apparently all you can buy in cell phone stores are holsters. Lots and lots of holsters. Holsters are the shoes and purses of the future. Women will have a different cell phone holster for every outfit.
God preserve our souls.
That's assuming you can understand the sales representative, of course, which I couldn't. He seemed pretty disoriented and Italian and thought he worked at McDonalds, though it took him a few tries to pronounce that right. Helpful guy though. Pointed us to a gas station...a place that sells refined decomposed dinosaur for combustion in cars...because they sold cell phone minutes. I'm still looking for a good coffee shop that sells plywood in 3'x8' sections.

Then we went home and took the van apart. The brakes are locking up, and for some reason Mom has a problem with driving a car that veers toward the shoulder without warning and smokes and smells like a power grinder attacking a pile of rubber ducks.

I always was good with similes.

Thursday morning was breakfast at a small time farmers' restaurant. We go there a few times a year. Lots of good food. Lots of people talking about cows and tractors and corn. It's cool though 'cause everyone who eats there knows each other, and gladly welcome new people into their little circle.

On the way there we drove down a really cool road that I'm going to have to take pictures on. It's got a pond next to it, some cool big hills, all in the 'dirt road tunnel through green woods' style.

From there we went to the fair. Everyone else claims that we stopped by Travis' pigs in the pig barn, but I can neither confirm nor deny those rumors, as with fairs come animals and with animals come tuna salad, and with tuna salad comes hay, which makes my nose run really watery snot, eyes water, and just this once to make things interesting, my face swell up. Then I got a headache, and felt like I was outside in the snow on a sunny day, everything was glaring...even though the sky was one big mass of clouds. My favorite part was towards the end...actually my favorite part was right AFTER the end. When we were in the car going home and I could see and my nose desolidified.

Then today we vacuumed out the pond. First time using a vacuum on water. You can't do it with any vacuum, gotta have a special wet/dry vacuum, but it's pretty sweet. The frogs didn't think so. One of 'em jumped into the bucket at the bottom of the pond, then as we vacuumed out the water, he realized that he couldn't get back out. Luckily for him, he eats mosquitoes, who eat me. We rescued him. So now the pond water is clear again.

Then the van started smoking and locking up again. It's old and no one loves it any more, what with the sweet nine-seater truck and the convertible. Dad's now blaming the bearing in the front axle.

Over the past few days my sister and I have gotten a song worked out. A Johnny Cash song that's simple, but still interesting to play. Bethany disagreed with some of the lyrics, but that was an easy fix. Now that she's got a pickup for her acoustic guitar, we can come up with some pretty cool sounds playing around with the equalizer and the overdrive on her amplifier. Did a bit of harmonica fiddling. That was about it.

SOTD: Johnny Cash - Hurt
Honorable mention: Elvis Presley - A Little Less Conversation (JXL remix)

FTTDOTD: Stand next to something expensive and then try to twirl a drumstick.

A Long Time Gone

Been a week since I blogged? I am so irresponsible, neglecting my loyal readers like that.

The weekdays all happened one after the other in standard order. My shower was cut short Saturday morning. Travis was having trouble loading his pigs for fair. By the time we got there, he was through though...Friday at 11:01am, they will become the property of someone who isn't Travis, and their money will become the property of someone who is, who will proceed to pay all the pig feed debts he's been running up over the summer. The bigger two pigs anyway. The small ones are ideally going to be the star attraction of a neighborhood pig roast.

From there we took the top off of the convertible and went for a casual drive around Wayland. Stopping at flea markets and hardware stores and the like. I bought a lighter and a jug of 'The Works' toilet cleaner at the hardware store ('The Works' is the main ingredient in pretty much the most popular bomb used to blow up mailboxes in the early mornings) and also asked if they carried potassium nitrate...I think if I hadn't been shopping with my dad, they would have arrested me. Potassium nitrate isn't super dangerous, but it sounds so. I intend to use it in a sweet smoke grenade recipe I found recently.

As for the smoke grenades...I have many pranks planned for them. Making the neighbor guy's truck smoke...taping a couple to a model rocket and launching it over the lake, sticking it in the fridge so when someone opens the door it's full of (non-toxic) smoke. Fun stuff.

Stopped by to say hello to one of our old neighbors. He said hello back, and a boatload of other stuff that took around twenty minutes to wrap up. Yeah, he hasn't changed much. He's nice though.

Sunday, forgot to set my alarm, but was awakened by a dream of operating the sound board...my brain has it's shortcomings, but sometimes it pulls some pretty sweet stunts. Didn't have time for a shower, but I got there on time.

VBS got better towards the end, the songs grew on me, as always, but it still wasn't nearly as good as the previous years. It was kind of sad too...each day of the VBS week had a main point. Whenever one of those points was mentioned in a lesson, the kids were supposed to yell 'tell the truth'. Poor things were so brainwashed and confused by the end whenever someone would say something, they would start hollering 'tell the-...oh'.

Sunday afternoon was my little sister's birthday party. She's three. The crazy uncle who always has a cool new 'toy' and is skilled in just about everything had a pair of bb shotguns and a nitro-powered remote controlled car. Now Dad wants one. I've got connections, we'll see, might actually be able to get him one.

Today was Michigan's Adventure, the local amusement park. (maybe not so local...two hour drive) The lines were longer than I remembered. Still had fun though.

SOTD: FFH - Follow Love (Inexplicably sad song. FFH is marked as downright cheery, competition for Relient K, then suddenly a sad song such as that one over there. Ah well.)
Johnny Cash - Hurt gets an honorable mention. If you haven't heard it, give it a try. His songs have a very unique style to them, but then each one is very unique by itself. 'Hurt' is about regretting drug abuse and cutting and stuff.

FTTDOTD: Don't keep all your appendages inside the ride at all times. Then when your appendage gets automatically confiscated by the mechanics of the ride, you can sue and give the money to your lawyer.

Scratch that, become a lawyer.

Eat Your Dinner. It'll Make You Grow Up Fat And Lazy.

Saturday, bike ride, covered the last unexplored roads I can get to without crossing a main road. That's against the rules here, it seems. The government trusts people of my age alone in a block of metal doing sixty-five at night, but apparently biking in the day time is a no deal. Sentry, you've seen what the traffic is like out here. You don't see cars. It just doesn't happen.

Dad got home, checked the brakes on Grandma's convertible. Dad is going to buy it from Bethany, it looks like, because it's better on gas. (Whatever. It's a convertible sports car. Be honest.) Then we'll just not replace the van when it dies.

Sunday, dug up the hose in the garden. The water is flowing very slowly even though the pump is clean. Turned out the hose was smashed by the dirt. It was also kind of long, the less water the pump needs to be pushing, the faster it can push it, so I cut the hose down and buried it much nearer the surface. Getting five times the water flow now.

Monday I was bored, so I sat out by the pond with a bucket of rocks and a bunch of green glass chunks and built dams and waterfalls and stuff for like an hour or something...The basic elements are just so attractive to people to play with...dirt, water...fire...

Spent a lot of time reading. The last Harry Potter, and a couple of Frank Perettis. The last 'Potter' wasn't as good as the others. Very drawn out, and lacking the surprising plot twists and fun new characters that the other books had. I suppose it's gotta be wrapped up somehow, and it was still a fun read.

Someone let a few squadrons of flies in a while back. Most of them have been killed off, but there is one flying around my desk right now making a nuisance of himself. Has anyone actually used the electrified fly swatters? Do they work?

The new MP3 player showed up a few days ago. It's an Ipod minus fifty dollars. Enough memory that I've copied all the music I want onto it and I've still got empty space. Put on the few music videos that are worth watching, and the Jesus/Terminator spoof. The volume could go louder, and an AM tuner would be nice, but it works.

VBS wasn't so cool. The leader messed up the schedule quite badly, skipping things, adding things, expecting me to have music and video cued up. Put pretty much everyone on the spot...then she started talking halfway through a skit DVD...she felt bad afterward. It's not as crazy as I'd expected, but I've got an assistant, which helps a lot with all the video work that needs to be done constantly. Overall it's been a let down. The first two years were really brilliant, and last year was pretty cool, but it's going downhill. I probably won't sign up again next year.

My summer to-do list doesn't have much of anything on it, except for the really really boring stuff, and not much of it. Ah well. At least it's almost all done, rather than being made and then put off and none of it getting done.

SOTD: Tree63 - You Only

The Day When Grandma Moved In

Saturday was spent mostly taking down a horse fence. The guy who lived there was selling it for basically 10% of what it was worth, plus he used his loader to pull out the t-posts and stacked 'em for us, basically all we had to do was coil up the wire (high-tension steel wire does NOT coil, and if you drop it, it'll fly everywhere and probably slice your eye out) and pick everything else up. Now we have somewhere to keep our invisible horse. My prediction is that we'll get two next summer.

Then Sunday went to Kentwood Christian Church, because Aaron Shust was there after his concert at the Ionia County Fair on Saturday. We got there an hour early just in case, turned out to be about the same size as our church, congregation-wise, but the crowd was younger, and the church was fancier. Huge windows, high ceilings, two projectors, etc. Dad was talking to a guy while we waited, and he ended up being a tech guy. So while the sanctuary was closed off during Aaron Shust's warm-up, I got to watch and check out their sound system. It was big and new. No way someone could run it all by themselves.

He played load of songs. His band wasn't there, so it was just him and his guitar, but it was still pretty cool. Got sleepy toward the end though.

Then went swimming in the neighbors' pool for the first time this year.

Monday the biggest thing I did was take a bike ride in a different direction than normal. Took a few pictures, but the camera isn't here right now...I'll try to add pictures later today.
Also went to Grandma's for a load of stuff and some polyurethane. Aha, finally spell check is of some use and teaches me the correct spelling. That stuff is fifty bucks per one gallon bucket, and they gave us the wrong stuff into the deal. Stopped by the post office to send off a bunch of books. They took my money and my books. The feeling goes away when I get books back though.

Tuesday wasn't all that fun. Nothing I did was fulfilling. Found out later it was because I had skipped breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Probably had no blood sugar or something, so before bed I ate a huge chunk of chicken with ranch and a bunch of chocolate. Was downright giddy after that, but still tired.

Drumming skills are falling apart on me, but that means I'm about to learn something cool and new. I don't want to learn something new. I've gotta play drums at church this Sunday. Did have a fun jam session with my sister and my dad at the end of the day though. Gotta get a keyboard in with the other instruments, 'cause Dad is a wicked awesome piano player, with or without sheet music.

VBS practice. It's not gonna be much good this year. The lesson is too retarded to fool even the kids, the actors on the skit DVD are like they're trying to brainwash three-year-olds. Also there are like half a dozen CDs and DVDs with as many as three needing to be played at once, as well as powerpoint. Switching the screen between video and powerpoint is a very slow process as well. It's not going to go well.

SOTD: Skillet - Whirlwind

And I forgot another great fun thing to do of the day. Ah well. Cya all.

"Crack" said the little blue palmpilot.

Movies: The Last Mimzy. Don't waste your time. One of those children's movies that is too deep for the short ones to enjoy, but too childish for the tall ones. The back story was kind of interesting, but the actual movie was not. Plus they had that guy from 'The Office' playing a serious character, which was depressing to watch.

Today being Friday, we packed up pretty much everything at my grandma's house besides my grandma. And some soup and a TV to watch 'Jeopardy' on. Not much of a story there. We just...packed it. Did get a nice piece of writing done though.

The palmpilot is the MP3 player. Trouble is, without a lock switch, it does crazy things when you put it in your pocket. A major use for it is for music to drum along with. Balancing it on your knee isn't an option, because drummers are basically running laps with their legs back there, what with those foot-pedals to stomp on all the time. So the safest place is on the floor tom, the big drum on the far right that is flat and rarely used.

So you drum. You flail all over the place until a drumstick catches your headphone cord.
The MP3 player is yanked off the drum.
It falls.
The touch screen connects with the foot of the drum stool. (drummers call it a throne, I hear)
The screen doesn't work anymore.

So now I'm just going to break down and buy an MP3 player. I'd use it enough to make it worth it, and it would last longer than the palmpilots did, not having touch screens. They're smaller, the batteries last longer, they play videos, etc. Sansas tend to be fifty dollars cheaper than comparable Ipods, and according to the most trusted shopping sites I can find, they're just better in function. Maybe not in design, but whatever. I know a few people who have them, and they're all very happy with them. So. Good-bye money. I guess I'll be putting off new drum heads even longer. :-(

Sister bought the new Aaron Shust CD today. It's cool. She also saw a sign in front of a church claiming that Aaron Shust was going to be there this Sunday. She's looking into it.

Was going to work at Best Metals weeding some more tomorrow, but Dad is going in really early, and we've got a horse fence to take down and move tomorrow as well. He's starting at like 2am, and with weeding requiring a constant crouching position...I'm just not going to push it. Last thing I need is to spend another week as a cripple.

Plus to school starting: other youth groups in the area will start up again. I'm going to go shopping for a new one. My old one doesn't work any more and even I can tell I need to get out some.

SOTD: Aaron Shust - Give Me Words To Speak

Too Dark And Rainy For Good Pictures

Long Bike Ride (17)

Jul 16, 2007

...And the Walmarts stretched as far as they could see in all directions...

Got up at three so my dad could drop me off at Scott and Misty's on his way to work. From there I helped pack the van until everyone showed up. We left about a half hour late, which was actually later than my excessively pessimistic projection.

I think I had the most bags, but I also had flashlights and knives and duct tape and watches that were borrowed by pretty much everyone at some point, so I consider my extra luggage justified. Next time I'm bringing my briefcase for stuff I want to keep in the van like snacks and books and medicine. Plastic bags don't work well.

Scott or Bob had built a small entertainment center that fit between the front seats of the van so everyone could watch TV. Was probably the best idea anyone came up with on the entire trip. This way we could be tired and packed in a van full of slightly smelly people with butt cramps from sitting for too long AND watch a movie all at the same time. The distraction was very appreciated. We watched Monty Python and the Quest For The Holy Grail first. It was quoted at every opportunity for the rest of the trip. 'Liar Liar' was watched twice because it was so funny. Then there were a few action movies on the first day of the trip but Misty has some weird ideas about what movies her kids can and can't see. Swearing, sexual references, and drug use are no big deal, as well as killing animals or severely injuring people, but killing people in defense of something noble is out. It sucked. We quickly ran out of interesting movies that fit the criteria and moved on to animated children's movies and horsey flicks. The worst of all was 'Baby's Big Adventure' or something. Yeah, use your imagination.

Saw a house that looked just like the one from Secondhand Lions. Great movie, by the way.

Saw a rolled over semi truck. Passed a prison. Halfway through Indiana everything just got flat and stayed that way. It looked cool, seeing fields out forever with houses and barns scattered in around them.

Stayed at a hotel. Had the theme dinner complete with Napoleon Dynamite music and wigs. Four guys, two beds. The other guy in mine required all but a modest eighteen inches or so at the edge. I made sure to make him feel bad about it. He volunteered to sleep on a cot for the rest of the trip.

In the morning we had breakfast at the hotel and this grubby guy comes in and starts spinning this story about how he got a flat tire and then ran out of gas up the road and could he please have five dollars and in exchange he would let Scott hold the title to his car while he went to the gas station. Scott gave him the five, the guy went outside, climbed in a car and drove away. For a scam to get five dollars though, he must've really needed it for something, and it wasn't enough to buy drugs in any substantial quantity, so whatever.

The second day was longer, and pretty much entirely in Texas. Texas is bigger than it looks on the map. The highways get up to twelve lanes, I kid you not, with a dozen highways and ramps curving amongst each other a hundred feet in the air. FRom Arkansas all the way down there is pretty much one dominant gas station chain: Love's. They're everywhere. Almost as thick as the Walmarts. It's kinda cool because prices on gas and snacks don't vary.

So finally at two in the morning we cross the bridge onto South Padre Island, where we'll be spending the next day and night: Saturday. The campground is closed. We can't sign up for a site. We drive around, the hotel was either too expensive or too full. End up sleeping in a church parking lot. The mosquitos come. They don't leave.

Wake up, eat breakfast in the campground parking lot this time while we wait for it to open. Sentry kept calling the palm trees pine trees. It was making her mad. Zach asked me to climb a palm tree to get him a coconut. Had to do some explaining about what grows on what tree.

Fed the seagulls.

We got into the campground and decided rather than setting up tents and renting a cabana (a sort of one-room house/hotel room on the beach) we should just get the cabana and pack everyone into it. So we did. The parking lot was in front of the cabana, the road was in front of the parking lot, the beach was in front of the road, and then there was the Gulf of Mexico.

Everything in Texas/Mexico starts at ten AM. Stores open, people go to the beach, etc. WE goofed around on the beach before that, went back, had lunch and a nap. With all the cots set up there was zero floor space. The bed had two people on it, the bunk bed must have had six or so, and all the cots and mattresses were edge to edge wall to wall. I read my book. The Sentry tried her hand at miniature origami.

Three hours later.

Everyone wakes up, we try the beach again. No more 'only people on the beach' for us. It was packed. Could barely walk between the towels. At this point the airhead blond ex-goth turned almost-a-prep decided she was bored and needed something to flirt at. I was the only thing in pants of the right age, the other guys being twelve or so. It got old in a hurry.

The ocean shredded one of my shoe laces while swimming. Gotta have shoes on to protect from invisible jellyfish. Got it unknotted, and it can still be tied, but it looks weird now. Smells funny too courtesy of the salt water. Everyone learned that the water in the public shower is reused only after they had rinsed their mouth out with it.

The theme dinner was good. We ate from bed pans.

Went on a crab-hunting expedition after dark. Brought the crabs home in a plastic tub.

The next morning, we went to church where we had camped out when we arrived. It was a congregation of old people, and I think they enjoyed the change in routine. The pastor played the accordian in one of the songs.


Drive all morning. Get to McAllen around noon, I think. Turns out rather than camping out in a gym, we get a guest house in a compound. Fences, gates, barns, sheds, houses, guest houses, camper trailers, underground sprinklers, and cactii. The youth got an entire house. It was so cool. Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, all stocked with towels, washcloths, pillows, blankets, vacuums, food, books, movies, games, etc. It had AC too.

Hurt my back as soon as we got there. Was worried for a bit, but after an hour or two it was good enough to move around normally again.

Went to church at a Spanish church across the street. They spoke Spanish. They sang in Spanish. It had some really cool parts, mostly the singing when we sang in English and they in Spanish but the majority was generally boring. At this point I am very tired of writing.

Computer setup. Mislabeled cables. Took all day instead of two hours. One computer blew up when I turned it on. Smoke, sparks, crackling, etc. Wednesday night Spanish church. Zach tried to give me permission to ask his sister out. Had to explain repeatedly that I had no plans to do so. Randy writing a story. Got to help him out a bit with that. He's excited, as am I, because his writing style lacks detail and description, which is what I love to add.

Yard work, mowing, weed-whipping, etc. Dave, the missionary who runs the joint cut part of his finger off with a machete while cutting new string for the trimmer. Found it a few days later and I think the doctors ended up putting it back on after all that time.

Drive home, watched gay movies. Get there at like 11:00 PM.

SOTD: John Cale - Hallelujah (Takes the tune from the hymn and adds verses to it. Pretty cool.)

Migration

Started feeling better on Sunday. Luckily the chiropractor is a really beyond decent sort of guy, and he came into the office twice after hours for extra adjustments. Really helped.

So now instead of just sitting around I can do a bit more. Took some bike rides, did some reading. Comfortable positions for reading are not comfortable positions for cripples. Got the bench router out and made some plaques for wood burning. The disks of wood weren't working well at all. Set up a projector that would let me project what I wanted to burn onto the wood, then trace it with a pen, so the burned images are more accurate. Did some room cleaning which I couldn't have done before.

Then last night, did a bit of loading for the Texas trip. Cheers to you, Sentry, for doing it all afternoon.

Also found out that Flickr only allows two hundred pictures on a free account. They neglected to mention this when I signed up. So I moved to Picassa, which has a very cool feature: mapping. I can stick all my pictures on a local map so you all can see where they were taken. You all being Sentry and Doodle, who already know where I live. To anyone else, we have guns. Lots of guns. All over the house. Go away.

So now instead of posting photos in my blog, I'm going to link to a Picassa album.

SOTD: Sanctus Real - Things Like You (On the topic of Music, Casting Crowns, favorite band of my family, is releasing a new CD this summer. My mom already reserved a copy.)

FTTDOTD: I had a great one a few days ago, but forgot it.

Photo Album Of The Day:

July 4th (6)

Jul 3, 2007

Back In Back

National Guard isn't going to happen.

My back got worse today. Wasn't doing anything, just suddenly sitting became painful. I've spent the majority of the evening lying on the floor to keep my back supported. Even sitting up to type this kills.
Before, on a normal day, I could have done it. The physical training and all that. But if I wake up on day two of basic training and can't put my boots on, let alone do push-ups and run around with a sixty pound backpack...This has made it obvious that whatever happened did not heal, it just went away for a while, and if it came back once now, it's going to come back again later.

I walk around and think I feel okay, then I lie down. Then I realize how much effort it actually took me to get there, and that I can barely move myself into a flat position.

So I'm not joining up. I can't even rely on myself and it sucks.
I haven't felt this down in so long that I can't remember the last time.
I'd kick something or go for a bike ride, but, well, I can't.

SOTD: Lifehouse - You & Me

EDIT: Here's an idea of what it's like right now. I sneezed a few minutes ago. The jolt from the sneeze was enough to make me fall down onto one knee.

Revenge Of The Spinal Fiend

So I haven't posted because I've been crippled. Saturday, my dad and my sister and I were loading up all the larger tools we had used on the roofing/deck-enclosing project into the smallest of our fleet of trailers. He mounts his saws to tables, which makes them easier to work at, but a lot harder to move. This particular table was not very well designed, and you had to lift it from the very bottom whilst balancing the top-heavy ensemble lest the saw fall over.
My back decided it wanted a week or two of vacation. It hasn't hurt this bad since my famous sledding crash a few years ago. Walking from one end of the house to the other and back hurts. Can't bend over to put shoes or socks on, have to sort of twist my leg sideways to get within reach. Obviously can't lift or carry very much. Have to sit on the floor to get into the bottom of the refrigerator. I'd expected it to go away by now, but it hasn't. I know how these poor people feel who are stuck in a wheelchair with exception of still being able to use my legs.. Just so many things you can't do, moving yourself around with your arms as much as possible, etc.

Tried to work at the neighbor's for a while on Monday. After an hour and forty minutes of hauling rocks, gave up. Since then I've spent pretty much all day every day in my chair here. The only physical thing I can do is play my drums. They give everything a workout except my lower back, which is perfect.

Back to Saturday...the siding on the back deck is finished, and when we stopped at Menards to get some more sophet/soffet/Idon'tcareit'sanalluminumsheetthatgoesundertheeaves I also bought a much bigger pump for my garden, along with the stuff to make a filter cage. So now that's running. My sister has the camera today, so no pictures.

Went to youth group on Thursday. That was a mistake. Me, my sister, and my fan club, the WatsonAlexanderAbbotShooks. Even their two-year-old daughter stares at me constantly. As soon as anyone has a plan for getting them to turn on me, I'll buy it from you. The event was at a nearby lake. They brought hot dogs, but no mustard. A charcoal grill, but no lighter, and a can of beans, but no can opener. Dan and Laci must be under a lot of stress of something.

And now today.

BOTW: The band of the week, since I haven't been posting regularly, is Lifehouse. After Casting Crowns and Skillet, they are my favorite band. Similar sound to Sanctus Real, kinda. They have a lot of those songs that play in the background on TV shows that you never pay attention to.

FTTDOTD: Take me to a wheelchair dealership that allows test drives.

EDIT: Finally learned to swallow a pill today. Write a chapter in 'The Tale Of A Pathetic Person' in my honor, Sentry.

Invisible Fences Make Good Neighbors

Haven't blogged much because haven't had much to...blog. 'Blog' should not be a verb.

Been work. Monday was all errand-running. Got a bunch of library books. It feels good to be able to grab a good book and read whenever I want to. I've missed that since finding books got more difficult. Read 'em all, I like to think. :-)

Book sale for homeschoolers as well. Bought a bunch of the 'Uncle Eric' books. They explain politics and economy, basically. I love 'em. The sellers robbed me on the prices, but the books WERE in very good condition, and they're something that I'd like to have around and be able to re-read later. They're not especially easy to find.

Tuesday, raked Tim's mud. He wants the clay raked free of rocks and sod around his substantial pond. Was an okay job, really. The sprinklers had to run the entire time to keep the clay from getting hard, but it was rather slippery instead. Took some time off to bury their invisible fence using a sidewalk edger to dig a trench and a screwdriver to push the wire in. Yeah, Tim has some goofy ideas about how he wants things done (such as the door-painting incident) that don't turn out well. I don't think he'd appreciate any initiative either though. Best bet is to do it his way and let him deal with the mixed results.

Wednesday, washed windows with some of the youthgroup. Some of the youthgroup equals Alyssa, a girl from church, and my fan club, the ShookAlexanderWatsonAbbot sisters. (Feel sorry for me. Please.) They didn't seem to want to put forth a lot of effort into the cleaning.

Then did some trimming and laundry around and in the house. Garden needs work. Slowly making progress on wood-burning projects. Slowly. I hope after finishing this pond Tim doesn't have any jobs for a few weeks. The money is nice, but I spent all winter finding new hobbies to keep me busy so the summer wouldn't feel wasted like so many previous ones have. I succeeded admirably, and then got a job. Ingenious. Now I have piles of things to do. Being busy is a good feeling too, I suppose, but when everything you get done is for someone else, it doesn't feel nearly as good. I'm sure coming home and seeing your lawn looking nice, but being fifty dollars poorer isn't such a great feeling either. Silly employers. :-D

Travis wants to set an official bike-riding time in the evenings and an official running time in the mornings. He really wants that 8:30/9:00 time slot for biking. That's my 'sit at the computer' time, and he can't have it. I don't do much of that any more either.

Listening to music has been annoying me lately...just not enjoying it much. Preferring quiet. So no song of the day.